Province and Satrapy

A province was a territory an empire ruled directly, through a governor appointed by the king, instead of leaving it to a king of its own. When a vassal rebelled once too often, the great powers often removed its king and made its land a province. Assyria did this to the northern kingdom of Israel, which became the province of Samaria after 722 BC (2 Kings 17:24). Babylon did it to Judah after 586 BC, appointing Gedaliah as governor (2 Kings 25:22).

Persia divided its empire into large provinces called satrapies, each under a satrap, a title meaning "protector of the realm." The system was put in order under Darius I and built on Assyrian and Babylonian practice. The lands west of the Euphrates were called "Beyond the River" (Ezra 4:10-11; 5:3); at first they were joined to Babylon in a single satrapy, and later they became a satrapy of their own. Within them, Judah was a small province, Yehud, with its own governor, as Nehemiah was (Nehemiah 5:14).

A satrap kept order, judged cases, collected taxes and raised troops, but he ruled on the king's authority, not his own. Unlike a vassal king (see Suzerainty), a province could not say no. Some local kings remained under Persia as vassals within a satrapy, such as the kings of Sidon and Tyre.

On the map, provinces are drawn as their own shapes within the empire's lands. See how the map's regions are drawn.