Sunday, April 24, 2016

“King Ahasuerus” of Book of Esther



http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4IV-zZq_7RE/TxvzJU6Q5MI/AAAAAAAABTQ/ZnITBDSZlNw/s1600/esther-12.jpg


 


by
 


Damien F. Mackey


 


 
 


So far we have concluded, following Jewish legend, that the conspiratorial Haman of the Book of Esther was himself a Jew, and that he was the captive king, Jehoiachin (Coniah).


Jehoiachin’s late exaltation by King Evil-Merodach, son-successor of Nebuchednezzar II, was only the prelude to his attaining the very high status that was afforded him, as Haman, by “King Ahasuerus” of Esther, who must therefore have closely followed Evil-Merodach.   


 


 


 


Who Was “King Ahasuerus”?


 


At the commencement of my:


 


Is the Book of Esther a Real History? Part Two


 


 


I summed up as follows my reconstruction to that point:


 


So far I have concluded, based on some compelling Jewish legends, that Haman of the Book of Esther was actually a Jew, not an Amalekite (etc.), and that he was in fact King Jehoiachin. And that the opinion that he was an Agagite, or an Amalekite (Greek: Amali̱kíti̱s) may have arisen from Jehoiachin’s chief epithet, “Captive” (Greek: aichmálo̱tos), of similar phonetics.


With the evil king Jehoiachin as the wicked Haman, then the next logical step - as it had previously seemed to me - was that the exaltation of Jehoiachin by king Evil-Merodach (usually considered to have been the Chaldean son and successor of Nebuchednezzar II), as related in 2 Kings 25:27-28, must resonate with the exaltation of Haman by king “Ahasuerus” (Esther 3:1). And so I had concluded that Evil-Merodach was the long sought for king “Ahasuerus”. Hardly a good fit.


Better to conclude that, whereas Evil-Merodach had exalted Jehoiachin “in the year that he began to reign”, “Ahasuerus” appears to have raised up Haman some time after his wedding, in his 7th year (cf. Esther 2:16 and 3:1).


These are two separate incidents.


Clearly, now, “Ahasuerus” was a successor of Evil-Merodach’s.


[End of quote]


 


That “Ahauserus” (var. “Artaxerxes”) must have, in my context, followed very soon after the death of Evil-Merodach would be a matter of biological necessity, for, as I had gone on to note: “The age of Haman now needs to be taken into consideration. Already about 55, as we calculated, in the 1st year of Evil-Merodach, he was probably close to 70 in the 12th year of Ahasuerus (the Esther drama focusses on this king’s 12th year)”.


That Haman was not a young man is apparent from the words of one of the Great King’s edicts (Esther 16:1), telling that Haman “was called our father”.


 


According to my radical truncating of the number of Chaldean kings of this era, Nebuchednezzar II’s son, Evil-Merodach (or Awel-Marduk), was the last of the rulers of this dynasty - and he was the same person as Belshazzar:


 




 


 


Hence it is likely that the Medo-Persian king who succeeded Belshazzar, “Darius the Mede” – who I believe to have been Cyrus himself (see e.g.):


 


Darius the Mede "Received the Kingdom"


 


 


was the Great King “Ahasuerus” (“Artaxerxes”), whose wife Queen Esther was.


 


 



Conclusion: “King Ahasuerus” was Darius the Mede/Cyrus.


 

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