JUDAEA, OR JUDEA, PROVINCE OF

JUDAE'A, OR JUDE'A, PROVINCE OF, a name applied to that part of Canaan occupied by those who returned after the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities. The word first occurs Dan 5:13 (A.V. "Jewry"), and the first mention of the "province of Judaea" is in Ezr 5:8; it is alluded to in Neh 11:3 (A.V. "Judah"); in the Apocrypha the word "province" is dropped, and throughout it and in the N.T. the expressions are the "land of Judaea" and "Judaea." In a wider and more improper sense "Judaea" was sometimes applied to the whole country of the Canaanites, its ancient inhabitants, and even in the Gospels we read of the coasts of Judaea "beyond Jordan." Matt 19:1; Mark 10:1. Judaea was strictly the third district, west of the Jordan, and south of Samaria. It was made a portion of the Roman province of Syria after Archelaus was deposed, A.D. 6, and was governed by a procurator, who was subject to the governor of Syria. See Canaan, Palestine, and Judah.