Artaxerxes I was king of Persia from 464 to 424. His predecessor was Xerxes, known to Christian readers as Ahasuerus from the book of Esther. Artaxerxes first appears on the pages of Scripture in Ezra 4:7 when a letter of complaint concerning reconstruction efforts in Jerusalem was sent to him (Ezra 4:11–16). The king had issued a decree that all efforts of reconstruction should cease (Ezra 4:21). The present passage occurs some years later, in the twentieth year
of this king.
1 In the month of Nisan, in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was before him, I took up the wine and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad in his presence.