Artaxerxes
Gentile Persian · Exile & Return · Old Testament
- Role
- King of Persia who sent Ezra and Nehemiah
- When
- c. 465-424 BC (commonly identified with Artaxerxes I)
What they did
Gave Ezra a letter and gifts for the house of God, and later granted his cupbearer Nehemiah leave and letters to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.
Why it matters: the purpose of their role
Ezra blessed God who 'put such a thing as this in the king's heart', showing God moving a Gentile ruler to restore Jerusalem.
Blessed be the LORD God of our fathers, which hath put such a thing as this in the king’s heart, to beautify the house of the LORD which is in Jerusalem: Ezra 7:27 (KJV)
Bible references
Now after these things, in the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, Ezra the son of Seraiah, the son of Azariah, the son of Hilkiah, Ezra 7:1 (KJV)
Artaxerxes, king of kings, unto Ezra the priest, a scribe of the law of the God of heaven, perfect peace, and at such a time. I make a decree, that all they of the people of Israel, and of his priests and Levites, in my realm, which are minded of their own freewill to go up to Jerusalem, go with thee. Ezra 7:12-13 (KJV)
Blessed be the LORD God of our fathers, which hath put such a thing as this in the king’s heart, to beautify the house of the LORD which is in Jerusalem: Ezra 7:27 (KJV)
And it came to pass in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king, that wine was before him: and I took up the wine, and gave it unto the king. Now I had not been beforetime sad in his presence. Nehemiah 2:1 (KJV)
And a letter unto Asaph the keeper of the king’s forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the palace which appertained to the house, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall enter into. And the king granted me, according to the good hand of my God upon me. Nehemiah 2:8 (KJV)
Family
Scripture records little about this person's family.