According to the Biblical Book of Esther,…
477 BCE to 466 BCE
According to the Biblical Book of Esther, usually dated to the third or fourth century BCE, Ahasuerus, ruler of a massive Persian empire, holds a lavish party, initially for his court and dignitaries and afterwards for all inhabitants of the capital city Shushan.
Ahasuerus orders the queen Vashti to display her beauty before the guests.
She refuses.
Worried all women will learn from this, Ahasuerus removes her as queen and has a royal decree sent across the empire that men should be the ruler of their households and should speak their own native tongue.
Ahasuerus then orders all beautiful young girls to be presented to him, so he can choose a new queen to replace Vashti.
One of these is the orphan Esther, whose Jewish name is Hadassah.
After the death of her parents, she is being fostered by her cousin Mordecai.
She finds favor in the king's eyes, and is made his new queen.
Esther does not reveal that she is Jewish.
Shortly afterwards, Mordecai discovers a plot by courtiers Bigthan and Teresh to assassinate Ahasuerus.
The conspirators are apprehended and hanged, and Mordecai's service to the king is recorded.
Ahasuerus appoints Haman as his prime minister.
Mordecai, who sits at the palace gates, falls into Haman's disfavor as he refuses to bow down to him.
Having found out that Mordecai is Jewish, Haman plans to kill not just Mordecai but all the Jews in the empire.
He obtains Ahasuerus' permission to execute this plan, against payment of ten thousand talents of silver (which the King declines to accept and rather allows him to execute his plan on principle), and he casts lots to choose the date on which to do this—the thirteenth of the month of Adar.
On that day, everyone in the empire is free to massacre the Jews and despoil their property.
When Mordecai finds out about the plans he and all Jews mourn and fast.
Mordecai informs Esther what has happened and tells her to intercede with the King.
In response to the decree of extermination by Haman, the Persian king in 474 BCE issues a decree, as dictated by Mordecai, the cousin of his Judahite queen Esther, upon the king's secretaries, giving the Judahites in every city the authority to unite to defend their lives against their opponents in all of the one hundred and twenty-seven provinces of the Persian Empire, stretching from India to Ethiopia, allowing them to kill, slaughter, and annihilate anyone of any nationality or province who might attack them or their children and wives, and to take the property of their enemies.
As a result, on 13 Adar, five hundred attackers and Haman's ten sons are killed in Shushan, followed by a Judahite slaughter of seventy-five thousand Persians, although they take no plunder.
Esther sends a letter instituting an annual commemoration of her people's redemption, in a holiday called Purim (lots).
Ahasuerus remains very powerful and continues reigning, with Mordecai assuming a prominent position in his court.
The Book of Esther goes on to relate that many of the people of the land became Judahites themselves, for they feared what the Judahites might do to them.
The Book of Esther is set in the third year of Ahasuerus, a king of Persia.
The name Ahasuerus is equivalent to Xerxes, both deriving from the Persian Khshayārsha, thus Ahasuerus is usually identified as Xerxes I (486-465 BCE), though Ahasuerus is identified as Artaxerxes in the later Greek version of Esther (as well as by Josephus, the Jewish commentary Esther Rabbah, the Ethiopic translation, and the Christian theologian Bar-Hebraeus, who identified him more precisely as Artaxerxes II).
Jewish tradition regards the Book of Esther as a redaction by the Great Assembly of an original text written by Mordecai.