by
Damien F. Mackey
Here
continues the task of revising ancient Persian history, with an anticipated
severe reduction in the number of kings that one will find listed in the text
books.
Part One: A Revised Overview
Introduction
Ezra
4:4-6 is thought to give the overall range of Persian history to be covered in
this chapter, from Cyrus down to Darius:
Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the
people of Judah, and troubled them in building, and hired counsellors against
them, to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even
until the reign of Darius king of Persia.
before
the sacred writer(s) proceed to fill in the details - especially regarding the
forced interruption of work towards the
building of the Temple (vv. 6-23).
The
narrative then returns to, and concludes with, king Darius in v. 24: “Then ceased the work of the house of God which is at
Jerusalem. So it ceased unto the second year of the reign of Darius king of
Persia”.
The framework that we are given in Ezra 4, bookended by Cyrus and
Darius, is as follows:
Cyrus (v. 5)
Ahasuerus (v. 6)
Artaxerxes (vv. 7-23)
Darius (vv. 5, 24)
Whilst
there is not much dispute amongst commentators about the identifications of
Cyrus and Darius, they can differ about who were “Ahasuerus” and “Artaxerxes”.
Generally
they, following the standard list of Persian kings,
List of the Kings of Persia from 550 BC to 330 BC
|
|
Persian Kings
|
Period of Reign (Approx)
|
Cyrus II "the Great"
|
550-529 BC
|
Cambyses II
|
529-522 BC
|
Darius I
|
522-486 BC
|
Xerxes I
|
486-465 BC
|
Artaxerxes I
|
465-425 BC
|
Xerxes II
|
425-424 BC
|
Darius II
|
423-404 BC
|
Artaxerxes II
|
404-359 BC
|
Artaxerxes III
|
359-338 BC
|
Arses
|
338-336 BC
|
Darius III
|
336-330 BC
|
will
regard Cambyses as both “Ahasuerus” and “Artaxerxes”.
Less
commonly some commentators prefer, for the identification of “Artaxerxes”, the
usurper, Gaumata, sometimes equating him with the obscure Bardiya.
The Matthew Henry Commentary, for instance,
favours a double identification for Cambyses:
[Cyrus] then either died or gave up that part
of his government, in which his successor was Ahasuerus (v. 6), called also Artaxerxes (v. 7), supposed to be the same that in heathen
authors is called Cambyses, who had never taken such cognizance of the despised
Jews as to concern himself for them, nor had he that knowledge of the God of
Israel which his predecessor had. To him these Samaritans applied by letter for
an order to stop the building of the temple; and they did it in the beginning
of his reign, being resolved to lose no time when they thought they had a king
for their purpose. ….
[End of quote]
Whilst
Herb Storck (History and Prophecy: A Study in the
Post-Exilic Period,
House of Nabu, 1989, p. 64), accepting that “Ahasuerus” is
Cambyses, thinks that “Artaxerxes” must be Gaumata/Bardiya:
The section of Ezra iv. 6-23 involves the
whole reign of Cambyses and Bardiya. The subject … structure, prosopography …
syntax and vocabulary … of the section naturally supports this interpretation.
As the text can thus sustain this interpretation it remains only to show
reasonable grounds that the sequence Cyrus, Ahasuerus (Cambyses), Artaxerxes
(Bardiya) and Darius can be justified from what is known of them historically.
It will now be argued that Ahasuerus can be Cambyses and that Artaxerxes may be
Bardiya/Gaumata. As this thesis is almost never argued in current scholarship,
it will require a careful and rather lengthy discourse. ….
[End of quote]
What
I take from the Matthew Henry
Commentary is that only one king is
being referred to under the two names of “Ahasuerus” and “Artaxerxes”.
But I think that he is not Cambyses.
Cambyses
Whilst I expect to have more to say later
about this idiosyncratic king and his place in history, I have already opened
proceedings towards an entirely new assessment of Cambyses by drawing some
parallels between him and Daniel’s King Nebuchadnezzar about whom one may read
in my:
“Nebuchednezzar” of the Book of
Daniel
Re my different view of Cambyses, I refer to
this series of articles:
Common factors here may include ‘divine’ madness; confounding the priests
by messing with the Babylonian rites; and the conquest of Egypt and Ethiopia.
As was the case with King Nabonidus (= Nebuchednezzar II), so did Cambyses
apparently fail properly to observe established protocol with the Babylonian
rites.
Of
Nebuchednezzar II’s conquest of Egypt, well-attested in the Bible, it is
extremely difficult to find substantial account in the historical records. Not
so with the conquest of Egypt and Ethiopia by Cambyses.
And even, right out of left field:
Cambyses and Julius Caesar
Ahasuerus/Artaxerxes
The Book of Esther presents us with a Great
King who is variously called “Ahasuerus” and “Artaxerxes”. And this is good
enough for me. I have identified him as both “Darius the Mede” and Cyrus:
Is the Book of Esther a Real
History? Part Three: “King Ahasuerus”
I
concluded this article with:
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.
[End
of quote]
Darius the Great
More
recently, in my article:
"Three Kings" and the "Fourth" of
Daniel 11:2
I
have identified:
Darius the Mede = Cyrus the Great = Darius the Great
thereby most radically shortening Medo-Persian
history.
This
would mean that only the one Medo-Persian kings is actually being referred to
in Ezra 4.
Now,
the description of Ezra’s king Ahasuerus/Artaxerxes fits tolerably well with
what we learn about the Great King of the same names in the drama of Esther,
supplemented with parts of the Book of Daniel.
Apart
from Mordecai’s dream, in the second year of Ahasuerus, we do not engage the
reign of the Great King until his third year of reign (Esther 1:3), when he was
in high celebratory mode.
Likely earlier than
this incident was that of Ezra 4:6: “And in the reign of Ahasuerus, in
the beginning of his reign, they wrote an accusation against the inhabitants of
Judah and Jerusalem”.
However,
that King Ahasuerus had severe trouble early in his reign is apparent from a
comparison of Daniel 6 (in which he is called “Darius the Mede”) and, more
emphatically, Bel and the Dragon (in which he is called “Cyrus of Persia”):
Daniel
6:24: “At the king’s command, the men who had
falsely accused Daniel were brought in and thrown into the lions’ den, along
with their wives and children”.
Bel and the Dragon (1:28-30): “When they of Babylon heard that,
they took great indignation, and conspired against the king, saying, The king
is become a Jew, and he hath destroyed Bel, he hath slain the dragon, and put
the priests to death. So they came to the king, and said, Deliver us Daniel, or
else we will destroy thee and thine house. Now when the king saw that they
pressed him sore, being constrained, he delivered Daniel unto them …”.
This conspiracy
against the king could well pertain to the conspiracy that Mordecai uncovered
(Esther 2:21-23): “Once, while Mordecai was sitting at the king’s gate, Bigsan and Seresh,
two officers of the king's night guards, became angry at the king, and they
conspired to poison the king. Mordecai found out about it, so he told Queen
Esther, and Esther told it to the king, citing Mordecai as her source. They
investigated the matter, and it was verified, and they were both hanged on
gallows. It was then recorded in the royal book of chronicles”.
When we move on to
Ezra 4’s account of “Artaxerxes”, we encounter a name, “Bishlam”, or other
variations, that is not unlike that of the conspirator, “Bigsan”, or other
variations (e.g. “Bigthan”).
D. Clines (Esther Scroll: https://books.google.com.au/books?id=PBediPzesQ0) has put forward
“the supposition that Haman was himself implicated in the conspiracy of [Bigthan
and Teresh] which Mordecai uncovered, as is suggested by both the Greek
versions …”.
Ezra continues:
In the days of Artaxerxes, Bishlam and
Mithredath and Tabeel and the rest of their associates wrote to Artaxerxes king
of Persia. The letter was written in Aramaic and translated. Rehum the
commander and Shimshai the scribe wrote a letter against Jerusalem to
Artaxerxes the king as follows: Rehum the commander, Shimshai the scribe, and
the rest of their associates, the judges, the governors, the officials, the
Persians, the men of Erech, the Babylonians, the men of Susa, that is, the
Elamites, and the rest of the nations whom the great and noble Osnappar
deported and settled in the cities of Samaria and in the rest of the province Beyond
the River. (This is a copy of the letter that they sent.) “To Artaxerxes the
king: Your servants, the men of the province Beyond the River, send greeting.
And now be it known to the king that the Jews who came up from you to us have
gone to Jerusalem. They are rebuilding that rebellious and wicked city. They
are finishing the walls and repairing the foundations. Now be it known to the
king that if this city is rebuilt and the walls finished, they will not pay
tribute, custom, or toll, and the royal revenue will be impaired. Now because
we eat the salt of the palace and it is not fitting for us to witness the
king's dishonor, therefore we send and inform the king, in order that search
may be made in the book of the records of your fathers. You will find in the
book of the records and learn that this city is a rebellious city, hurtful to
kings and provinces, and that sedition was stirred up in it from of old. That
was why this city was laid waste. We make known to the king that if this city
is rebuilt and its walls finished, you will then have no possession in the
province Beyond the River.”
Similarly, Haman informs Ahasuerus/Artaxerxes of
this allegedly rebellious and lawless people (Esther 3:8-9): "There is a nation
scattered and separated among the nations throughout your empire. Their laws
are different than everyone else's, they do not obey the king's laws, and it
does not pay for the king to tolerate their existence. If it pleases the king,
let a law be written that they be destroyed, and I will pay to the executors
ten thousand silver Kikar-coins for the king's treasury”.
And Queen Esther, in her
prayer, would note that (vv. 19-20) “… our enemies are no longer
satisfied just to see us in slavery. They have made a solemn promise to their
idols not only to destroy the people who praise you, but to do away with your
Law and to remove forever the glory of
your house and altar”.
That is just what the enemies
of the Jews were intending in the Ezran drama.
And, just as Ahasuerus/Artaxerxes will respond to this
accusation (Esther 3:9-10): “The king removed his signet ring from his hand and gave it to
Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, persecutor of the Jews. The king said to
Haman, ‘Keep the money, and do whatever you want with that nation’," so,
too, did he, in Ezra, harken to Rehum and his crew (4:17-23):
The king sent an answer: ‘To Rehum the
commander and Shimshai the scribe and the rest of their associates who live in
Samaria and in the rest of the province Beyond the River, greeting. And now the
letter that you sent to us has been plainly read before me. And I made a
decree, and search has been made, and it has been found that this city from of
old has risen against kings, and that rebellion and sedition have been made in
it. And mighty kings have been over Jerusalem, who ruled over the whole
province Beyond the River, to whom tribute, custom, and toll were paid. Therefore
make a decree that these men be made to cease, and that this city be not
rebuilt, until a decree is made by me. And take care not to be slack in this
matter. Why should damage grow to the hurt of the king?”
Then, when the copy of King Artaxerxes'
letter was read before Rehum and Shimshai the scribe and their associates, they
went in haste to the Jews at Jerusalem and by force and power made them cease.
Haman’s feigned
concern that “… it does not pay for the king to tolerate”
the Jews, may echo the rebels’ feigned solidarity: “Why should damage grow to the hurt of the king?”
Part Two: Darius the Great
Though the
foundation of the Temple of Yahweh was laid in the second year of Cyrus, this
incident has been wrongly re-dated by commentators to a presumed king “Darius”,
thought to have been of several reigns later than Cyrus.
Introduction
Ezra
3:8-10 makes it abundantly clear that “the foundation of the Temple of the
Lord” was laid already in the second year of the return from captivity:
In the second month of the second year after their arrival at the
house of God in Jerusalem, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, Joshua son of Jozadak
and the rest of the people (the priests and the Levites and all who had
returned from the captivity to Jerusalem) began the work. They appointed
Levites twenty years old and older to supervise the building of the house of
the Lord. Joshua and his sons and brothers and
Kadmiel and his sons (descendants of Hodaviah) and the sons of Henadad and
their sons and brothers—all Levites—joined together in supervising those
working on the house of God.
When the builders
laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in
their vestments and with trumpets, and the Levites (the sons of Asaph) with
cymbals, took their places to praise the Lord,
as prescribed by David king of Israel.
Yet
the prophet Haggai’s reference to this important event, now about half a year
later, in the ninth month of the second year of Darius (Haggai 2:18; cf. v.
10): “From this day on, from this twenty-fourth day of the
ninth month, give careful thought to the day when the foundation of the Lord’s temple was laid”, is generally estimated by commentators (who
distinguish Cyrus from Darius) to have occurred two reigns later:
|
Cyrus II "the Great"
|
550-529 BC
|
|
Cambyses II
|
529-522 BC
|
|
Darius I
|
522-486 BC
|
That
is, almost two decades later (Cyrus 538 – Darius 521 = 17).
With
my identification of the aged Jeremiah, post-exilic, with both Haggai and
Zechariah
Complete Jeremiah
operating
in “the second year of Darius” (cf. Haggai 1:1; Zechariah 1:1), I am perfectly
happy not to have to extend Jeremiah’s age by a further 17 years.
Nor
do I think that the evidence demands it.
