Ahaseurus

Ahaseurus was a King of Persia from the Book of Esther. He is normally identified with Xerxes I in modern translations but it is actually debated which king he was with older traditions saying that he was Artaxerxes I.

Role in the Book of Esther

Ahaseurus asks for his wife Queen Vashti to come to his feast with her crown on but she refuses so Ahaseurus’s advisor Memuchan tells him to make a law that every man is his wifes master and that he get rid of Vashti. Ahaseurus does but he wants to get a new wife and ends up marrying Esther She opts not to disclose to him that she is. Jewish because Mordechai told her it would be dangerout if anyone knew. Esther then warned Ahaseurus that his servants Bigtan and Teresh were trying to poison him so Ahaseurus had them executed. Esther told Ahaseurus that Mordechai was the one who told her about the plan. Ahaseurus made Haman his advisor and gave him the power to make his own laws as if he were the king. When Esther came to Ahaseurus without an invitation, a crime punishable by death, Ahaseurus let her and gave her the feast she asked for with Haman there too. Then Ahaseurus remembered that he did nothing to reward Mordechai for saving him so he had Haman take him on a horse across the city saying “this shall be done for the man whom the king wishes to honour”. At the second feast, Esther told Ahaseurus that she was a Jew and that Haman wanted to kill her and her people. While Ahaseurus’s servant Charbonnah told Ahaseurus that Haman was planning to kill Mordechai. So Ahaseurus had Haman hanged on the gallows Haman had built to kill Mordechai and gave Mordechai Haman’s job. Moredechai and Esther asked Ahaseurus to cancel the law Haman had made and Ahaseurus told them that he couldn’t so he instead gave Mordechai the same power he had given Haman so Mordechai could give the Jews the right of self-defence so that they could use violence to fight back against and kill their enemies on the day Haman had chosen for the Jews to die. So after the Jews won, the Jews started to celebrate their victory with a holiday called Purim.