_,
_Ahasuerus_, and _Artaxerxes_, in continual order, as successors to one
another, and these names agree to _Cyrus_, *, _Darius Hystaspis_, _Xerxes_,
and _Artaxerxes Longimanus_, and to no other Kings of _Persia_: some take
this _Artaxerxes_ to be not the Successor, but the Predecessor of _Darius
Hystaspis_, not considering that in his Reign the _Jews_ were busy in
building the City and the Wall, _Ezra_ iv. 12. and by consequence had
finished the Temple before. _Ezra_ describes first how the people of the
land hindered the building of the Temple all the days of _Cyrus_, and
further, untill the Reign of _Darius_; and after the Temple was built, how
they hindered the building of the city in the Reign of _Ahasuerus_ and
_Artaxerxes_, and then returns back to the story of the Temple in the Reign
of _Cyrus_ and _Darius_; and this is confirmed by comparing the book of
_Ezra_ with the book of _Esdras_: for if in the book of _Ezra_ you omit the
story of _Ahasuerus_ and _Artaxerxes_, and in that of _Esdras_ you omit the
same story of _Artaxerxes_, and that of the three wise men, the two books
will agree: and therefore the book of _Esdras_, if you except the story of
the three wise men, was originally copied from authentic writings of Sacred
Authority. Now the story of _Artaxerxes_, which, with that of _Ahasuerus_,
in the book of _Ezra_ interrupts the story of _Darius_, doth not interrupt
it in the book of _Esdras_, but is there inferred into the story of
_Cyrus_, between the first and second chapter of _Ezra_; and all the rest
of the story of _Cyrus_, and that of _Darius_, is told in the book of
_Esdras_ in continual order, without any interruption: so that the _Darius_
which in the book of _Ezra_ precedes _Ahasuerus_ and _Artaxerxes_, and the
_Darius_ which in the same book follows them, is, by the book of _Esdras_,
one and the same _Darius_; and I take the book of _Esdras_ to be the best
interpreter of the book of _Ezra_: so the _Darius_ mentioned between
_Cyrus_ and _Ahasuerus_, is _Darius Hysaspis_; and therefore _Ahasuerus_
and _Artaxerxes_ who succeed him, are _Xerxes_ and _Artaxerxes Longimanus_;
and the _Jews_ who came up from _Artaxerxes_ to _Jerusalem_, and began to
build the city and the wall, _Ezra_ iv. 13. are _Ezra_ with his companions:
which being understood, the history of the _Jews_ in the Reign of these
Kings will be as follows.

After the Temple was built, and _Darius Hystaspis_ was dead, the enemies of
the _J