Esther 2

The TorahRooted Bible (TRB), translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek.

The search for a new queen

¹ After these things, when the wrath of King Ahasuerus had subsided, he remembered Vashti, and what she had done, and what had been decreed against her. ² Then the king's young men who served him said, "Let young virgins, beautiful in appearance, be sought for the king. ³ And let the king appoint officers in all the provinces of his kingdom, that they may gather every young virgin beautiful in appearance to Susa the citadel, to the house of the women, into the custody of Hegai the king's eunuch, keeper of the women; and let their beauty preparations be given them. ⁴ And let the young woman who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti." And the thing pleased the king, and he did so.

Mordecai and Esther

⁵ There was a Jewish man in Susa the citadel whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, a Benjamite, ⁶ who had been carried away from Jerusalem with the captives who had been carried away with Jeconiah king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away. ⁷ And he was bringing up Hadassah, that is, Esther, his uncle's daughter, for she had neither father nor mother. The young woman was lovely in form and beautiful in appearance; and when her father and her mother died, Mordecai took her as his own daughter.

⁸ So it came to pass, when the king's word and his law were heard, and when many young women were gathered to Susa the citadel into the custody of Hegai, that Esther also was taken to the king's house, into the custody of Hegai, keeper of the women. ⁹ And the young woman pleased him and obtained kindness before him; and he hastened to give her her beauty preparations and her portions, and the seven young women chosen to be given her from the king's house; and he moved her and her young women to the best place in the house of the women. ¹⁰ Esther had not made known her people or her kindred, for Mordecai had commanded her not to make it known. ¹¹ And every day Mordecai walked before the court of the house of the women, to learn how Esther was and what was being done with her.

¹² Now when each young woman's turn came to go in to King Ahasuerus, after she had been twelve months under the law for the women (for so the days of their beautifying were completed: six months with oil of myrrh, and six months with spices and the women's beauty preparations), ¹³ then in this way the young woman came to the king: whatever she asked for was given her to take with her from the house of the women to the king's house. ¹⁴ In the evening she went in, and in the morning she returned to the second house of the women, into the custody of Shaashgaz, the king's eunuch, keeper of the concubines. She would not go in to the king again unless the king delighted in her and she was called by name.

Esther becomes queen

¹⁵ Now when the turn came for Esther, the daughter of Abihail the uncle of Mordecai, who had taken her as his daughter, to go in to the king, she asked for nothing except what Hegai the king's eunuch, the keeper of the women, advised. And Esther obtained favor in the eyes of all who saw her. ¹⁶ So Esther was taken to King Ahasuerus, into his royal house, in the tenth month, which is the month Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign. ¹⁷ And the king loved Esther more than all the women, and she obtained grace and kindness in his sight more than all the virgins; so he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti. ¹⁸ Then the king made a great feast for all his princes and his servants, Esther's feast; and he granted relief to the provinces and gave gifts according to the bounty of the king.

Mordecai uncovers a plot

¹⁹ And when the virgins were gathered together the second time, Mordecai was sitting in the king's gate. ²⁰ Esther had not made known her kindred or her people, as Mordecai had commanded her; for Esther did what Mordecai said, as when she was brought up by him. ²¹ In those days, while Mordecai was sitting in the king's gate, Bigthan and Teresh, two of the king's eunuchs, of those who guarded the threshold, became angry and sought to lay hands on King Ahasuerus. ²² And the matter became known to Mordecai, and he told it to Queen Esther, and Esther told the king in Mordecai's name. ²³ And when the matter was investigated and found to be so, they were both hanged on a gallows; and it was written in the book of the chronicles before the king.

Notes

• 2:5 Mordecai's name is generally linked with Marduk, the chief god of Babylon; Jews in exile often bore such names (compare Daniel 1:7). Administrative tablets of the Persian kings of this time name officials called Marduka, among them one connected with Susa; some identify him with Mordecai, but the name was common and this cannot be certain. Kish and Shimei were Benjamite names in the house of Saul (1 Samuel 9:1; 2 Samuel 16:5), and many read the line as tying Mordecai to Saul's family, which matters when Haman the Agagite appears (3:1).
• 2:6 The exile with Jeconiah, that is, King Jehoiachin, took place in 597 BC (2 Kings 24:12-16). The Hebrew "who had been carried away" may refer to Mordecai or to Kish, the last name in verse 5; since Mordecai lived under Xerxes more than a hundred years later, many understand it of Kish: the family went into exile in his day.
• 2:7 Hadassah comes from hadas, "myrtle." Esther is often explained from the Persian word for "star," and some connect it with the Babylonian goddess Ishtar; like Daniel, she bore both a Hebrew name and a foreign one. "His uncle's daughter" means she was Mordecai's cousin (verse 15). "Bringing up" is omen, from the same root as amen; verse 20 says she obeyed him as when she was "brought up" (omnah) by him.
• 2:16 Tebeth, the tenth month, falls about December-January. The seventh year of Xerxes was about 479 BC, four years after the feast of 1:3; Xerxes' campaign against Greece (480-479 BC), told by Herodotus, falls in those years, though Esther does not mention it.
• 2:23 "Gallows" is literally "tree" or "wood" (ets); see the note on 5:14. "The book of the chronicles" (divre hayyamim, "the words of the days") is the royal record; the deed is written down and then seemingly forgotten, until the night the king cannot sleep (6:1-2).

Esther 1 · Esther 3

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