Xerxes and Ahasuerus

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Mar 16, 1915

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 42, No. 11.

Xerxes and Ahasuerus

Speaking of a relic of the time of Persian world supremacy, recently presented to the New York public library, a writer in the Scientific American says: “The name of Xerxes on the vase is of scarcely less interest, for Xerxes is no other than Ahasuerus, the husband of Queen Esther of the beautiful Bible story. . . . Many a scholar has claimed that of all the Persian kings, none bore the name of Ahasuerus. Xerxes was the Greek pronunciation of the name, with which we are familiar, but the pronunciation of the name as it was written in Babylonian characters upon the vase is Hi-shi-i-ar-sh-a. The apparent differences in the ancient names may be easily accounted for by a simple law of phonetics. Ahasuerus and Xerxes are the same, so scholars are now agreed.”