Who was King Ahasuerus? He was better known by the name Xerxes. It appears that he inherited the vast Persian Empire from his father, Darius. Darius was the king who ruled along with Cyrus after the Persians conquered Babylon. Now it is important to understand that the name Darius is translated “Lord” so it could be a title rather than a name and this sometimes gets confusing when reading historical writings such as Josephus and then comparing to scripture. I don’t want to get into the deep waters of that study because we would spend the next several weeks going through it, and still might end up with more questions than answers. Most commentators believe that this Darius was the same Darius that was tricked into signing the decree that wound up sending Daniel to the Lion’s den. With that being said, King Ahasuerus was the king in our study here in Esther.
