Artaxerxes, King of Persia: A Ruler Known Only by His Letters

A King in the Days of Exile and Return

Artaxerxes is a Persian king, אַרְתַּחְשַׁשְׂתָּא, remembered as Artaxerxes Longimanus, an emperor living at the time of Exile and Return. His era is given as around 606 BC to 536 BC, an era placed on Ussher's chronology (1650). His name stands fourteen times across two books, eleven of them in Ezra and three in Nehemiah, first at Ezra 4:7 and last in Nehemiah. The record that carries his name also places him in a royal family: Ahasuerus and Vashti as his parents, and Darius as his brother. Beyond that, the material about him is not a life story at all. It is a stack of documents, dates and passing notes.

A Name That Appears in Letters, Not in Scenes

This is worth saying at the front, because it shapes everything that follows: no scene is told about Artaxerxes. Every one of his mentions is a list, a genealogy, or a passing note. He never speaks in a narrated conversation, never appears in a described room, never acts in a scene the writer sets before us. What we have instead are his letters, copied into the record, and the reigns by which other men's work is dated. He is a king glimpsed almost entirely through his correspondence and through the calendar of other people's lives.

The Letter That Stopped the Work

He enters at Ezra 4:7-8: "In the days of Artaxerxes, Bishlam, Mithredath, Tabeel, and the rest of his companions, wrote to Artaxerxes king of Persia; and the writing of the letter was written in Syrian, and delivered in the Syrian language. Rehum the chancellor and Shimshai the scribe wrote a letter against Jerusalem to Artaxerxes the king as follows,". The text even preserves the address: "This is the copy of the letter that they sent: To King Artaxerxes, From your servants the men beyond the River" (Ezra 4:11).

Notice what the record is doing. It does not tell us how the king received the letter, what he thought of it, or who stood in the room when it was read to him. It gives us the document. Then it gives us the effect of his answer, and the answer had teeth. "Then when the copy of king Artaxerxes' letter was read before Rehum, Shimshai the scribe, and their companions, they went in haste to Jerusalem to the Jews, and made them to cease by force of arms" (Ezra 4:23). A complaint against Jerusalem reached the throne, and the reply from the throne became the warrant for armed men to shut the work down. That is the first thing the record tells us he did.

The Letter That Sent Ezra

The second thing is the opposite. "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). Then the king's own words are copied out: "Now this is the copy of the letter that the king Artaxerxes gave to Ezra the priest, the scribe, even the scribe of the words of Yahweh's commandments, and of his statutes to Israel: Artaxerxes, king of kings, To Ezra the priest, the scribe of the law of the perfect God of heaven. Now" (Ezra 7:11-12).

That title, king of kings, is his own self-description in his own letter, and the man he addresses is a priest and a scribe of the law of the God of heaven. The letter runs on beyond what is quoted here (Ezra 7:21), his reign supplies the dating for the going up (Ezra 7:7), and the list of those who went up in his reign follows (Ezra 8:1).

The summary in Ezra 6:14 sets him among the decrees behind the finished house of God: "The elders of the Jews built and prospered, through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo. They built and finished it, according to the commandment of the God of Israel, and according to the decree of Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia."

A Calendar for Other Men's Work

In Nehemiah his name functions as a date and nothing more. Three passing notes carry it (Nehemiah 2:1; Nehemiah 5:14; Nehemiah 13:6). Three mentions, no scene, no words of his own. A king reduced to a reckoning of years while another man does the work the book is about.

The Failure the Record Names

The honest thing to say is that the same king appears on both sides. His letter is what made Jerusalem's builders cease by force of arms (Ezra 4:23). He heard a letter written against a city, and the city paid for it. That the record later ranks him with Cyrus and Darius among those whose decree stood behind the finished building (Ezra 6:14) does not erase the earlier order. The text keeps both, side by side, in the same book, and it does not apologise for either.

What We Do Not Know

No children of his are named. No scene is told about him: not a word spoken aloud in a narrated moment, not a description of his court, not a report of his death. We do not know his mind, nor his motive for the reversal between Ezra 4:23 and Ezra 7:11-12, nor anything of him apart from what his letters and the dating of other men's journeys leave behind. Where Scripture is silent about a king this powerful, the silence is the answer, and filling it would be inventing a man the Bible did not write.