Artaxerxes I
Son of Xerxes I and king of Persia for some forty years. Nehemiah was his cupbearer and governed Judah under him from 445 BC, and the usual dating puts Ezra’s mission in his seventh year.
In the book of Ezra a king Artaxerxes receives a complaint from officials in Samaria that Jerusalem is being refortified, and orders the work stopped (Ezra 4:7–23). An Artaxerxes sends Ezra to Jerusalem in his seventh year (Ezra 7:7, 11–13), and in his twentieth year an Artaxerxes sends his cupbearer Nehemiah to rebuild the city (Nehemiah 2:1–8). A papyrus of 407 BC, which names the next generation of Nehemiah’s opponents and a later high priest, shows that Nehemiah’s king was the first of the three Persian kings called Artaxerxes (Elephantine petition to Bagohi verso 1, 12–13). Whether Ezra’s king was the same man is debated; see Ezra Brings the Law to Jerusalem.
Business tablets from Nippur are dated by the years of his reign (Murashû archive BE 9, no. 4, lines 3–4). Josephus calls Nehemiah’s king Xerxes (Josephus, Antiquities 11.159) and gives the name Artaxerxes, son of Xerxes, to the king of the book of Esther (Josephus, Antiquities 11.184).
In the timeline
- 458 BC, estimated dateEzra Brings the Law to Jerusalem
The priest and scribe Ezra comes from Babylon with a commission from the Persian king, confronts marriages with foreign wives, and reads the law of Moses aloud to the assembled people, who bind themselves to keep it.
- 445 BC, estimated dateNehemiah Rebuilds the Walls of Jerusalem
Nehemiah, cupbearer to the Persian king, is sent to Judah as governor and rebuilds the ruined walls of Jerusalem in fifty-two days against the opposition of Sanballat of Samaria. He then reforms the city’s debts, Sabbath and temple.
Primary sources
The Elephantine Petition to Bagohi (TAD A4.7)
- Elephantine petition to Bagohi verso 1, 12–13elephantine.smb.museum
Jewish Antiquities
- Josephus, Antiquities 11.159lexundria.com
- Josephus, Antiquities 11.184lexundria.com