The name Xerxes does not appear in the Hebrew text of Scripture. However, it does appear throughout the book of Esther in the NIV and NASB. In the Hebrew text, the king’s name is Ahasuerus (preserved in the KJV and ESV). Nothing is known of a king named Ahasuerus from secular sources, and the names of all the Persian kings from this time period are known. Most commentators equate Esther’s king with Xerxes I (485–465 BC), son of Darius I, the fourth emperor of the Achaemenid Empire—thus the translation in some modern versions. (There is some evidence to show that the Hebrew name Ahasuerus can be easily derived from the Persian name.) The Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament) uses the name Artaxerxes, which further complicates the issue, for there were two Persian rulers by that name: Artaxerxes I (465–424 BC) and Artaxerxes II (404–359 BC).