Artaxerxes

AI summary: Artaxerxes matters because the cross references present him as the ruler whose authorization enables major phases of post-exilic restoration. Through his decrees and favor, Ezra is able to return with legal and cultic authority, and Nehemiah receives permission to rebuild Jerusalem's walls. He is not depicted as a covenant participant, but as a foreign monarch whose decisions materially shape the future of God's people. Taken together, the material presents Artaxerxes as a key imperial figure through whom restoration advances in concrete political terms.¹

The king mentioned in Ezra 7:1, in the seventh year (B.C. 458) of whose reign Ezra led a second colony of Jews back to Jerusalem, was probably Longimanus, who reigned for forty years (B.C. 464-425); the grandson of Darius, who, fourteen years later, permitted Nehemiah to return and rebuild Jerusalem. ³