Xerxes
Xerxes is also known as Ahasuerus, the king over Persia and Media, with an empire stretching from India to Ethiopia, including 127 provinces, during the time of an evil man named Haman and two influential Jews named Esther and Mordecai. King Ahasuerus had a queen named Vashti, but when he commanded seven chamberlains to go and bring her to him, she would not come, so the seven princes of Persia (Carshena, Shethar, Admatha, Tarshish, Meres, Marsena, and Memucan) deliberated as to what should be done about Queen Vashti’s impudence according to the law. Prince Memucan advised that 1) Vashti should no longer come before the king; 2) the king should give Vashti’s royal estate to another that is better than her; and 3) all the wives in the empire should honor their husbands. The king took Prince Memucan’s advise, and sent letters throughout the empire (and to every people after their language) decreeing that every man should rule in his own house.
So the king looked for another fair young maiden to be his new queen, and when he saw Esther, the daughter of Abihail (uncle of Mordecai), he fell in love with her and selected her to be his queen. After learning from Mordecai that two traitorous chamberlains (Bigthan and Teresh) were laying a plot to harm the king, Esther told the king, and the two traitorous chamberlains were hanged on a tree (a fact which was written down for posterity in the king’s chronicles). It came about that Haman became angry at Mordecai the Jew because Mordecai would not bow down to or otherwise reverence Haman. Consequently, the petty Haman complained that the Jews kept to a different law than the other peoples in the kingdom, even convincing the king to issue a decree on the 13th day of the 1st month, declaring that all Jews in the kingdom would be killed on one day, that is, on the 13th day of the 12th month, killed and destroyed and caused to perish, and their spoils taken away. So Haman had it in for Mordecai and the rest of the Jews.
Haman even scheduled for Mordecai to be hanged, but providentially, the night before Mordecai was to be hanged the king could not sleep and had his chronicles brought to him and read to him. It was then that the king discovered that Mordecai had loyally warned about the plot by Bigthan and Teresh to lay hands on the king (thereby sparing the king’s life), and furthermore that Mordecai had not yet been honored for his loyalty! The king had Haman administer the honors upon Mordecai the Jew, by bringing Mordecai royal apparel and a royal horse, and leading Mordecai (who was on horseback) through the streets, proclaiming “Thus shall it be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour.” (Esther 6:11b, KJV) So Mordecai was honored rather than put to death, and Esther, remembering Mordecai’s counsel that she might well be “come to the kingdom for such a time as this” (Esther 4:14b, KJV), prepared a banquet and named Haman as the enemy that would sell her and her people to be destroyed, to be killed, and to perish. Thereupon, by the king’s order, Haman was hanged on the very gallows that he had prepared in hopes of hanging Mordecai, and the king took Haman’s ring and gave it to Mordecai. On the 23rd day of the 3rd month, the king’s scribes set out a new decree according to all that Mordecai had commanded and had written in the king’s name, so that the letters devised by Haman would be reversed and the Jews around the kingdom would, on the 13th day of the 12th month, kill and destroy and cause to perish those who otherwise would have assaulted them (including Jew-hating women and children). Sure enough, on the 13th day of the 12th month, the Jews around the kingdom slew their enemies using swords and slaughter and destruction, and in Shushan the palace the Jews killed 500 men, and on the very next day (the 14th) the Jews in Shushan killed another 300 men, for a total of 800 men killed in Shushan over the two day period; throughout the kingdom’s provinces the Jews “stood for their lives” (Esther 9:16) and killed 75,000 of their enemies. (Interestingly, we are given the exact days for some of the signposts in this story: King Xerxes’ order to kill all the Jews in the kingdom occurred on the 13th day of the 1st month; King Xerxes’ reversal of that order, that instead all the enemies of the Jews would be killed by the Jews themselves, occurred on the 23rd day of the 3rd month, 70 days after the original order; and on the 13th day of the 12th month, or 11 months after the original order, the Jews went about killing their enemies throughout the kingdom. In effect, there was a crucible of 70 days during which time the very fate of the Jews hung in the balance, and there was an 11-month period during which time the anti-semitic plans of Haman came back onto his own head and then onto the heads of the other Jew-hating people.)
The lesson of this story of King Xerxes, Queen Esther, Mordecai the Jew, and Haman is captured nicely in Esther 9:24-26a: “Because Haman the son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had devised against the Jews to destroy them, and had cast Pur, that is, the lot, to consume them, and to destroy them; but when Esther came before the king, he commanded by letters that his wicked device, which he devised against the Jews, should return upon his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows. Wherefore they called these days Purim after the name of Pur.” (KJV) Therefore, it was established by Mordecai that on the 14th and 15th days of the 12th month (the month of Adar), the Jews should observe the days of Purim by being glad and feasting, and sending portions to one another.
In summary, through our study of King Xerxes, we have learned an amazing story about the way in which the LORD God of Israel will protect the Jews. Truly, this story of a wise Persian king and Mordecai and Esther highlights the reliability of that long-ago word in Genesis 12:2-3, where we read God’s promise to Abram, “And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” (KJV) Likewise, in Zechariah 12:2-3, we can also see a similar warning against any who would harm the Jews: “Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.” (KJV)
There is much anti-semitism in the world today, and we must oppose it. If we are to learn from a creation study about a man named Xerxes and his close friendships with his Jewish queen and his Jewish advisor, and from the ruination of the anti-semitic Haman, then we must be reminded of God’s love of Jerusalem and Judah and we would do well to consider Genesis 12-2-3 and Zechariah 12:2-3. Thank the LORD for Israel and for the many blessings bestowed on the world’s people through Israel!