 A King Artaxerxes (, ) is described in the Bible as having commissioned Ezra, a kohen and scribe, by means of a letter of decree (see Cyrus's edict), to take charge of the ecclesiastical and civil affairs of the Jewish nation.Ezra thereby left Babylon in the first month of the seventh year of Artaxerxes' reign, at the head of a company of Jews that included priests and Levites.They arrived in Jerusalem on the first day of the fifth month of the seventh year according to the Hebrew calendar.