The Descendants of Madai

​According to the Book of Jubilees (10:35-36), Madai had married a daughter of Shem and preferred living among the descendants of Shem, rather than settling in the inheritance allotted to Japheth beyond the Black Sea; so he pleaded with Elam, Asshur, and Arphaxad, until he was finally granted by them the land that bears his name, Media.

Madai is the Hebrew name of the Medes, his descendants were a nation of Aryan origin, who lived in the western and northwestern part of present-day Iran, south and west of the Caspian Sea, and were the ancestors of modern Iranians. By the 6th century BC, the Medes were able to establish an empire that stretched from Aran (the modern Republic of Azerbaijan) to Central Asia and Afghanistan. Note that the term Aryan was originally used to describe the root "arya" which was the ethnonym adopted by the Indo-Iranians to describe them. By the 18th century those who spoke Indo-European languages and their descendants constituted a distinctive race or sub-race of the Caucasian race. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the word Aryan was adopted to refer not only to Indo-Iranian peoples, but to all Indo-European speakers, including Romans, Greeks, and Germanic peoples. 

The Medes fought with Babylon against Assyria, then with the Persians against Babylon. It was King Darius the Mede who had Daniel thrown into the lion's den, when he signed a document which, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, could not be amended.

• Daniel 6:8-9 "Therefore, O king, establish the decree and sign the document so that it cannot be changed—in accordance with the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be repealed."

The Bible does not mention the names of his sons.