AHASUERUS

(A·has·u·eʹrus) [the chief of rulers].

The name or title applied in the Hebrew Scriptures to three different rulers.

1. The father of Darius the Mede mentioned at Daniel 9:1. Some, on the basis of Greek historian Xenophon’s writings, would identify him with Astyages, the last king of the Median Empire. This identification, however, finds no other support. The Bible record does not state whether Darius’ father was a king or of the royal line. According to Herodotus and Ctesias (of the fifth century C.E.), Astyages died leaving no male heir. Hence, it is not presently possible to make any conclusive identification of Ahasuerus, the father of Darius the Mede, with any person in secular history.

2. The Ahasuerus of Ezra 4:6 in the beginning of whose reign an accusation was written against the Jews by their enemies may have been Cambyses, the successor of Cyrus the conqueror of Babylon and liberator of the Jews. Cambyses reigned from 529 to 522 B.C.E.

3. The Ahasuerus of the book of Esther is believed to be Xerxes I, the son of the Persian Darius Hystaspes by his wife Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus. The city of Shushan was his capital during major portions of his rule. His reign covered the years 486-474 B.C.E., according to the most reliable historians for that period, including Thucydides.—See ARTAXERXES No. 3; CHRONOLOGY.

In the account of Esther, Ahasuerus (Xerxes I) is shown as ruling over 127 jurisdictional districts, from India to Ethiopia. (Esther 1:1, 2) In the third year of his reign, at a sumptuous banquet, he ordered lovely Queen Vashti to present herself and display her beauty to the people and princes. Her refusal caused his anger to flare up and he thereafter dismissed her as his wife. (Esther 1:3, 10-12, 19-21) Later, he selected Esther, a Jewess, as his choice out of the many virgins brought in as prospects to replace Vashti. (Esther 2:1-4, 16, 17) The fact that Ahasuerus’ selection of Esther as queen did not take place until the seventh year of his reign (four years later) is doubtless due to his absence while prosecuting war against the Greeks. In 490 B.C.E. Xerxes’ father, Darius Hystaspes, had suffered a defeat at Marathon and Xerxes now sought revenge. He marshaled a huge army from the entire empire and moved against Greece in the spring of 480 B.C.E. Following a costly victory at Thermopylae and the destruction of Athens, his forces met defeat at Salamis and later at Plataea, causing Xerxes to return to Persia. Apparently it was at this point that he now turned his attention to selecting a successor to Vashti. In the twelfth year of his reign he allowed his prime minister Haman to use the king’s signet ring to sign a decree that would result in a genocidal destruction of the Jews. This scheme was thwarted by Esther and her cousin Mordecai, Haman was hanged, and a new decree was issued allowing the Jews the right to fight their attackers.—Esther 3:1-8, 11; 8:3-14; 9:5-10.

Xerxes I also appears to be the “fourth [king]” mentioned at Daniel 11:2, the three preceding ones being Cyrus the Great, Cambyses, and Darius Hystaspes. While seven other kings followed Xerxes on the throne of the Persian Empire, Xerxes was the last Persian emperor to carry war into Greece, whose rise as the dominant world power is described in the verse immediately following.—Dan. 11:3.

Xerxes was eventually murdered by a courtier and was succeeded to the throne by Artaxerxes Longimanus.—See ESTHER, BOOK OF.