ARROW. See ARMS. Divination with arrows was a method of presaging future events, practised by the ancients. Ezekiel, xxi, 21, informs us, that Nebuchadnezzar, putting himself at the head of his armies, to march against Zedekiah, king of the Jews, and against the king of the Ammonites, stood at the parting of two ways, to mingle his arrows together in a quiver, in order to divine from thence which way he should march. Jerom, Theodoret, and the modern commentators after them, believe that this prince took several arrows, and upon each of them wrote the name of the king, town, or province, which he was to attack: for example, upon one, Jerusalem; upon another, Rabbah, the capital of the Ammonites; and upon another, Egypt, &c. After having put these into a quiver, he shook them together, and then drew them out; and the arrow which was drawn was thought to declare the will of the gods to attack first that city, province, or kingdom, with whose name it was inscribed. ARTAXERXES, or AHASUERUS, a king of Persia, the husband of Esther, who, in the opinion of the learned Usher and Calmet, was the Darius of profane authors. See AHASUERUS. 2. ARTAXERXES LONGIMANUS is supposed by Dr. Prideaux to be the Ahasuerus of Esther. He was the son of Xerxes, and grandson of Darius Hystaspes, and reigned in Persia from the year of the world 3531 to 3579. He permitted Ezra, with all those inclined to follow him, to return into Judea, in the year of the world 3537, Ezra vii, viii. Afterward, Nehemiah also obtained leave to return, and to build the walls and gates of Jerusalem, in the year of the world 3550, Nehem. i, 11. From this year, chronologers reckon the beginning of Daniel’s seventy weeks, Daniel xi, 29. These are weeks of years, and make four hundred and ninety years. Dr. Prideaux, who discourses very copiously, and with great learning, on this prophecy, maintains that the decree mentioned in it for the restoring and rebuilding of Jerusalem, cannot be understood of that granted to Nehemiah, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes; but of that granted to Ezra, by the same Artaxerxes, in the seventh year of his reign. From that time to the death of Christ, are exactly four hundred and ninety years, to a month: for in the month Nisan the decree was granted to Ezra; and in the middle of the same month Nisan, Christ suffered, just four hundred and ninety years afterward.