Rabbi Chaim Chizkiyahu Medini, known as the Sdei Chemed after his work, was born in Jerusalem on 7 Cheshvan 5593 (1832), the son of Rabbi Eliyahu Refael Medini, of an old family of the city. He studied under the Chacham Bashi Rabbi Yitzchak Kovo and Rabbi Yosef Nissim Burla. The name Chaim, "life", was added during a serious illness; his initials thus spell the word "Chacham", sage.

When his father died suddenly, the support of his mother, siblings and wife fell to him; he went to Constantinople to wealthy relatives, who did not help as he had hoped. In 1867 he was called to be chief rabbi of Karasubazar in Crimea, for the Krymchak community and the local Ashkenazi community, where he stayed more than thirty years; even the region's Christians and Muslims revered him. There he began his encyclopaedic work. In 1868 he lost his only son, in whose memory he wrote Or Li.

His monumental work, Sdei Chemed, is an alphabetically arranged halachic encyclopaedia that gathers the principles of halacha and the opinions of countless authors of every era. Today's great halachic authorities cannot do without it.

At the end of his life he returned to the Land of Israel and became chief rabbi of Hebron. He passed away there on 24 Kislev 5665 (1904) and rests there.