Esther 2
The King Seeks a New Queen 1–4
Introduction of Mordecai and Esther 5–11
The Year of Purification 12–16
Esther Is Crowned Queen 17–20
Mordecai Uncovers a Plot 21–23
Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · Public domain
Study Notes for Esther 2
Verse 1
the wrath… was appeased — Shakak is to subside, used of the flood waters that ‘asswaged’ (Gen 8:1); in Esther it occurs only here and at Haman’s hanging, when ‘the king’s wrath pacified’ (7:10). ‘What was decreed’ recalls the royal commandment of 1:19, ‘That Vashti come no more before king Ahasuerus’.
Verse 3
officers in all the provinces — ‘Officers’ is pakid, an overseer, as in Joseph’s counsel to Pharaoh, ‘let him appoint officers over the land’ (Gen 41:34). ‘Custody’ is literally ‘hand’ (yad): the women are put into the hand of Hege (Hegai in vv.8, 15), a saris, ‘keeper of the women’. Their ‘things for purification’ (tamruq) are described in v.12.
Verse 5
a certain Jew — ‘Jew’ is Yehudi, one of Judah, here said of a Benjamite. Kish and Shimei are names found in Saul’s family (1 Sam 9:1; 2 Sam 16:5). Haman, who rises against Mordecai, is ‘the Agagite’ (3:1), a name that points back to Agag, the Amalekite king whom Saul ‘took… alive’ (1 Sam 15:8).
Verse 6
carried away with Jeconiah — Galah is to go into exile, and golah the exiles as a body. Jeconiah is Jehoiachin (2 Kings 24:15), taken to Babylon with ‘the mighty of the land’. The LORD called that company good: ‘Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge them that are carried away captive of Judah’ (Jer 24:5).
Verse 7
Hadassah, that is, Esther — Hadassah is the feminine of hadas, the myrtle (Isa 41:19; 55:13). She bears two names, as Daniel did when ‘the prince of the eunuchs gave names’ (Dan 1:7). ‘Brought up’ is aman, to support or nurture, as a ‘nursing father’ carries a child (Num 11:12); Mordecai took her as his own daughter.
Verse 10
had not shewed her people — ‘Shewed’ is nagad, to tell; ‘kindred’ (moledet) is her birth and family. The silence rests on Mordecai’s charge (tsavah), still kept in v.20 and when Haman speaks of ‘a certain people’ (3:8). It ends when Esther asks, ‘let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request’ (7:3).
Verse 12
six months with oil of myrrh — The twelve months are six of mor, myrrh, and six of besamim, sweet odours. Myrrh is named first among the ‘principal spices’ of the ‘holy anointing oil’ (Ex 30:23–25). ‘Purifications’ is meruq, a rubbing or scouring; ‘turn’ (tor) occurs in Esther only here and in v.15.
Verse 14
the second house of the women — She went in the evening and returned ‘on the morrow’ to Shaashgaz, who ‘kept the concubines’. A pilegesh was a lawful secondary wife: Saul had Rizpah (2 Sam 3:7), and Solomon ‘three hundred concubines’ (1 Kings 11:3). She returned to the king only if he ‘delighted’ (chaphets) in her, the verb of Deut 21:14, and she were ‘called by name’.
Verse 15
obtained favour in the sight of all — In v.13 each maiden took whatever she desired; Esther ‘required nothing but what Hegai… appointed’. ‘Favour’ is chen, grace, the word of Gen 39:21, where the LORD ‘gave him favour in the sight of the keeper of the prison’ for Joseph. Her turn (tor) came after the twelve months of v.12.
Verse 16
the seventh year of his reign — The feast that preceded Vashti’s removal was ‘in the third year of his reign’ (1:3); Esther is taken to the royal house in the seventh, some four years later. ‘Taken’ is laqach, the verb Mordecai’s ‘took’ her in v.7. Tebeth, the tenth month, is named in Scripture only here.
Verse 20
as Mordecai had charged her — ‘Charged’ is tsavah, the verb of v.10: the silence has outlasted her crowning. ‘Commandment’ is ma’amar, the word of 1:15, where Vashti ‘hath not performed the commandment of the king’; Esther performs Mordecai’s. ‘Brought up’ (omnah, a rearing) occurs only here.
Verse 21
Bigthan and Teresh — They were chamberlains (saris) ‘which kept the door’, and ‘sought to lay hand on the king’. Their plot is the entry the king has read to him ‘on that night could not the king sleep’ (6:1–2), where Bigthan’s name is spelled ‘Bigthana’. Mordecai sits in the king’s gate again in 5:13.
Verse 23
hanged on a tree — ‘Tree’ is ets, wood, the word for the fifty-cubit ‘gallows’ of 5:14 and 7:9. Deut 21:23 calls one hanged on a tree ‘accursed of God’, which Paul applies to Christ: ‘Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree’ (Gal 3:13). The deed is written ‘in the book of the chronicles’; compare 10:2.