Esther 2: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

After King Ahasuerus's anger has passed, his servants propose a search through the empire for beautiful young women to replace Queen Vashti, and the king agrees. Mordecai, a Jew living in Susa who was taken from Jerusalem in the exile, has raised his cousin Esther as his own daughter, and she is brought into the king's harem, where she wins the favor of Hegai and hides her people on Mordecai's orders. The king chooses Esther above all the others and crowns her queen. Sitting at the king's gate, Mordecai learns of a plot by two royal guards against the king, reports it through Esther, and the plot is investigated and the men executed.

Claim by Claim

1. 2:1
   • After these events the anger of King Ahasuerus subsided.
   • The king remembered Vashti.
   • The king remembered what Vashti had done.
   • The king remembered what had been decreed against Vashti.
2. 2:2
   • The king's young men who served him spoke to him.
   • They proposed that beautiful young virgins be sought for the king.
3. 2:3
   • They proposed that the king appoint officers in all the provinces of his kingdom.
   • The officers were to gather every beautiful young virgin to the citadel of Susa.
   • The young women were to be gathered to the house of the women.
   • The young women were to be placed under the charge of Hegai, the king's eunuch, who kept the women.
   • They proposed that the young women be given their cosmetic treatments.
4. 2:4
   • They proposed that the young woman who pleased the king should reign in place of Vashti.
   • The proposal pleased the king.
   • The king did as proposed.
5. 2:5
   • There was a Jewish man in the citadel of Susa.
   • His name was Mordecai.
   • Mordecai was the son of Jair.
   • Jair was the son of Shimei.
   • Shimei was the son of Kish.
   • Mordecai was a Benjamite.
6. 2:6
   • Mordecai had been carried into exile from Jerusalem.
   • He was carried away with the group of exiles taken with Jeconiah king of Judah.
   • Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried them into exile.
7. 2:7
   • Mordecai was raising Hadassah.
   • Hadassah is Esther.
   • Esther was the daughter of Mordecai's uncle.
   • Esther had no father and no mother.
   • The young woman was beautiful in form.
   • The young woman was beautiful in appearance.
   • When Esther's father and mother died, Mordecai took her to himself as a daughter.
8. 2:8
   • The king's command and his decree were heard.
   • Many young women were gathered to the citadel of Susa under the charge of Hegai.
   • Esther was taken to the king's house.
   • Esther was placed under the charge of Hegai, keeper of the women.
9. 2:9
   • The young woman pleased Hegai.
   • She gained his favor.
   • He quickly gave her her cosmetic treatments.
   • He quickly gave her her portions of food.
   • He gave her seven chosen young women from the king's house.
   • He moved her and her young women to the best part of the house of the women.
10. 2:10
    • Esther did not disclose her people.
    • Esther did not disclose her kindred.
    • Mordecai had commanded her not to disclose it.
11. 2:11
    • Mordecai walked every day in front of the court of the house of the women.
    • He did this to learn how Esther was.
    • He did this to learn what was being done to her.
12. 2:12
    • Each young woman had a turn to go in to King Ahasuerus.
    • A young woman's turn came at the end of twelve months under the regulation for the women.
    • The days of their beauty treatments were completed in that time.
    • Six months of the treatment were with oil of myrrh.
    • Six months of the treatment were with spices and with cosmetics for women.
13. 2:13
    • This is how each young woman came to the king.
    • Whatever she asked for was given to her to take with her from the house of the women to the king's house.
14. 2:14
    • The young woman went in during the evening.
    • In the morning she returned to a second house of the women.
    • She returned to the charge of Shaashgaz, the king's eunuch, who kept the concubines.
    • She would not go in to the king again unless the king delighted in her and she was summoned by name.
15. 2:15
    • Esther was the daughter of Abihail, Mordecai's uncle.
    • Mordecai had taken Esther to himself as a daughter.
    • Esther's turn came to go in to the king.
    • Esther asked for nothing except what Hegai, the king's eunuch, keeper of the women, said.
    • Esther gained favor in the eyes of all who saw her.
16. 2:16
    • Esther was taken to King Ahasuerus into his royal house.
    • This happened in the tenth month, the month Tebeth.
    • This happened in the seventh year of his reign.
17. 2:17
    • The king loved Esther more than all the women.
    • She gained grace and favor before him more than all the virgins.
    • The king set a royal crown on her head.
    • The king made her queen in place of Vashti.
18. 2:18
    • The king made a great feast for all his officials and servants.
    • The feast was called Esther's feast.
    • The king granted a remission to the provinces.
    • The king gave gifts with royal liberality.
19. 2:19
    • The virgins were gathered a second time.
    • Mordecai was sitting in the king's gate.
20. 2:20
    • Esther had not disclosed her kindred or her people.
    • Mordecai had commanded her not to disclose it.
    • Esther did what Mordecai said.
    • Esther obeyed Mordecai as she had when she was being raised by him.
21. 2:21
    • In those days Mordecai was sitting in the king's gate.
    • Bigthan and Teresh, two of the king's eunuchs, became angry.
    • Bigthan and Teresh were guardians of the threshold.
    • They sought to lay hands on King Ahasuerus.
22. 2:22
    • The matter became known to Mordecai.
    • Mordecai told it to Queen Esther.
    • Esther told the king in Mordecai's name.
23. 2:23
    • The matter was investigated.
    • The matter was found to be true.
    • Both men were hanged on a tree.
    • It was written in the book of the chronicles in the king's presence.

Words Worth Explaining

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

2:1

Ahasuerus is the Hebrew form of the name the Greeks wrote as Xerxes; he ruled the Persian Empire from about 486 to 465 BC. Vashti was his queen, removed from her position at a banquet in chapter 1 after she refused to appear before the king's guests.

2:2

"Fair" in the King James Version means beautiful; it says nothing about skin or hair color. The women were being collected for the king's harem, the household of wives and concubines that a Persian king kept, so this is a royal round-up rather than a marriage proposal.

2:3

The word translated "officer" (King James "chamberlain") is the Hebrew *saris*, which normally means a eunuch, a castrated man. Persian courts used such men to supervise the royal women's quarters, since they could not father children by them. The Persian Empire was divided into provinces, each with its own governor; chapter 1 counts 127 of them, stretching from India to Cush (Nubia, south of Egypt). Susa, in what is now south-western Iran, was one of the Persian kings' capitals; the "fortress city" or citadel was the fortified royal quarter, distinct from the ordinary town below it.

2:5

"Jewish" here means descended from the people of Judah, the southern Israelite kingdom, whose leading families had been deported to Babylon; by this time their descendants were scattered across the Persian Empire. The names in Mordecai's family line are pointed: Kish was the father of Saul, Israel's first king, and Shimei was a kinsman of Saul's who cursed David. The genealogy places Mordecai in Saul's tribe and family line, which matters later when his enemy Haman is introduced as an Agagite, Agag being the Amalekite king Saul was told to destroy.

2:6

Jeconiah (also called Jehoiachin) was king of Judah for three months before Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon captured Jerusalem in 597 BC and deported him along with the nobility and skilled classes. That is more than a century before the seventh year of Xerxes, so the Hebrew is usually read as meaning that Mordecai's ancestor Kish was the one carried off, though the sentence as written could also be read as saying Mordecai himself was.

2:7

Hadassah is a Hebrew name meaning "myrtle," a fragrant evergreen shrub. Esther is her Persian court name; it may come from a Persian word for "star" or be connected to the name of the Babylonian goddess Ishtar. Double names, one from the home community and one for public life, were common among Jews under foreign rule. "His uncle's daughter" means she was his cousin.

2:8

"Esther was brought" translates a plain Hebrew verb meaning taken or fetched. The text gives no hint that the young women applied or agreed; officers gathered them under a royal decree.

2:9

The "special food" is a fixed daily allowance of provisions from the royal kitchens, a mark of status in the household, not just a meal.

2:10

"Her people" means the Jews. "Her kindred" means the family she came from. The book does not say why Mordecai told her to keep this quiet.

2:11

Men were not allowed inside the women's house. Walking back and forth outside the courtyard was the only way Mordecai could pick up news about Esther.

2:12

Myrrh is a fragrant gum resin from a desert shrub, imported from southern Arabia and East Africa and expensive; steeped in oil it was used as a skin treatment and perfume.

2:14

A concubine was a woman attached to a man's household as a secondary wife: recognized and provided for, but with lower rank than a wife and with children who did not normally inherit. A king's concubine could not marry anyone else, so a woman who was not summoned again spent the rest of her life in this second household.

2:15

"She required nothing" means she asked for nothing, not that she demanded nothing. Where the other women could take whatever finery they wanted, Esther trusted the judgment of the man who knew the king's taste. "Obtained favour" means people liked her and thought well of her.

2:16

Tebeth is the tenth month of the Babylonian-Jewish calendar, falling in late December and January. The seventh year of Xerxes' reign is about 479 BC, some four years after Vashti was removed, and shortly after Xerxes returned from his failed invasion of Greece.

2:18

The Hebrew word behind "lifted the burden of taxes" simply means a release or letting-go. It may mean a remission of taxes or of forced labor service, or an amnesty for prisoners, or a public holiday; the text does not specify which, and translators differ.

2:19

The city gate was where officials sat to hear cases and conduct public business, so "sitting at the king's gate" indicates that Mordecai held some post in the royal administration, not that he happened to be sitting there. What the second gathering of young women was is unclear, the Hebrew gives no explanation, and this is one of the book's genuinely obscure lines.

2:21

"Chamberlains" again means eunuchs, here palace officials serving as door guards, close enough to the king to reach him. "Sought to lay hand on" is King James English for plotting to assassinate. This was a real hazard, not a storyteller's invention: Xerxes was in fact murdered in 465 BC by members of his own court.

2:22

"Giving Mordecai the credit" translates "in Mordecai's name": she reported it as his discovery, which is why his name enters the royal record in the next verse.

2:23

The Hebrew says they were hung on a tree or wooden pole. Persian practice was usually impalement on a stake, or the display of the corpse afterwards, rather than hanging by the neck as later readers picture it. The "book of official records" is the Persian royal annals, the court's own daily record of business, not the biblical books of Chronicles.