Book Of Esther - Time Line & Persian Kings

[Christian Zionist]

Ahasuerus, meaning the Mighty or Venerable king, was a title of certain Persian kings. Some think the  one here was Xerxes, the son of Darius Hystapis, but this could not be , for the events of the book had to take place much earlier than this. It is clear from v2:5-7 that Mordecai was the cousin of Esther. She was his uncle's daughter, and he had brought her up because she had no father or mother.  Mordecai had been taken captive with Jehoiachin a.k.a Coniah/Jeconiah (1 Chronicles 36:8-9; Jeremiah 52:31) , king of Judah, by Nebuchadnezzar.  This was 11 years before the final captivity of Judah and destruction of Jerusalem (2 Kings 24:1-25,30; Jeremiah 25:1).  The servitude to Babylon for 70 years began in the 4th years of Jehoikim (Jeremiah 25:1, 9:11)

If Mordecai was a young man, say 20 years old at the time of his captivity 11 years after the beginning of the 70 years servitude - about 627 B.C.E. - and Xerxes reigned 485-464 B.C.E., this would make Mordechai 162 years old in the first year of Xerxes.  Esther would be an old woman by this time also.

The fact is that Esther was the young and beautiful wife of Darius the Mede, of Daniel chapter 5 and the mother of Cyrus, the commander of the Persian armies which took Babylon at the end of the 70 years of servitude. This Dairus (the father of Cyrus) reigned 35 years, 33 of which were during the later part of the 70 years of servitude of Israel to Babylon. This fits into all the historical facts about Mordecai being carried away captive with Jehoiachin as very young man.  It is possible that he lived throughout the entire captivity.  He could have easily been the Mordecai of Ezra 2:2; Nehemiah 7:7.  Some Jews did live through the 70 years of servitude and returned to see the foundation of the temple laid (Ezra 3:12)

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Daniel 11:2

1. Cyrus reigned 2 years after Astyages or Darius the Mede had taken Babylon in 538 B.C.E. and resigned 9 years.

2. Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, reigned 7 years over Persia, 527-520 B.C.E.

3. Darius-1 reigned 35 years, 520-485 B.C.E.  He was the first king of Persia to invade Greece, but was defeated at the battle of Marathon 490 B.C.E.

4. Xerxes reigned 21 years, 485-464 B.C.E.  He was the Persian king that stirred up all against the realm of Grecia fulfulling Daniel 11:2.  He also was defeated by the Greeks in 480-479 B.C.E.

Kings of Persia After Xerxes:

1. Artaxerxes-1 surnamed "The long-armed" reigned 41 years, 464-424 B.C.E.
2. Xerxes-1 reigned only 1 year 423 B.C.E.
3. Darius-2 reigned 19 years, 423-404 B.C.E.
4. Artaxerxes-2 reigned 46 years, 404-358 B.C.E.
5. Artaxerxes-3 reigned 20 years, 358-338 B.C.E.
6. Darius-3 reigned 8 years 338-330 B.C.E.

Darius-3 is the king that was defeated by Alexander the Great whose empire succeeded the Medo-Persian empire.

[jdl4ever]

The Temple was destroyed in 586 B.C.E.. Religious Jewish Historical dating puts this in 400 something B.C.E. and Purim in 300 something B.C.E.. This is because The Bible combines the names of many Persian kings into one person. This was done because The Jewish Calendar was reset during this period for mystical reasons having to do with The Final Redemption as well as the beginning of the tradition of reading The Blessing of The Sun every 28 years on a Wednesday. I think the sages deleted about 231 years from the calendar. Therefore, in reality it should be should be 5998, not 5767. That is the only to describe Historical inaccuracies in later Biblical chronology.

Queen Esther was the wife of King Xerxes (Achashverosh) and mother of King Artaxerxes. King Cyrus came before that. The traditional 70 years of exile didn't end with Cyrus but rather Artaxerxes. We must remember that the 70 years lasted well over 100 years. I don't think Mordechai was exiled from Jerusalem but rather his father or grandfather.

Yacov, the idea that Chazal deleted years from the calender is NOT ACCEPTED by most (99.9%) people. It is a radical idea made up by one person and never was accepted.  No JEw I know thinks that years were purposely deleted from the calender! The scholars have a different account of events than the secular calender to account for the kings but I am not an expert in this area so you need to look it up.  There is like a 170-200 year gap between the secular and Jewish calenders (not 220).  I am not so certain that the secular calender is correct since it can be off by 170-200 years in ancient events since archeology is not exact.  For many years until the late 1800's the secular idiots didn't believe that Nevuchadnetzer existed until they dug up his palace.  The literal account is that Mordechai was exiled and not his parents. I don't know if the king of the Megilla was Xerxes since the hebrew surname of the king might bear no relationship to the Persion names of the kings.  He could have been a different king.  There are a lot of theories I saw.  Some say that the Darius of the Bible was not the guy currently known as Darius since Darius was a general name for all Persion kings and the same could apply to Achasverosh which no one knows for certain which king he was since the Hebrew name is not listed anywhere in the Persion achealogical digs.

[Christian Zionist]

I don't think Mordechai was exiled from Jerusalem but rather his father or grandfather.

Esther 2:5-7

v.5: Now there was a Jew in Susa the capital whose name was Mor'decai, the son of Ja'ir, son of Shim'e-i, son of Kish, a Benjaminite,

v.6: who had been carried away from Jerusalem among the captives carried away with Jeconi'ah king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnez'zar king of Babylon had carried away.

v:7: He had brought up Hadas'sah, that is Esther, the daughter of his uncle, for she had neither father nor mother; the maiden was beautiful and lovely, and when her father and her mother died, Mor'decai adopted her as his own daughter.

[jdl4ever]

According to most traditional Jewish commentators, from the destruction of the first temple to the destruction of the second one was about 490 years as stated in Daniel 9:21 "seventy weeks have been decreed for your people....".  70 weeks refers to 70 sabbatical cycles of 7 years = 490 years.  According to the traditional commentators, the Babylonian exile was exactly 70 years and the second temple stood for 420 years.  That would place the destruction of the first temple at 421 BC.  The 70 year exile was starting when the second temple was destroyed and not when Nebuchadnezzar started his conquest of Judea (Talmud), so the exile was slightly longer (14 years) than 70 years counting when the Nebuchadnezzar reined.    I have heard that a few  authorities state that the period was far longer than 500 years and the secular calender is what really happened.

HERE IS THE JEWISH OPINIONS of ancient commentators I looked up.  don't take my word for it since every Jewish book you look at has different opinions of who Ahasverosh was and I am no expert so maybee you should ask Chaim this.

I think according to most, the King of the story of Esther , Ahasuerus was the SON OF CYRUS THE PERSION.  The son of Esther was Darius the Persian who gave permission to complete the construction of the temple that was halted in the days of Cyrus.  He was not the earlier Ahasuerrus who was the father of Darius the Mede but the latter one.  So if your chart is correct, I think that would make him Artaxerxes since acc. to the Megilla Ahasverosh rules more than one year so he couldn't be Xerxes-1 or he could be Xerxes-1 if you think the Greek historians made a mistake and mixed him up with Artaxerxes.
 
The Targum argues and states that Ahasuerus was the son of Darius the Mede which would make him Artaxerxes-2 according to the chart you made.  The Ibn Ezra states that he was Artaxerxes menchaned in Ezra 4:7.  Rashi identifies Ataxerxes as Cyrus, Ahasuerus's predecessor so according to Rashi, the King would have been Xerxes-1 and he probably disagrees with the Greek historians that say he only ruled one year.  So there is disagreement.  The Talmud states that  Ahasuerus was a wealthy commoner who rose to power on his own.  He then married Vashti to legitimize his throne.  This is why he demanded Vashti to appear wearing nothing but her royal crown.  According to many commentaries, Vashti was the granddaughter of Nebuchadnezzar, the ruler who destroyed the first temple.

Linguistically, the Hebrew word "Achashverosh" sounds like "Artaxerxes" so it's probably one of these kings in my opinion.  If Achashverosh was Artaxerxes-2  404-358 B.C.E. then the traditional account that the first temple was destroyed in around 421 BC makes historical sense and Mordechai could have easily been a young man at that time when he survived the exile only a few years earlier.  The historical names of the Kings don't mean anything to me. You can see from the fact that Xerxes, Ataxerxes and  Darius are used over and over again for so many kings, that these names are really interchangeable and it is probable that many of these kings were known by all of these names as they probably all denote a Persian title of Kingship.


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1. Cyrus reigned 2 years after Astyages or Darius the Mede had taken Babylon in 538 B.C.E. and resigned 9 years.

2. Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, reigned 7 years over Persia, 527-520 B.C.E.

3. Darius-1 reigned 35 years, 520-485 B.C.E.  He was the first king of Persia to invade Greece, but was defeated at the battle of Marathon 490 B.C.E.

4. Xerxes reigned 21 years, 485-464 B.C.E.  He was the Persian king that stirred up all against the realm of Grecia fulfilling Daniel 11:2.  He also was defeated by the Greeks in 480-479 B.C.E.

Kings of Persia After Xerxes:

1. Artaxerxes-1 surnamed "The long-armed" reigned 41 years, 464-424 B.C.E.
2. Xerxes-1 reigned only 1 year 423 B.C.E.
3. Darius-2 reigned 19 years, 423-404 B.C.E.
4. Artaxerxes-2 reigned 46 years, 404-358 B.C.E.
5. Artaxerxes-3 reigned 20 years, 358-338 B.C.E.
6. Darius-3 reigned 8 years 338-330 B.C.E.

Darius-3 is the king that was defeated by Alexander the Great whose empire succeeded the Medo-Persian empire.

[Christian Zionist]

Thank you very much jdl4ever for your scholarly explanation.

Yes, it is difficult to figure out the chronology of the events by the title of the ancient Kings.  Nobody knows in what context the writers of the Tanak wrote the books.  Even though they were inspired by Ruah HaKodesh, Ruah HaKodesh used their intellect convey the divine message.

[jdl4ever]

I am certain that there was a king named Ahashverosh in the time of the Megilla which was written by Mordecai but we are uncertain of who he was due to the passage of time as he can be one of many Persian kings in a 150 year period.  It all depends on when the destruction of the first temple was, which is disputed.  It can be 586 BC or 421 BC or even somewhere in between.  The Greek historical names and the Persian historical names found in archives may not be the common names of the Kings at the time that they reined.  In my humble opinion, historians may have duplicated the number of Persian kings and erred since many were known by several names.

I MADE CORRECTIONS TO MY PREVIOUS POST AND LOOKED AT THE TALMUD ALSO

[jdl4ever]

According to the Artscroll commentary on the talmud and being based on the Talmud, Tanach, Seder Olam and Rashi, this is what happened:  This Seder Olam view differs a lot from the secular calender.

CHRONOLOGY (correct me if my math is wrong converting Jewish to secular dates):
__________________________________________________________
Nebuchadnezzar-    3319-3363 or 442-398  B.C.E. Destroyed Jerusalem
Evil Merodach-       3363-3386 or 398-375 B.C.E.  Freed King Yechonyah
Belshazar-             3386-3389 or 375-372 B.C.E.  Last Babylonian King
Darius the Mede-    3389-3390 or 372-373 B.C.E.  Defeated Belshazar- First Persion King
Cyrus-                  3390-3393 or 373-371 B.C.E.  Authorized Return of Exiles and Rebuilding of Temple
Ahasuerus:            3393-3407 or 371-354 BC  Husband of Esther
Darius the Persion:  3407-3442 or 354-329 B.C.E.  Esther's son; authorized temple's reconstruction

This is the traditional view.  Many Jews of the modern day accept the secular view of events that the Temple was destroyed in 586 B.C.E. and the line of Kings is in line with the secular historical record. 
 

[jdl4ever]

All my information on this is from Moshe Lerman, who used to post on Kahane.org. I told him to come on JTF but he prefers to post on Revava, even though he is not like the Revava people. He is a Scientist and writes brilliant Torah articles.

If you go strictly by The Seder Olam, you are ignoring over a hundred years of The Persian Empire which is reduced to about 50 years.

Also, this solves the problem of the dating of The Book of Judges. There is supposed to be about 400 years from Joshua to King David. The Seder Olam places King David in the 800's B.C.E. even though he reigned from 1010-970 B.C.E.. King Solomon then reigned to 930 B.C.E.. This problem is solved by dating The Exodus in the 1400's B.C.E. and not 1313 of The Seder Olam and not 1280 B.C.E. of Secular Historians. This also proves The Exodus in Egyptian archaeological records, despite the claim by "higher critics" that there is no archaeological recored of The Ten Plagues.

This view has many problems as well; more so than the traditional view.  It contradicts the Talumd. It makes no sense that years can be simply deleted.  It makes it impossible for Mordechai to be a captive from Judea since he would be almost 200 years old.  It also makes it impossible that there were survivors from the first temple who witnessed the completion of the second temple as stated explicitly in the Tanach.  It also messes up the 490 year prophesy in Daniel and the 70 year prophesy stated by an earlier prophet (I think Yechezkal).

[jdl4ever]

I do not like Lerm's post.  It sounds like the Roswell conspiracy that crazy UFO people have that they believe that an alien spacecraft landed in the 1940's.  Only a crazy person would think that the Jews did not know what year they were living in and that the year could have been changed by one member of the Great Assembly.  Laws were only past by the agreement of most of the Great Assembly to begin with and no one would dare change the date.  You know how picky us Jews are about changing things.  That would have resulted in a revolution if anything like that was proposed and the proponents would have been hanged for being heretics! 

According to the rule of Occum's razor, there is absolutely no need to assume that the Jewish calender was changed.  The jewish calender is correct.  The only thing in question is which date on the Jewish calender was the first temple destroyed since everything hinges on that.  Either you think that the Talmud and the ancient commentaries made a mistake and the first temple was really destroyed in 586 B.C.E. which many Jews think since it is possible that events in ancient history may have not been known with absolute certainty especially in the hardships of exile so a 167 year gap is not so bad. Or you accept the view of Seder Olam and the Talmud that the first temple was destroyed in 421 B.C.E. and believe that the Sages were very careful with dates as they always were since dates have historical significance.

[jdl4ever]

Yacov, the six days of creation can not be compared to jewish history because a million jews were living at any given time and you can't say that a million jews simply forgot the calender year and some Rabbi made up a new calender.  Being a rationalist, this makes no sense at all and is a crazy idea so I don't see what logic you see in this idea.  None of the Rabbis ever considered this a possablity, not even the modern day ones. Creation was only witnessed by G-d and given to us in the bible in cryptic form so it is up to the Rabbis to interpit it and find its true meaning.   

 I think that David ruled in the 800's.

Yacov, Jews believe that the books of the Prophets were divinely inspired (the writers had Ruach Hakodesh) and therefore, there dates and historical references must be correct.  Yes, they could be round numbers and probably are but they can't be wrong. 

[MassuhDGoodName]

Re:  "...It sounds like the Roswell conspiracy that crazy UFO people have that they believe that an alien spacecraft landed in the 1940's..."

What's crazy about the possibility that beings from elsewhere in the universe might have crashed here?

Not too long ago, every living human being ridiculed the thought that the Wright Brothers might achieve flight using machines.

Sixty years ago, the entire world ridiculed the thought that a short colonel in Germany with a funny moustache who ranted and raved about "the Jew" would take power in Germany and threaten the entire globe.

The question is not "Is there intelligent life elsewhere in the universe?"...the real question is "Is there intelligent life on Earth?"

[jdl4ever]

That still doesn't explain how King David could be King starting in 1010 B.C.E.. The Temple was built in The 900's B.C.E.. Archeological dating proves all of that. How does that fit in with The Seder Olam? The Seder Olam is good for telling the events of The Torah. I want an English copy so I can put together the History of The Jews in The Torah. But it is not a Historical source for later Biblical times. It says Hanukkah was in 139 B.C.E.. Hanukkah was really in 165 B.C.E.. It also says Alexander The Great conquered Judea later than he really did. That is because it minimizes Persian History and extends it past the time Persia was destroyed. I think it also dates The Destruction of The Second Temple 2 years earlier than it really was.

What proof do you speak of?  As far as I know, Archeological history is very inexact and only provides a rough estimate of dates.  It could easily be off by a few hundred years.  There is a one year miscalculation people make when comparing the secular calender to the Jewish calender since there is really no year zero in the secular calender so you have to add an extra year to certain dates as I added an extra year to my BCE dates.  I think that is the one year gap between the second temple destruction not a two year gap.  I do think that the account of Seder Olam is not written in stone and it could be off on several dates.  I do think that Rashi argues with it sometimes.  It wouldn't surprise me if it was off by a few years on Alexander the Great.  Like I said before, whether the first temple was destroyed in 421 B.C.E. or 586 B.C.E. is heavily debated today among Rabbis and I do not know the answer.  I prefer to use the Rabbinical view until proven otherwise. 

Addendum:  Chaim said the first temple was destroyed in 422 BC which is almost identical to my calculation of 421 BC.  How did he get an extra year?

[MassuhDGoodName]

Gentlemen,

I can only help to solve the chronological mysteries surrounding written and oral Jewish history by asking this question:

On the famous "day the Sun stood still"; enabling the Israelites to defeat their enemies in battle, how many hours of daylight, and how many hours of night, made up that one particular day?

[Christian Zionist]

Gentlemen,

I can only help to solve the chronological mysteries surrounding written and oral Jewish history by asking this question:

On the famous "day the Sun stood still"; enabling the Israelites to defeat their enemies in battle, how many hours of daylight, and how many hours of night, made up that one particular day?

Also God sent King Ahaz's  sun dial clock backwards to give a sign to King Hezekiah when he was miraculously healed. (II Kings 20: 8-11)

Yacov, I need to do more research related to the Chronology of the Bible to answer your questions.  I will get back to you ASAP.