additions to that book every where call the husband of Esther Artaxerxes; and he could be no other than Artaxerxes Longimanus. The extraordinary favour shown to the Jews by this king, first in sending Ezra, and afterward Nehemiah, to relieve this people, and restore them to their ancient prosperity, affords strong presumptive evidence that they had near his person and high in his regard such an advocate as Esther. Ahasuerus is also a name given in Scripture, Ezra iv, 6, to Cambyses, the son of Cyrus; and to Astyages, king of the Medes, Dan. ix, 1. AHAVA. The name of a river of Babylonia, or rather of Assyria, where Ezra assembled those captives whom he afterward brought into Judea, Ezra viii, 15. The river Ahava is thought to be that which ran along the Adabene, where a river Diava, or Adiava, is mentioned, and on which Ptolemy places the city Abane or Aavane. This is probably the country called Ava, whence the kings of Assyria translated the people called Avites into Palestine, and where they settled some of the captive Israelites, 2 Kings xvii, 24; xviii, 34; xix, 13; xvii, 31. Ezra, intending to collect as many Israelites as he could, who might return to Judea, halted in the country of Ava, or Aahava, whence he sent agents into the Caspian mountains, to invite such Jews as were willing to join him, Ezra viii, 16. The history of Izates, king of the Adiabenians, and of his mother Helena, who became converts to Judaism some years after the death of Jesus Christ, sufficiently proves that there were many Jews still settled in that country. AHAZ succeeded his father Jotham, as king of Israel, at the age of twenty years, reigned till the year before Christ, 726, and addicted himself to the practice of idolatry. After the customs of the Heathen, he made his children to pass through fire; he shut up the temple, and destroyed its vessels. He became tributary to Tiglath-pileser, whose assistance he supplicated against the kings of Syria and Israel. Such was his impiety, that he was not allowed burial in the sepulchres of the kings of Israel, 2 Kings xvi; 2 Chron. xxviii.