1 Esdras 3: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

King Darius holds a great feast for his household and the officials of his empire, and afterward he sleeps and soon wakes. Three young men of his bodyguard agree that each will write down what he thinks is strongest, and they place their writings under the king's pillow, with rich gifts and a place beside the king promised to the winner. Their answers are wine, the king, and women, with truth above all. Darius reads the writings, gathers his officials in the seat of judgment, and calls the young men in to explain, and the first speaks about the strength of wine.

Claim by Claim

1. 3:1
   • Darius reigned as king.
   • Darius made a great feast for all his subjects.
   • Darius made the feast for all those of his household.
   • Darius made the feast for all the princes of Media and Persia.
2. 3:2
   • The feast was also for all the governors, captains, and lieutenants under Darius.
   • Those under him extended from India to Ethiopia.
   • There were a hundred and twenty-seven provinces.
3. 3:3
   • They ate and drank.
   • When they were satisfied they went home.
   • King Darius went into his bedchamber.
   • Darius slept.
   • Darius awoke soon afterward.
4. 3:4
   • Three young men of the guard that kept the king's body spoke to one another.
5. 3:5
   • One of them proposed that each of them speak one statement.
   • The one who overcomes, whose statement seems wiser than the others', will be rewarded.
   • King Darius will give that man great gifts.
   • King Darius will give that man great things in token of victory.
6. 3:6
   • The winner will be clothed in purple.
   • The winner will drink from gold.
   • The winner will sleep upon gold.
   • The winner will have a chariot with bridles of gold.
   • The winner will have a headtire of fine linen.
   • The winner will have a chain about his neck.
7. 3:7
   • The winner will sit next to Darius because of his wisdom.
   • The winner will be called the cousin of Darius.
8. 3:8
   • Each of them wrote his statement.
   • Each sealed his writing.
   • They laid the writings under King Darius's pillow.
9. 3:9
   • They said that when the king rose, someone would give him the writings.
   • They said the king and the three princes of Persia would judge whose statement was wisest.
   • They said the victory would be given to the one so judged.
   • They said this would be done as had been appointed.
10. 3:10
    • The first wrote that wine is the strongest.
11. 3:11
    • The second wrote that the king is strongest.
12. 3:12
    • The third wrote that women are strongest.
    • The third wrote that above all things truth carries off the victory.
13. 3:13
    • The king rose up.
    • They took the writings.
    • They delivered the writings to the king.
    • The king read the writings.
14. 3:14
    • The king sent out and summoned all the princes of Persia and Media.
    • The king summoned the governors.
    • The king summoned the captains.
    • The king summoned the lieutenants.
    • The king summoned the chief officers.
15. 3:15
    • The king sat down in the royal seat of judgment.
    • The writings were read before them.
16. 3:16
    • The king said to call the young men.
    • The king said the young men would declare their own statements.
    • The young men were called.
    • The young men came in.
17. 3:17
    • The king told them to declare their mind concerning the writings.
    • The first began to speak.
    • The first was the one who had spoken of the strength of wine.
18. 3:18
    • He asked how exceedingly strong wine is.
    • He addressed his hearers as men.
    • He said wine causes all men who drink it to go astray.
19. 3:19
    • He said wine makes the mind of the king and of the fatherless child to be the same.
    • He said wine makes the mind of the bondman and of the freeman to be the same.
    • He said wine makes the mind of the poor man and of the rich to be the same.
20. 3:20
    • He said wine turns every thought into jollity and mirth.
    • He said a drinker remembers no sorrow.
    • He said a drinker remembers no debt.
21. 3:21
    • He said wine makes every heart rich.
    • He said a drinker remembers neither king nor governor.
    • He said wine makes men speak of everything in talents.
22. 3:22
    • He said that when men are in their cups they forget their love toward friends and brethren.
    • He said that a little afterward they draw out swords.
23. 3:23
    • He said that when they come out of the wine they do not remember what they have done.
24. 3:24
    • He asked whether wine is not the strongest, since it forces men to act this way.
    • When he had spoken, he fell silent.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

3:1

Darius is Darius I, king of Persia from 522 to 486 BC. The story of the three young bodyguards and their contest, which fills this chapter and the next, is found only in 1 Esdras; the parallel accounts in Ezra and Nehemiah have nothing like it.

3:2

"Ethiopia" in the King James Bible means the land south of Egypt, along the upper Nile, and not the modern country of that name. India to Ethiopia was a stock phrase for the whole reach of the Persian empire, east to west, and the figure of a hundred and twenty-seven provinces is the same one used in Esther 1:1. The King James "lieutenants" means deputy officials, civil administrators standing in for a higher officer, not a military rank.

3:4

The royal bodyguard of Persia was not hired muscle. Its members were young men of rank who ate and slept near the king and had direct access to him, which is why three of them can plausibly put a wager in front of the throne.

3:5

"Sentence" in 1611 English means a considered opinion or a saying worth weighing, closer to a verdict or a maxim than to a unit of grammar. The contest is to name the one thing that is strongest and defend the claim.

3:6

Purple cloth was dyed with a secretion from murex shellfish, so costly that the color itself marked out royalty and those the king chose to favor. Gold drinking cups, a gold bed, gold-fitted harness, a linen turban and a gold collar around the neck were the standard package of Persian royal honors; compare Daniel 5:29, where Belshazzar rewards Daniel with purple and a gold chain.

3:7

"Darius his cousin" is old English for "Darius's cousin." The title itself, Kinsman of the King, was a formal rank at the Persian court, granted as an honor to a small circle of high nobles; it did not require actual blood relation.

3:8

Each man pressed his personal signet into wax or clay over the folded writing. A broken seal would show tampering, and an unbroken one kept the authorship hidden until the writings were opened in public.

3:9

The three princes of Persia are the king's highest counselors, who would sit with him as judges. "As was appointed" means according to the terms the young men had already fixed between themselves.

3:10

Wine is a drink made from grapes. Drinking a lot of it makes people drunk.

3:12

"Beareth away the victory" is the language of the games: to carry off the winner's prize. Note that the third man has written two answers where the others wrote one, and the second of them is what the rest of the story turns on.

3:15

The royal seat of judgment is the throne used for hearing cases. Sitting in it turned a private curiosity into a formal session of the court, with the empire's officials assembled as witnesses.

3:18

"O ye men" translates a Greek form of address to a public assembly, roughly "gentlemen" or "my lords." The Greek behind "causeth all men to err" means to lead astray, to send off the road, rather than to make a mistake in reasoning.

3:19

The pairs run from the top of society to the bottom: the king against the orphan, who had no father to defend his interests in court and was proverbially the most defenseless person in the community, then slave against free, poor against rich. Naming both ends is a way of saying everyone in between.

3:21

A talent was the largest unit of weight used for money, roughly seventy-five pounds of silver, a fortune far beyond ordinary reckoning. To "speak all things by talents" is to talk in figures that huge, the boasting of a drunk man for whom every sum has swollen out of proportion.

3:22

"Brothers" here means relatives in general, not only the brothers a man grew up with. In the King James it is "brethren."