Chapter Two
1–4. The counsel of the king’s courtiers to proceed to the selection of a new queen. 5–7. Information about Mordecai and Esther. 8–15. Esther in the harem of Artaxerxes. 16–18. Esther as queen. 19–23. Mordecai and the conspirators.
Esther 2:1. After this, when the wrath of King Artaxerxes had subsided, he remembered Vashti and what she had done, and what had been decreed against her. Esther 2:2. And the servants of the king, who attended upon him, said: Let there be sought for the king young maidens, fair to look upon, “He,” that is, Artaxerxes, “remembered Vashti.” This was no ordinary remembrance. A feeling of pity for his removed wife and an emotional void gnawed at the king; this makes wholly natural and understandable the counsel which “the servants of the king, who attended upon him” (that is, his closest courtiers) consider it necessary to give, in order to cure the king of the tormenting and unwelcome “remembrance.”
Esther 2:5. There was in Susa, the capital city, a Jew named Mordecai, son of Jair, son of Shimei, son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin. Esther 2:6. He had been taken into exile from Jerusalem along with the captives who were carried away with Jeconiah, king of Judah, by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. Some commentators have tried to establish the age of Mordecai on the basis of these verses. Taking the words Esth 2 to refer to Mordecai, they believed that Mordecai was taken into exile from Jerusalem in the time of Jeconiah, that is, in 599 BC, and reckoned him to be now over one hundred twenty years old. Other commentators more probably referred the date of the sixth verse not to Mordecai but to the last-mentioned ancestor of Mordecai before this—Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin, the grandfather of Mordecai. In support of this, they point also to the name of Mordecai itself—Babylonian, not Palestinian, which apparently suggests that Mordecai was born in Babylon.
Esther 2:7. And he was foster father to Hadassah, that is, Esther, the daughter of his uncle, for she had neither father nor mother. And this maiden was beautiful in form and lovely to look upon. And when her father and mother died, Mordecai took her to himself as his own daughter. The Hebrew name of Esther is Hadassah, which means “myrtle.” The Persian meaning of the name Esther is “star.” She was “the daughter of his uncle,” that is, she was his cousin (cf. Esth 2:15).
Esther 2:10. Esther did not make known her people or her kindred, for Mordecai had charged her that she should not make it known. By the command of Mordecai, Esther does not reveal to anyone either “her people or her kindred.” This precaution makes it clear that the Jews even then had to reckon with prejudice against them; all the more so, as a captive people, they only rarely managed to gain the confidence and favor of the higher classes, and especially at court.
Esther 2:18. And the king made a great feast for all his princes and his servants,—a feast for Esther,—and he remitted taxes to the provinces and gave gifts with royal liberality. “A feast for Esther,” אֵת מִשְׁתֵּה אֶסְתֵּר—more literally: “by the feast of Esther,” that is, more precisely (in consecutive order): “following Esther’s feast (nuptial),” the king held another feast.
Esther 2:19. And when the maidens were gathered together a second time, and Mordecai was sitting at the king’s gate, “When the maidens were gathered together a second time,” this is precisely the time that was just mentioned, and in which from all the maidens Esther was chosen as a replacement for Vashti. After the selection of Esther, there was no need for any further gathering of maidens. This gathering was “second” in distinction from the former (first), in which Vashti was once chosen, as maidens were gathered for the king at all whenever it was necessary to choose a queen. The second gathering of the maidens and the happy change in Esther’s fate, which made her queen, brought about a change also in Mordecai’s position. He “now sat at the king’s gate,” that is, he became one of the royal officials, owing to the fact that, while keeping her Jewishness secret, Esther did not hide her foster relationship to Mordecai.
Esther 2:21. At that time, as Mordecai sat at the king’s gate, two of the king’s eunuchs, Gabatha and Tharra, who guarded the threshold, became angry and plotted to lay hands on King Artaxerxes. Esther 2:22. Learning of this, Mordecai told Queen Esther, and Esther reported it to the king in the name of Mordecai. Esther 2:23. The matter was investigated and found to be true, and both of them were hanged on a gallows. And it was recorded in the book of the chronicles before the king about the kindness of Mordecai. “Who guarded the threshold”: designation of a special office of those closest to the king; what precisely this office consisted of is not known. The circumstances of the conspiracy, the names of the conspirators, and other details in general present all the same things as are repeated in Addition 1 to the book (Esth 1:0m-0r). The difference is only that—according to the meaning of the addition—Mordecai’s reward, besides gifts, was also some special advancement to the palace, different from what he already had since the elevation of Esther to the position of queen; whereas—according to the meaning of the main text of the book (in this place)—there was only “recorded in the book of the chronicles before the king about the kindness of Mordecai” (cf. Esth 6:3). The latter representation of the matter seems to harmonize better with the main text and makes the use of the conspiracy unnecessary for explaining Mordecai’s advancement to the royal court, the success of which itself presupposes already a closeness of Mordecai to court life, which is sufficiently justified by his closeness to his foster daughter, the queen. Besides, Esth 8:1 seems to suggest that Mordecai’s initial advancement to the court was not directly connected either with his relationship to Esther, unknown to anyone at that time, nor with the conspiracy, which brought nothing special to Mordecai and presupposes already a sufficient closeness of Mordecai to the king.