How the Queen Esther story locks into a biblical history

by Damien F. Mackey Esther 3:1 should read, instead: “… Haman the Captive”. Preview The enthralling drama of which we read in the Book of Esther begins only a few years after the demise of the last Chaldean King of Babylon, Belshazzar, and continues through Year 12 of the reign of his successor, Darius the Mede (cf. Daniel 5:30-31). The Chaldean dynasty (of Nebuchednezzar and his son, Belshazzar) has now passed, and we have entered into the first phase of the Medo-Persian kingdom, instigated by Darius the Mede. In terms of the Book of Daniel chapter 8, the Medo-Persian kingdom is the two-horned ram that would eventually be shattered by “a goat with a prominent horn between its eyes [Alexander the Great who] came from the west …” (8:5). The mighty ram, for its part, is described as follows (8:3-4): I looked up, and there before me was a ram with two horns, standing beside the canal, and the horns were long. One of the horns was longer than the other but grew up later. I watched the ram as it charged toward the west and the north and the south. No animal could stand against it, and none could rescue from its power. It did as it pleased and became great. This revised scenario enables us immediately to identify the leading Great King of the Esther drama, Ahasuerus (var. Xerxes). He must be Darius the Mede. Compare Daniel 6:1-2 It pleased Darius to appoint 120 satraps to rule throughout the kingdom, with three administrators over them, one of whom was Daniel. The satraps were made accountable to them so that the king might not suffer loss. and Esther 1:1 This is what happened during the time of Xerxes, the Xerxes who ruled over 127 provinces stretching from India to Cush …. At this stage we cannot say anything about the other leading characters of the drama: Queen Esther; Mordecai; and Haman (his wife, Zeresh); and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Queen Vashti; except to note that Queen Esther must have been a wife of king Darius the Mede. A vital perspective from Judah Basing myself upon a Jewish tradition - and a most surprising one at that - that the arch-villain Haman of the Book of Esther was actually a Jew, known to Mordecai, I eventually determined that Haman must have been the exiled Jewish king, Jehoiachin (or Coniah), known as “the Captive” (I Chronicles 3:17). This insight from Jewish legend became absolutely crucial. For one, it enabled me to identify the ancestor of Haman, “Hammedatha” (Esther 3:1), as (and this was another surprise) a woman, Hammutal (Hamutal) (cf. 2 Kings 23:31; 24:18; Jeremiah 52:1). “After these events, King Ahasuerus honored Haman son of Hammedatha …” (Esther 3:1). And, secondly, it enabled me to reject the popular view that Haman was an Amalekite (Agagite), as some translations have it: “… Haman the Agagite …”. Esther 3:1 should read, instead: “… Haman the Captive”. Confusion has apparently arisen due to the likeness between the Greek word for Amalekite (Ἀμᾱληκῑ́της), and the somewhat similar one for Captive (αἰχμᾰ́λωτος). Haman the Captive (Esther 3:1) was Jehoiachin the Captive (I Chronicles 3:17). King Ahasuerus – zoning in on him If Haman was the former King Jehoiachin of Judah, then biological factors would limit who King Ahasuerus could possibly have been. For, when Jehoiachin was released from prison in Exile Year 37 (2 Kings 25:27-30): In the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah, in the year Awel-Marduk became king of Babylon, he released Jehoiachin king of Judah from prison. He did this on the twenty-seventh day of the twelfth month. He spoke kindly to him and gave him a seat of honor higher than those of the other kings who were with him in Babylon. So Jehoiachin put aside his prison clothes and for the rest of his life ate regularly at the king’s table. Day by day the king gave Jehoiachin a regular allowance as long as he lived …, he must have been [18 (2 Kings 24:8) + 37] = (approximately) 55 years of age. And Jehoiachin would have been close to 60 when Darius the Mede took over, very close to the same age as the king himself (Daniel 5:31): “… and Darius the Mede took over the kingdom, at the age of sixty-two”. At the culmination of the Esther drama, in Year 12, Darius/King Ahasuerus would have been about 74. The Judean king, Jehoiachin, must have been a highly charismatic figure. Promoted above the rest by King Nebuchednezzar’s son, Awel-Marduk (= Belshazzar), near the end of the Chaldean era, he would experience a similar sort of exaltation not long afterwards, during the reign of King Ahasuerus of Medo-Persia (Esther 3:1): “After these events, King Ahasuerus honored Haman son of Hammedatha [Hammutal], the Agagite [sic], elevating him and giving him a seat of honor higher than that of all the other nobles”. First Conclusion We have now determined beyond much doubt who were Haman and his female ancestor, Hammedatha. They were, respectively, King Jehoiachin and Queen Hammutal. Biologically - and for other reasons - this makes it more than likely that the Great King, Ahasuerus (Xerxes), was Darius the Mede. There is yet more to be included further on concerning the arch-villain Haman. Probing the Chaldean and Judah King Lists As I have argued previously, the over-extended king list known as Chaldean: Nabopolassar; Nebuchednezzar; Amēl-Marduk; Neriglissar; Labashi-Marduk; Nabonidus when revised, and aligned with the Book of Daniel, actually represents three dynasties. Thus: Assyrian Nabopolassar = Sennacherib; Chaldean Nebuchednezzar = Nabonidus; Amēl-Marduk = Labashi-Marduk = Belshazzar; Medo-Persian Neriglissar = Darius the Mede Darius the Mede is also King Cyrus ‘the Great’: King Cyrus favoured as ‘Darius the Mede’ (3) King Cyrus favoured as 'Darius the Mede' | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu That means that King Ahasuerus of the Book of Esther was, all at once, Neriglissar (who is the Nergal-sharezer of Jeremiah 39:3); Darius the Mede; and Cyrus. That also makes it highly likely, now, that Queen Esther was the favoured wife of Cyrus, Atossa, a name that resonates nicely with Hadassah/Esther. Who Queen Esther was not She was not, as is sometimes suggested, “the queen” mentioned in Nehemiah 2:6: “Then the king, with the queen sitting beside him, asked me, ‘How long will your journey take, and when will you get back?’ It pleased the king to send me; so I set a time”. This was a “king of Babylon” (13:6), the king here being Nebuchednezzar ‘the Great’. He and his queen belonged to an era (Chaldean) earlier than that of Queen Esther (Medo-Persian). A possible reason why “the queen” of Nehemiah 2:6 would not have been a Persian queen is given in the Matthew Henry commentary over on blueletterbible.org (a great research site!), who notes evidence from the book of Esther that it seemed to be uncommon for the queen to be in the king’s presence in a Persian court. Queen Esther is also most unlikely to have been the wife of Xerxes, Amestris. Phillip G. Kayser gives some sound reasons why this would be the case: https://kaysercommentary.com/Sermons/Old%20Testament/Esther/Esther%20Part%201.md “Every Xerxes advocate admits that there is one point that just doesn't seem to fit. Amestris, Xerxes wife seems to be queen longer than Scripture allows Vashti to live. Some have said that Vashti/Amestris is divorced for a while and later replaces Esther. Others have said that Esther is Amestris. But not only is Amestris a debauched, cruel and sadistic woman, she is a Persian, not a Jewess, and Amestris was around before the 7th year. I think this is a major problem for Xerxes and warrants a strike”. What makes rather tricky the identification of Medo-Persian queens is the multiplication in king lists of their king’s names, such as Xerxes, Artaxerxes, Darius. And so we find that the most compelling Esther (= Hadassah) name, Atossa (Old Persian Hutaosâ), has been connected all at once to Cyrus, Artaxerxes, Cambyses, and Darius. Who Queen Esther was With Haman now firmly fixed historically as Jehoiachin the Captive, who would have been only 18 when he went into Babylonian Exile (2 Kings 24:8-12), and about 55 when Amēl-Marduk (= Belshazzar) released him from prison (25:27-30), and close to 60 when Darius the Mede (aged 62) took over the kingdom, then, biologically, his conspiracy must have occurred during the 12-year reign of Darius the Mede (= Cyrus). This would securely establish Hadassah/Esther as the historical Atossa, said to have been “the most prominent lady in the history of ancient Iran”, and thought to have been the daughter (read “wife”) of King Cyrus: https://www.iranchamber.com/history/atossa/atossa.php Atossa The Celestial and Terrestrial Lady of Ancient Iran By: Shirin Bayani Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus the Great, wife of two Achamenian kings, Cambyses and Darius and mother of Xerxes is the most prominent lady in the history of ancient Iran. Not much is known about her life, except that she has witnessed the reign of the four first Achamenian kings and that she has played a decisive role in the long period of turbulence and significance. …. [End of quote] Since, however, there were not as many as “four first Achamenian [Achaemenid] kings”, some of these names must be duplicates, as must be the Cyrus-like Artaxerxes II (c. 445-359/8 BC, conventional dating), whose reign has been estimated (wrongly) to have occurred about 85 years after the death of Cyrus (c. 530 BC, conventional dating). Because of the chaos that historians and archaeologists have enabled to gulf Medo-Persian history, the name Atossa gets stretched about amongst various Persian names. One female of this name, Atossa, for instance, was also supposed to have been married to a Cambyses, and then, to Darius the Great: https://www.livius.org/articles/person/darius-the-great/4-dynastic-marriages/ Darius married three times to improve his position: 1. Atossa (Old Persian *Utautha), a daughter of Cyrus. She had already been married to her half-brother Cambyses, but the couple did not have children. …. [End of quote] Previously (2016) I wrote on these matters: Esther as Atossa Name-wise, the standout historical queen for the biblical Esther is Atossa, wife of a Persian king. The similarity between the name “Atossa” and the Hebrew name of Esther, “Hadassah”, has often been noted. However, since this Atossa is considered to have been the daughter of the relevant king Cyrus, and the wife of Darius, I have not previously felt inclined to attempt to integrate her into my historical reconstructions of the Book of Esther. That there were various queens “Atossa” in the classical sources would not concern me considering the unwarranted multiplications of kings “Artaxerxes”, and the fact that (according to my revision) king Cyrus was also called “Darius”. Anyway, some potential new light on the situation may have been shed by Richard E. Tyrwhitt in his book, Esther and Ahasuerus: An Identification of the Persons So Named (p. 185, IV), when he writes: To this conjecture, however, regarding the true significance of the term Daughter of Cyrus, when applied to Darius’s queen Atossa, it may be supposed to be an objection, that the surname or description is applied equally to another of his wives, Artystonè by name, whom he is said to have particularly loved and to have commemorated by a golden image. But Akhshurush [Ahasuerus], that is, Darius, had two crowned wives in succession, Vaśhti and Hadassah. That the term, “king’s daughter”, is properly applicable to a spouse is suggested in Matthew Poole’s Commentary on Psalm 45:13, at: http://biblehub.com/commentaries/psalms/45-13.htm “The king’s daughter, i.e. the spouse; so called, either because she was the daughter of one king, and the wife of another; or because the spouse or wife is sometimes called the husband’s daughter; partly because she is supposed to be younger than he; and partly because of that respect and subjection which she oweth to him, and that fatherly care and affection which he oweth to her. …”. Queen Esther (“Hadassah”) was indeed “younger than” King Ahasuerus. It was quite beyond the Greek writers, such as the so-called “Father of History”, Herodotus, to sort out the complexities of Medo-Persian history, the multiple names of its protagonists – just as it was beyond their ability properly to recall the Egyptian, Mesopotamian or Syro-Palestinian histories. …. Second Conclusion Queen Esther was most likely Atossa, the famous (‘daughter’) wife of King Cyrus. Origins of Esther and Mordecai Given Mordecai’s eminence in the Medo-Persian kingdom (Esther 2:21), I had anticipated that there may have been a good chance of locating him at an earlier stage in biblical history. This led me ultimately to identify Mordecai with the wealthy and influential Joakim in Babylon, at the time of Daniel (Story of Susanna, Daniel 13:1). That meant that Joakim’s beautiful wife, Susanna, would be a standout candidate for the future Queen Esther herself, formerly the wife of Mordecai (another vital clue from Jewish legend - that Esther was the actual wife of Mordecai). For a fuller development of this new thesis, see e.g. my article Joakim and Susanna’s progression to become Mordecai and Esther “ (3) Joakim and Susanna’s progression to become Mordecai and Esther | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu The apparent multiplication of names for the heroine as Esther, Hadassah and Susanna, could be streamlined from three to two by recognising that, as I wrote: “Queen Esther, Ishtar-udda-sha (“Ishtar is her light”) and, thereby, Hadassah (-udda-sha), had the Hebrew name of Susanna, the husband of Joakim (= Mordecai)”. Queen Vashti Some key Jewish legends Jewish legend had enabled me to identify Haman as, most unexpectedly, a Jew known to Mordecai, as Jehoiachin the Captive, the apostate king of Judah. And this has led me further to identify the Hammedatha of Esther 3:1 as the Jewish queen, Hammutal. It also opened the door to the possibility that the combination Mordecai and his wife, Esther (according to Jewish legend), was the influential and revered Jew, Joakim, and his wife, Susanna. And now we might be able to take a further ride on Jewish legend according to which Queen Vashti, the disgraced wife of King Ahasuerus, was the daughter of the ill-fated King Belshazzar: Vashti, the wife of Ahasuerus, may have been the daughter of King Belshazzar the Chaldean (3) Vashti, the wife of Ahasuerus, may have been the daughter of King Belshazzar the Chaldean | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu In this article, I wrote: Was Darius (= Cyrus = ‘Ahasuerus’) actually a ‘grandson’ (בֶּן-בְּנוֹ) of Nebuchednezzar’s? In a sense, yes, he was, if Jewish tradition is right here. For the (presumably young) wife of the 60+ year old king ‘Ahasuerus’ is alleged to have been the daughter of Belshazzar. “Vashti was born to Babylonian royalty. Her grandfather was Nebuchadnezzar, who had destroyed Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem and driven the Jews into exile. Her father was Belshazzar, the last in a line of great Babylonian kings whose dramatic death is described in the Book of Daniel”. …. https://www.aish.com/h/pur/t/dt/48951881.html In (quasi-)historical terms, the suggestion has been made that Vashti may have been Queen Stateira, wife of Artaxerxes so-called II (an Ahasuerus type): Stateira suggested for Queen Vashti (5) Stateira suggested for Queen Vashti | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Zeresh As for Haman’s wife, Zeresh, I am not able to add to her anything more of substance (beyond what we read in the Esther drama) except that tradition has her as a daughter of Tattenai, “governor of Trans-Euphrates” (Ezra 6:13). We read about this at Chabad.org: https://www.chabad.org/holidays/purim/article_cdo/aid/2519584/jewish/Who-Was-Zeresh.htm Who Was Zeresh? Haman's Wicked and Wise Wife By Mendy Kaminker She was a crafty woman and a classic anti-Semite. Together with her husband, Haman, she plotted to annihilate the entire Jewish nation and to hang Mordecai upon a towering gallows. Thankfully, we know how well her plans worked out in the end… Every Purim, in the Shoshanat Yaakov poem, we memorialize her wickedness by gleefully singing, “Cursed be Zeresh, wife of [Haman], who terrorized me.” Who Was Zeresh? Zeresh’s name appears twice in the Book of Esther, both times as an advisor to her husband. She is the one who suggests that Haman rid himself of Mordechai by hanging him on a gallows 50 cubits tall.1 In her second appearance, she advises him that he will never be able to vanquish Mordechai, but will instead fall ignobly.2 Combing through the classic sources, we can piece together some parts of her personality. Her father was Tattenai, “the ruler of across the river,”3 who makes an appearance in the Book of Ezra when he tries (unsuccessfully) to halt the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem.4 …. This Tattenai was a genuine historical figure: https://www.biblehistory.net/newsletter/Tattenai.htm Third (tentative) Conclusion Queen Vashti may have been a Chaldean, as Jewish legend has her being the daughter of King Belshazzar, the Chaldean. Quasi-historically, she may have been Queen Stateira. Zeresh may have been the daughter of the Trans-Euphrates governor, Tattenai. As stated earlier: There is yet more to be included further on concerning the arch-villain Haman. Further filling out Haman Apart from his alter ego guise as the former King Jehoiachin (Coniah), Haman (Aman) needs to be recognised as the former King Amon of Judah: King Amon’s descent into Aman (Haman) (6) King Amon’s descent into Aman (Haman) | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu Amon is clearly an Egyptian name, and I believe that he was given that name by pharaoh Necho, who took him, as Jehoahaz (another alter ego), a captive into Egypt. According to 2 Kings 23:34: “But [pharaoh] took Jehoahaz and carried him off to Egypt, and there he died”. I would query that he died there. And 2 Chronicles 36:4 says nothing about this: “But Necho took Eliakim’s brother Jehoahaz with him to Egypt”. A death in Egypt would destroy my linking of (Amon)/Jehoahaz with Haman. Haman was, as has been well argued, the Mehuman (Memukan) of the Book of Esther: Mehuman and Memukan of Esther 1 (6) Mehuman and Memukan of Esther 1 | Damien Mackey - Academia.edu