place · also Persian
Persia
פָּרַס
- verses
- 33
- first named
- 2 Chronicles 36:20
- last named
- Daniel 11:2
- feature
- region
Description
Persia in the text
Persia, also known as the Achaemenid Empire, was a major world power that ruled over a vast territory from the 6th to the 4th centuries BC. In the Bible, Persia is mentioned in the context of the Jewish exile and the subsequent return to Jerusalem. The Babylonian Empire, which had destroyed Jerusalem and taken the Jews into captivity, fell to the Persians under Cyrus the Great (2Chr. 36:20, 22-23; Ezra 1:1-2). Cyrus issued a decree allowing the exiled Jews to return to their homeland and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem (Ezra 1:1-4). The Persian kings Darius I and Artaxerxes I also played significant roles in supporting the rebuilding efforts (Ezra 4:24; 6:14).
The book of Esther is set in the Persian capital of Susa during the reign of Ahasuerus (Xerxes I), and it describes how Esther, a Jewish woman, became queen and saved her people from a plot to destroy them (Esther 1:3, 14, 18; 10:2). The prophets Ezekiel and Daniel also mention Persia in their visions and prophecies (Ezek. 27:10; 38:5; Dan. 8:20; 10:1, 13, 20; 11:2). Persia is portrayed as a powerful empire that God used to fulfill His purposes for His people, even though the Persians themselves were not followers of the God of Israel.
Relations
Direct connections
Every entity the graph places in a stated relation with this one, grouped by the kind of link. Each relation is authored once and its inverse derived, so both ends always agree. Rows marked “registry” come from the identity spine rather than from a verse, and a row marked “which bearer is the source’s decision” is one where the name could have meant more than one person. The last group is not a relation at all — it counts the events two entities stand in together.
Stands in the same events as
- Division1 event
- Shield1 event
- Cush1 event
- Media1 event
- Libya1 event
- Many Nations1 event
- Gomer1 event
- Beth-togarmah1 event
The pattern
Where Persia is named
Every book of the corpus in the order it is read, each as wide as the chapters it holds. A bar is the verses of that book which write the name, and the flat stretches are as much of the answer as the bars.
33 verses across 6 of 66 books; 60 write the name nowhere. Named in 2 Chronicles (3), Ezra (12), Nehemiah (1), Esther (5), Ezekiel (2) and Daniel (10).
Read it
Where to read it
Every verse of the text carried here that names this entity — 33, across 6 books. The name is written 37 times in them.
Onward
Where this page goes
Nothing in the graph stands one hop from this entity yet. These are the best-connected entities of the same type, so the page still ends somewhere. Descriptions by STEPBible TIPNR.
Where they appear
What happened here
Atlas's reading of each chapter this place appears in, in canonical order. One line per chapter, and each leads to the whole of it.
- Ezra 1Persia is the kingdom throughout which Cyrus sends his proclamation.
- Ezra 7Persia was ruled by Artaxerxes while Ezra came up to Jerusalem.
- Ezekiel 38Persia accompanies Gog’s army with shields and helmets.
- Daniel 5Persia was named alongside Media as the recipient of the divided kingdom.
- Daniel 8Persia was represented, with Media, by the two-horned ram.
- Daniel 10Persia was the kingdom whose prince opposed the messenger and whose kings remained involved in the struggle.
- Daniel 11In Persia, three kings arose, followed by a richer fourth who stirred everyone against Greece.
Sources