Just then, Haman appears, to ask the King to hang Mordechai, but before he can make this request, King Ahasuerus asks Haman what should be done for the man that the king wishes to honor.

Just then, Haman appears, and King Ahasuerus asks him what should be done for the man that the King wishes to honor.

Those arguing in favour of an historical reading of Esther, most commonly identify Ahasuerus with Artaxerxes II ( ruled 405 – 359 BCE ) although in the past it was often assumed that he was Xerxes I ( ruled 486 – 465 BCE ).

Instead, the Hebrew name Ahasuerus accords with an inscription of the time that notes that Artaxerxes II was named also Arshu, understood as a shortening of Achshiyarshu the Babylonian rendering of the Persian Khshayarsha ( Xerxes ), through which the Hebrew Achashverosh ( Ahasuerus ) is derived.

Jewish tradition relates that Esther was the mother of a King Darius and so some try to identify Ahasuerus with Artaxerxes I and Esther with Kosmartydene.

The view that it was Mordecai would be consistent with the identification of Ahasuerus with Cyaxares.

According to the Bible, she was a Jewish queen of the Persian king Ahasuerus.

This was part of the basis for Esther's relationship with Ahasuerus.

The throne then passed to the Persians, who their king Darius was the first to sit successfully on Solomon's throne since his death, and after that the throne passed into the possession of the Greeks and Ahasuerus.

Other works dealing with the Persian Empire or the Biblical story of Esther have also referenced Xerxes, such as the video game Assassin's Creed II and the film One Night with the King, in which Ahasuerus ( Xerxes ) was portrayed by British actor Luke Goss.

When " young virgins " were sought, she was brought into the presence of King Ahasuerus and was made queen in the place of the exiled queen Vashti.

At least from the 17th century the name Ahasver has been given to the Wandering Jew, apparently adapted from Ahasuerus, the Persian king in the Book of Esther, who was not a Jew, and whose very name among medieval Jews was an exemplum of a fool.

Hans Christian Andersen made his " Ahasuerus " the Angel of Doubt, and was imitated by Heller in a poem on " The Wandering of Ahasuerus ", which he afterward developed into three cantos.

In this context some have suggested that Wagner's advice for Jews to ' go under ' ' like Ahasuerus ' was intended as a call for their extermination, as planned by the Nazi regime, but there is no justification for this.

In fact the ' Ahasuerus ' Wagner may have had in mind was a character from a play ( ' Halle und Jerusalem ' ) by Achim von Arnim, a ' good ' Jew who voluntarily sacrifices himself saving other characters from a fire.

The ISFDB was originally edited by a limited number of people, principally Al von Ruff and " Ahasuerus ".

Abagtha ( אבגתא ) was a court official ( likely a eunuch ) of King Ahasuerus.

According to Ezra 4: 1-6 " the enemies of Judah and Benjamin " asked to help build the temple, and when this was denied hired counselors to frustrate the people of Judah from completing the rebuilding throughout the reign of Cyrus, Xerxes (' Ahasuerus '), and Artaxerxes, until the reign of Darius.

Amestris remained in power well into the reign of her son Artaxerxes I and moreover the identification of Ahasuerus with Xerxes was rejected by later scholars.

According to the Midrashic account, Vashti was a savvy politician, and the ladies ' banquet that she held in parallel to Ahasuerus ' banquet represented an astute political maneuver.

Haman ( Also known as Haman the Agagite המן האגגי, or Haman the evil המן הרשע ) is the main antagonist in the Book of Esther, who, according to Old Testament tradition, was a 5th Century BC noble and vizier of the Persian empire under King Ahasuerus, traditionally identified as Artaxerxes II.

The vision in first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus ( 9: 1 ) concerning seventy weeks, or seventy " sevens ", apportioned for the history of the Israelites and of Jerusalem ( 9: 24 ) This consists of a meditation on the prediction in Jeremiah that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years, a lengthy prayer by Daniel in which he pleads for God to restore Jerusalem and its temple, and an angelic explanation which focuses on a longer time period-" seventy sevens "-and a future restoration and destruction of city and temple by a coming ruler.

Ahasuerus, ruler of a massive Persian empire, holds a lavish party, initially for his court and dignitaries and afterwards for all inhabitants of the capital city Shushan.

She orders Mordechai to have all Jews fast for three days together with her, and on the third day she goes to Ahasuerus, who stretches out his sceptre to her which shows that she is not to be punished.

Ahasuerus is told that Mordechai has not received any recognition for saving the king's life.

Overcome by rage, Ahasuerus leaves the room ; meanwhile Haman stays behind and begs Esther for his life, falling upon her in desperation.

Bar-Hebraeus identified Ahasuerus explicitly as Artaxerxes II ; however, the names are not necessarily equivalent: Hebrew has a form of the name Artaxerxes distinct from Ahasuerus, and a direct Greek rendering of Ahasuerus is used by both Josephus and the Septuagint for occurrences of the name outside the Book of Esther.

Esther Rabba and the Vulgate present " Ahasuerus " as a different name for the king to " Artaxerxes " rather than an equivalent in different languages, and the Septuagint distinguished between the two names using a Greek transliteration of Ahasuerus for occurrences outside the Book of Esther.

Hudson's protagonist Abel, references Ahasuerus, as an archetype of someone, like himself, who prays for redemption and peace ; while condemned to walk the earth.

Queen Esther declared a three-day fast for all the Jews prior to risking her life in visiting King Ahasuerus uninvited ( Esther ).

The Book of Esther begins with a six-month ( 180 day ) drinking feast given by King Ahasuerus, for the army of Persia and Media, for the civil servants and princes in the 127 provinces of his kingdom, at the conclusion of which a seven-day drinking feast for the inhabitants of Shushan ( Susa ), rich and poor, with a separate drinking feast for the women organised by the Queen Vashti in the pavilion of the Royal courtyard.

In 1992 a 30-minute, fully animated video, twelfth in Hanna-Barbera's The Greatest Adventure series, titled Queen Esther features the voices of Helen Slater as Queen Esther, Dean Jones as King Ahasuerus, Werner Klemperer as Haman, and Ron Rifkin as Mordecai.

If this refers to Mordecai, he would have had to live over a century to have witnessed the events described in the Book of Esther ( assuming the biblical Ahasuerus is indeed Xerxes I ).

According to the Book of Esther, in the Hebrew Bible, Haman, royal vizier to King Ahasuerus ( presumed to be Xerxes I of Persia ), planned to kill all the Jews in the empire, but his plans were foiled by Mordecai and his adopted daughter Queen Esther.

Shortly afterwards, Mordecai discovers a plot by two courtiers Bigthan and Teresh to kill Ahasuerus.

That night, Ahasuerus suffers from insomnia, and when the court's daily records are read to him to help him fall asleep, he learns of the services rendered by Mordecai in the earlier plot against his life.

Ahasuerus instead orders Haman hanged on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai.

Mordecai assumes the position of second in rank to Ahasuerus, and institutes an annual commemoration of the delivery of the Jewish people from annihilation.

Haman attempts to convince Ahasuerus to order the killing of Mordecai and all the Jews of the lands he ruled.

The biblical Book of Esther is set in the third year of Ahasuerus, a king of Persia.

The name Ahasuerus is equivalent to Xerxes, both deriving from the Persian Khshayārsha, thus Ahasuerus is usually identified as Xerxes I ( 486-465 BCE ), though Ahasuerus is identified as Artaxerxes in the later Greek version of Esther ( as well as by Josephus, the Jewish commentary Esther Rabbah, the Ethiopic translation and the Christian theologian Bar-Hebraeus who identified him more precisely as Artaxerxes II ).

Immediately after, Ahasuerus and Haman attend Esther's second banquet, at which she reveals that she is Jewish and that Haman is planning to exterminate her people, including her.

* The Greek Book of Esther, included in the Septuagint, is a retelling of the events of the Hebrew Book of Esther rather than a translation and records additional traditions, in particular the identification of Ahasuerus with Artaxerxes and details of various letters.

The Hebrew Ahasuerus is most likely derived from Persian Khshayarsha, the origin of the Greek Xerxes.

Based on the view that the Ahasuerus of the Book of Tobit is identical with that of the Book of Esther, some have also identified him as Nebuchadnezzar's ally Cyaxares ( ruled 625 – 585 BCE ).

Ahasuerus is traditionally identified with Xerxes I during the time of the Achaemenid empire.

Jonah is mentioned twice in Chapter 14 of the apocryphal Book of Tobit, the conclusion of which finds Tobit's son, Tobias, at the extreme age of one hundred and twenty seven years, rejoicing at the news of Nineveh's destruction by Nebuchadnezzar and Ahasuerus in apparent fulfillment of Jonah's prophecy against the Assyrian capital.

Between Cyrus and Darius, an exchange of letters with King Ahasuerus and Artaxerxes is described ( chapter 4, verse 7 ), the grandson of Darius I, in whose reign Ezra and Nehemiah came to Jerusalem.