Alpha to the Omega: X is for…Xerxes
By Samuel Chong
X is for… Xerxes
“When [Xerxes] saw Queen Esther standing in the court, he was pleased with her and held out to her the gold scepter that was in his hand.” (Esther 5:2a)
Who was Xerxes?
Xerxes I (c.518 – 465 BC) was a Persian king of the Achaemenid (Persian) Empire best known for his invasion of Greece in 480 BC, which ended in Persian defeat. Xerxes I is also commonly identified as the Persian king in the Book of Esther.
X marks the spot
Xerxes was born to Darius the Great, the second Achaemenid king. He was also a grandson of Cyrus the Great (Ezra 1:1), the founder of the Achaemenid Empire, through his mother. The name “Xerxes” is a Greek and Latin transliteration of an Old Iranian name meaning “ruling over heroes”.
Xerxes was brought up as a typical Persian prince, which included military service. When Darius prepared to crush a revolt in Egypt, he was required by Persian law to choose a successor before embarking on dangerous expeditions, and appointed Xerxes as heir. Darius died on that expedition and Xerxes ascended the throne in 486 BC at the age of 32.
Xerxes’ early years as king were marked by major revolts in Egypt and Babylon, which were successfully suppressed.
Invasion of Greece
The Persians under Darius had first attempted an invasion of Greece in 492 BC in order to punish the Greeks for supporting a revolt by Greeks in Asia Minor (i.e. Turkey), which was then under Persian rule. That invasion ended in defeat at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC (from which the marathon race got its name).
A decade later in 480 BC, Xerxes attempted to finish what his father started, mustering a huge army and navy. After charging through much of northern Greece, the Persian advance was blocked at Thermopylae by a small Greek force led by the Spartan King Leonidas I. The Greeks held back the Persians for three days before perishing while making their last stand. Leonidas and his Spartans have been immortalised ever since, e.g. in movies like 300 (2006).
The Persians continued their advance southwards, capturing and burning Athens in the process. Despite being outnumbered, the Greeks achieved a crucial naval victory at the Straits of Salamis which destroyed the Persian fleet. Robbed of a quick victory and fearing being trapped in Europe, Xerxes retreated to Asia Minor (i.e. modern day Turkey), leaving his generals to continue the fighting. The Greeks eventually defeated the Persians and expelled them from Europe by 479 BC.
Death and succession
After his military defeat in Greece, Xerxes returned to Persia and oversaw the completion of many huge construction projects that Darius initiated; some of their ruins still stand today in Iran.
In August 465 BC, Xerxes was assassinated by Artabanus, commander of the royal bodyguard and the most powerful official in the Persian court. Xerxes’ third son Artaxerxes ascended the throne, and after discovering Artabanus’s treachery, had him and his sons executed.
Xerxes in the Bible?
The Persian king mentioned in the Book of Esther is named Ahasuerus in the original Hebrew. Ahasuerus is commonly identified by Bible scholars with Xerxes I since the name was derived from Persian (Xšayāršā) into Babylonian (Aḥšiyaršu), into Hebrew (Ăḥašwêrôš), and into Latin (Ahasuerus) – the form traditionally used in English Bibles. However, the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament) and Vulgate (Latin translation of the Bible) identify Ahasuerus as Artaxerxes; the Jewish-Roman historian Josephus relates that Artaxerxes was the name by which he was known to the Greeks.
Ahasuerus is also mentioned in the Books of Ezra (4:6) and Daniel (9:1), the latter one being the father of Darius the Mede.
Ultimately, since Ahasuerus is a transliteration of either Xerxes or Artaxerxes, which were both names of multiple Persian kings, it is difficult to identify which king he corresponds to.
Conclusion
Whether or not Xerxes I was the Ahasuerus in the Book of Esther, we know that he continued the policies initiated by Cyrus by allowing the Jews to live and worship in Judea. While he was a powerful ruler, he ultimately failed to conquer Greece, and the Greeks under Alexander the Great would later conquer Persia just over a century later in 330 BC, just as Daniel prophesied in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of a statue – the belly and thighs of bronze (Daniel 2:1-39) and in his vision of a ram and a goat – the shaggy goat (Daniel 8:1-22).
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