יְהוּדִי

From the study of Zechariah 8:23

Range of meaning

Originally 'Judahite' or 'Judean', a person belonging to the tribe or kingdom of Judah (2 Kgs 16:6; Jer 32:12). After the exile, under Persian rule, the word names members of the people centred on the province of Yehud and its temple, including those living abroad (Esther, Nehemiah; the Aramaic papyri from the Judean colony at Elephantine in Egypt). It is at once ethnic, geographic and religious: belonging to a people defined by descent, land and the worship of YHWH.

Against the English

'Jew' is a correct translation, but modern readers may hear a later, mainly religious category shaped by rabbinic Judaism, or a purely ethnic one. 'Judean' keeps the sense of belonging to a particular people and place.

How it drifted

The English word 'Jew' comes from Yehudi through Greek Ioudaios and Latin Iudaeus. It is not wrong. But centuries of later history (rabbinic Judaism, the Jewish–Christian divide, modern nationhood) give it associations that did not exist in 518 BC.

Used elsewhere in the period

Esther 2:5 uses the identical phrase 'ish yehudi' for Mordecai. Nehemiah uses 'the Jews' for the returned community. Jer 34:9 uses yehudi for a fellow member of the covenant people.

From the study of Esther 8:7

Range of meaning

Originally 'Judahite', a member of the tribe or kingdom of Judah. By the Persian period it was the general name for the people of Israel's heritage scattered across the empire: 'Jew'.

Against the English

'Jew' is accurate. The only point to note is that Mordecai was from the tribe of Benjamin (2:5), so in Esther the word already names a people, not one tribe.

Used elsewhere in the period

Esther uses the word more often than any other biblical book. The Elephantine papyri (5th century BC Egypt) use the Aramaic equivalent for the Jewish garrison community under Persian rule.

From the study of Esther 8:17

Range of meaning

Originally 'Judean', a member of the tribe or kingdom of Judah. After the exile it widened to mean anyone belonging to the community descended from Judah, wherever they lived, an identity that was ethnic, ancestral and religious at once.

Against the English

'Jew' is the natural rendering and is not wrong. Modern readers, however, may sharply separate 'Jewish' as a religion from 'Jewish' as an ethnicity, and the ancient word did not make that split.

How it drifted

Later categories, 'religion' as a belief system on one side and 'race' or 'nationality' on the other, are partly modern.

Used elsewhere in the period

Mordecai is called 'a yehudi' even though he is from the tribe of Benjamin (Esth 2:5), so by this period the term covers all exiles from the former kingdom of Judah. The word is used over fifty times in Esther, far more than in any other book. Compare Jer 34:9; Neh 1:2; the Elephantine papyri (5th century BC), where the Jewish garrison in Egypt calls itself 'the Judeans'.