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 ).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Ahasuerus is given as the name of the King of Persia in the Book of Esther.

Ahasuerus is also given as the name of a King of Persia in the Book of Ezra.

In some versions of the apocryphal or deuterocanonical Book of Tobit, Ahasuerus is given as the name of an associate of Nebuchadnezzar, who together with him, destroyed Nineveh just before Tobit's death.

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.

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.

The Septuagint version of Esther translates the name Ahasuerus as Artaxerxes, a Greek name derived from the Persian Artakhshatra.

Ahasuerus (; Old Persian: Xšayārša ; ; in the Septuagint ; or in the Vulgate ; commonly transliterated Achashverosh ) is a name used several times in the Hebrew Bible, as well as related legends and Apocrypha.

The name Ahasuerus is equivalent to the Greek name Xerxes, both deriving from the Old Persian language Xšayārša.

The English name Ahasuerus is derived from a Latinized form of the Hebrew Akhashverosh ( אחשורוש ), which is a Hebrew rendering of the Babylonian Achshiyarshu: both this and the Greek Ξέρξης are renderings of the Old Persian Xšayāršā.

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.

A traditional Catholic view is that he is identical to the Ahasuerus of Daniel 9: 1 In the Codex Sinaiticus Greek ( LXX ) edition, the two names in this verse appear instead as one name, Ahikar ( also the name of another character in the story of Tobit ).

He is alternatively identified, together with the Ahasuerus of the Book of Tobit, as Cyaxares I, said to be the father of Astyages.

One view is that the description of Ahasuerus as the " father " of Darius the Mede should be understood in the broader sense of " forebear " or " ancestor.

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.

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 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.

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.

But Darius took pity on her and gave her to his son, Ahasuerus, to marry.

According to the Book of Esther, in the Tanakh, Haman was an Agagite noble and vizier of the empire under Persian King Ahasuerus, generally identified as Xerxes the Great ( son of Darius the Great ) in 6th century BCE.

According to Josippon, the Ahasuerus in the book of Esther was the son of Darius the Mede.

The Midrash Tanchuma describes the fall of Babylon as described in Daniel and adds to the narrative Darius taking Vashti, the daughter of Belshazzar, as a wife for his son Ahasuerus.

In the Book of Esther, servants of the harem of Ahasuerus such as Hegai and Shashgaz as well as other servants such as Hatach, Harbonah, Bigthan, and Teresh are referred to as sarisim.

Jewish tradition regards him as the same Ahasuerus of the Book of Esther ; the Ethiopic text calls him Arťeksis, as it does the above figure in Esther.

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.

He follows the Hebrew Book of Esther but shows awareness of some of the additional material found in the Greek version in that he too identifies Ahasuerus as Artaxerxes and provides the text of the king's letter.

According to local Jewish traditions, the City of Hamedan is mentioned in the Bible, as the capital of Ancient Persia in the days of King Ahasuerus in the Book of Esther.

Queen Vashti ( Hebrew: ושתי, Persian: و َ شتی, Koine Greek: Αστιν, Astin ) is the first wife of King Ahasuerus in the Book of Esther, a book included in the Tanakh ( Hebrew Bible ) and read on the Jewish holiday of Purim.