Deeper Commentary

Esther 2:1 After these things, when the wrath of King Ahasuerus was pacified, he remembered Vashti and what she had done, and what was decreed against her- The LXX reverses this: "he no more mentioned Astin, bearing in mind what she had said, and how he had condemned her". This is perhaps painting a picture of the king as generally living for the moment and forgetting the past and its implications. It would explain why he agrees to Haman's request in an irresponsible manner, forgetting that his servant Mordecai was a Jew. And it fits with his forgetting of how Mordecai had saved him from assassination, and he had forgotten to reward him.

Esther 2:2 Then the king’s servants who served him said, Let beautiful young virgins be sought for the king- As explained on :1, he had forgotten the whole issue with Vashti, perhaps because he was drunk for many days whilst it was all going on (Esther 1:10). He likely had many wives and concubines and may literally have forgotten about the whole business. He is now as it were reminded by his servants of his publicized intention to replace Vashti, as if he needed to get on with it. The long period of time in the program for finding a replacement for her (:12), five years after Vashti was fired (:16), would suggest that he had many wives and was not seeking as it were a singular wife; it was just one of his wives who was being replaced by another.

Esther 2:3 Let the king appoint officers in all the provinces of his kingdom, that they may gather together all the beautiful young virgins to the citadel of Susa, to the women’s house, to the custody of Hegai the king’s eunuch, keeper of the women. Let cosmetics be given them- This house of the women and "keeper of the women" would suggest that Vashti was far from his only wife / queen and he had a special harem of women. The prospect of being chosen was hardly appealing, surely. There was at least a four year gap between Vashti being demoted [or executed] and the new queen being chosen (Esther 1:3 cp. 2:16). It seems for much of this time, the king was away fighting Greece. The number of nights he spent in Susa was perhaps no more than say 800. And did he have sex every night? We could guess that around 500 girls were used. If they weren't chosen after their one night with the king, they entered the house of the concubines, not allowed to ever marry again, probably never having children of their own, and condemned to living together with a few hundred other loser women who had likewise failed to impress. Both Artaxerxes and Darius III are said to have had such harems of 360 concubines. The job of Hegai was to pander to the king's sexual preferences. He would have been little more than a pimp for the king. And the excessively proud king was a man who when drunk asked his wife to strip for the guests [for women were always veiled in public, and so to display her beauty would have meant removing her modest public clothing]. His princes / advisors all had to become eunuchs, i.e. he had had them castrated (see on Esther 1:10). And he had a law that if his wife came to see him uninvited, he might have her beheaded. Esther would be secluded from the outside world, to the extent that she didn't even know of Haman's decree and had to communicate with Mordecai through Hatach her servant. Being Queen of Persia was an awful life for the woman. It would be every good father's worst nightmare for his daughter to be sucked into such a situation with such a man, let alone in all the ritzy idolatrous pomp of a Gentile court- which was perhaps abusing Yahweh's temple vessels in their orgies. Clearly the king was an alcoholic (see on Esther 1:7); not a great choice for a son in law. He had major anger issues; Herodotus gives many examples, like him commanding his soldiers to whip the sea because a storm had destroyed a bridge. And yet Mordecai we can assume pushes Esther forward, knowing all this.  For virgins were kept at home and all discussion about their marriage was strictly through the father. We are mistaken to imagine pretty young women serving behind shop counters or going around in life displaying their beauty and being noticed. That's not how it was; virgins were kept veiled and at home. This wasn't life on a council estate. The appeal for candidates to be Queen would have been responded to by fathers, not the girls. Mordecai lived in Shushan and the girls were brought to Shushan- and it seems we are meant to understand that he pushed her forward into the contest, even though the candidates were specifically not to be from Shushan. There were 30 - 50 million people in the Persian empire, and candidates were being sought for the role of queen, not simply a sex object. So the idea of beauty contests being held throughout the empire is mythical. Men in power put their daughters forward. And this was set up as a sex show, not a beauty pageant. She only had at best a 1:500 chance of being chosen. Quite possibly she was given the name "Esther" after becoming queen, a form of Astarte, goddess of sex. She was trained for her one night chance by Hegai, sexual advisor to the candidates. The whole thing is of the flesh and not spiritual. And Mordecai paces outside the palace so anxious Esther win the contest. There were massive chances of her being left a miserable, rejected, childless, kept woman, losing her freedom in the house of the concubines. Mordecai presents as extremely weak in wanting to risk Esther for this. He hardly presents as loving her. He should surely have known anyway that marriage to a Gentile pagan and sex outside of marriage was sinful, let alone sex of this nature- a man sleeping with hundreds of women, the vast majority of whom he knew he wouldn't marry. And yet through this great act of weakness, coupled with his stubborn cultural insistence on displaying his traditional Judaism by not bowing to Haman, God brought about His peoples' salvation, through such weak vessels. And this is the abiding wonder of it all. The weak Mordecai is presented in Esther 9,10 as the equivalent of a Joseph or Daniel, exalted to greatness amongst the Gentiles; from which position he brought blessing to God's people. And yet he and Esther had refused the calls to return to the land under Cyrus, and instead had remained in the pagan pomp of Persia. But God worked through even that, and the story was to spiritually encourage the many other Jews who were in Mordecai and Esther's position.

Esther 2:4 and let the maiden who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti. The thing pleased the king, and he did so- Again the king is being nudged towards realizing that he is not sovereign and all wise and powerful, as he was addressed. He did the word of an adviser, who came up with a plan he didn't conceive; and this is a repeat of the lesson given to him in Esther 1:21 when again he is obedient to the words of others. He was being prepared to agree to do the words of Esther and Mordecai later. And God likewise works with people today, using one situation or experience to prepare them for another.

Esther 2:5 There was a certain Jew in the citadel of Susa, whose name was Mordecai, son of Jair, son of Shimei, son of Kish a Benjamite- Mordecai is a take on 'Marduk', whose temple had been rebuilt by Cyrus. Instead of responding to the decree of Cyrus for Jews to return home, Mordecai had instead gone with the flow of assimilating to Cyrus' religion. So much of later Isaiah is taken up with mockery and criticism of the Babylonian gods and the Marduk cult. The book of Esther, with Mordecai as the joint hero, named as he was after Marduk, demonstrates how caught up were the Jews with the Babylonian gods. Ezekiel repeatedly reveals the idolatry of the captives. Isaiah was therefore an appeal for the Jews to quit the Marduk cult and believe in the radical prophecies about the overthrow of Babylon. We know from Ez. 8, Jer. 44 and Zech. 5 that many Jews had accepted the idols of their Babylonian conquerors, rather like Ahaz did after his defeat by Assyria (2 Kings 16:10). The spirit of ridiculing the idolatry of Babylon whilst living in it, waiting the call to leave, is so relevant to modern Christians working, living and waiting in latter day Babylon. Mordecai was a descendant of the family of Saul; he isn't presented as a particularly spiritual man to start with. The fact he worked in the palace also indicates that, seeing he would have to go along with much paganism to do his job. If the LXX is correct, he sacrificed his own intended wife because he loved the idea of having power and prestige more than he did his wife. Again, not a very spiritual impression.

The Biblical character Shimei was the one who cursed David and supported his overthrow. The Shimei mentioned here was either the same person, or someone named in his honour. Immediately we don't get a positive spiritual impression of Mordecai's ancestry- nor Esther's, who was related to the same line. "Kish" likewise suggests Saul's father. Haman was an Agagite, and Saul had had war and victory against the Agagites. So again we see how from the get go, the higher hand of God was involved, repeating history.

Esther 2:6 who had been carried away from Jerusalem with the captives who had been carried away with Jeconiah king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away- Note the triple repetition of "carried away". This is to set up the similarity but spiritual contrast with Daniel who is described in the same way. "Who had been carried away"  grammatically has a relative pronoun that should refer to Mordecai, not Kish. If Mordecai was one of the captives carried away, this means he was either a very old man, or the "Ahasuerus" of the story is a name for one of the early kings of Persia during the exile. We note that those taken captive with Jeconiah were the ruling classes (2 Kings 24:15).  Possibly the reference of "Who had been carried away" is to Kish, making him a fourth generation exile. But the logical reference is to Mordecai himself. At this time, he is established in the kingdom, and the exiled Jews are wealthy. So we are now some way into the exile. If he had been carried away captive, this would make him an old man, and his intention to raise the virgin Esther as his wife (:7 LXX) presents him as somewhat perverted. And yet it was this dysfunctional family that God chose to use to save His people. Not an Ezra or Nehemiah, but a man like Mordecai. And it is he who out of left field, in spiritual terms, is so highly exalted. Esther 2:5 introduces him as “a man, a Judean” ('ish Yehudi). This very phrase is found in Zech. 8:23: “In those days ten men from the nations of every tongue shall take hold of the robe of a man, a Judean ('ish Yehudi), saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you’”. And that happened in that “many peoples (nations) from the land declared themselves Jews, for fear of the Jews had fallen on them” (Esther 8:17).

Esther 2:7 He brought up Hadassah, that is, Esther, his uncle’s daughter; for she had neither father nor mother- "Myrtle" ['Hadassah'] is a plant native to Persia and not Palestine, suggesting her assimilation; and the group of myrtle trees in Zech. 1:8,10,11 appears to represent Persia. She doesn't have a name that references Yahweh or in fact anything directly spiritual. The myrtle was associated by the prophets with Judah's return from exile (Is. 41:19,20; 55:13; Zech. 1:8-11; Neh. 8:15). The fact Esther didn't return, and her life's work didn't result in her people returning but rather remaining in exile... rather suggests that she failed to live up to her potential. Esther, "Star", is another reference to Marduk (see on :5); or "Esther" could be a form of 'Ishtar', goddess of sex, and the title given to the woman who won the sex contest. "Uncle's daughter" is an interpretation; the idea is, a relative. Some versions give "cousin", and Marduk [=Mordecai] and Ishtar [= Esther] were cousins. Yet "Esther", Ishtar / Astarte, the queen of sex, was I suggest the title given to Hadassah when she won the sex context to become the queen. If indeed she was Mordecai's cousin, we again see the invisible hand of God at work. Especially considering that she apparently hid from the king her relationship to Mordecai. She is hardly presented as a spiritually minded young woman, but as a Jewess who had totally assimilated into Persia.  

The maiden was fair and beautiful; and when her father and mother were dead, Mordecai took her for his own daughter-

"Daughter" is 'bat' and "house" is 'bet'. This confusion and unclarity in the Hebrew led the LXX to assume 'bet', and that this means he took her with the intention to be his wife. LXX "And he had a foster child, daughter of Aminadab his father's brother, and her name was Esther; and when her parents were dead, he brought her up for a wife for himself". This would be rather similar to how Uriah raised Bathsheba (according to Nathan's parable of the man with the lamb) to become his wife, and she did so. Seeing Mordecai hadn't yet married Esther, she would have been very young, perhaps still in her mid teens. That God should use such a youngster is typical of how He uses the meek and weak for His great purposes. And quite possibly if Mordecai had been taken into exile, he was now very old. "Took her" usually refers to a man taking a wife. It has been claimed that "'Hadassah' is the Aramaized form of Akkadian hadashshatu, 'bride', a common epithet of Ishtar". In this case, naming the orphan "bride" spoke of what Mordecai intended doing with her. Raising an orphan girl in order to marry her... doesn't speak well of him really. Quite possibly he is presented as a nonce. And yet the book of Esther has more to say about Mordecai than about Esther, and concludes speaking extensively of his glory- whilst Esther isn't mentioned. He certainly came a very long way spiritually- and very quickly. We notice twice that Esther was "taken"- by Mordecai, as his daughter; and into the harem (Esther 2:7,8). Esther's passivity will be changed by the hand of providence into her being a proactive worker on her own initiative for the salvation of God's people.

Esther 2:8 So it happened that when the king’s commandment and his decree was heard, and when many maidens were gathered together to the citadel of Susa, to the custody of Hegai, Esther was taken into the king’s house, to the custody of Hegai, keeper of the women- Hegai and his college of women was not simply a safe place for the women to stay. It was effectively a college for sex workers. And Esther willingly entered it, on Mordecai's arrangement. The whole intention was to produce women who could fulfil the king's various desires.

Esther 2:9 The maiden pleased him, and she obtained kindness from him. He quickly gave her cosmetics and her portions of food- She is contrasted with young Daniel, who in this situation refused to eat such food. She is presented as spiritually weak.

And the seven choice maidens who were to be given her out of the king’s house. He moved her and her maidens to the best place in the women’s house- These maidens were likely to be used in the sex show she was being trained to put on. Hegai clearly had a big influence upon who was finally accepted. He knew the king's taste in women as it was his job to pander to it and arrange fulfilment for him. His instinctive liking of Esther amongst the many competitors was therefore providentially arranged.

Esther 2:10 Esther had not made known her people nor her relatives, because Mordecai had instructed her that she should not make it known- God's people were intended to be a light to the Gentile world (Ex. 19:6). And marriage to Gentiles and sex outside of marriage was wrong according to God's law. This was surely an indication of spiritual weakness; and yet God worked through it, just as He may use marriage out of the faith to bring someone to the faith. She stands in stark contrast to Daniel and his friends who risked death for the sake of keeping the Jewish law (Dan. 1:8-16; 6:8-10), and yet similar to Jonah who in his weakness did not tell / make know his people to the sailors (Jonah 1:8 s.w.)- and at that point, he was representative of a spiritually weak Judah in exile.

Esther 2:11 Mordecai walked every day in front of the court of the women’s house, to find out how Esther was doing, and what would become of her- He paced up and down in agitation. Mordecai really wanted his plan to succeed, but for the wrong reasons. But God chose to work through it, rather than turn away from a poorly motivated man and his weak daughter.

Esther 2:12 Each young woman’s turn came to go in to King Ahasuerus after her purification for twelve months (for so were the days of their purification accomplished, six months with oil of myrrh, and six months with sweet fragrances and with preparations for beautifying women)- The ultimate opulence of the court scene in chapter 1 is matched by the king sleeping with hundreds of virgins, who had each been preparing for their night with him for a whole year. Herodotus claimed that a Persian king could only marry a queen from one of the seven Persian royal families; that was typical of most monarchs in whatever empire or nation. And so this appeal for the most sexual women to be gathered to him to marry was a departure from tradition. Driven by his extreme hedonism. The fragrances mentioned here are those already noted in the Bible for their use in a specifically sexual and immoral context (Prov. 7:17; Song 1:13; 5:5,13), and this obviously raises questions as to whether Esther was morally right to go along with this. The long period of time in the program for finding a replacement for her (:2) was possibly because he was away fighting the Greeks; but it might also suggest that he had many wives and was not seeking as it were a singular wife; it was just one of his wives who was being replaced by another. 'Going in to the king' surely is the familiar euphemism for the sexual act. To be willing to do this with a Gentile outside of marriage is surely an indication of spiritual weakness.

Esther 2:13 The young woman then came to the king like this: whatever she desired was given her to go with her out of the women’s house to the king’s house- This doesn't just refer to whatever cosmetics or clothing she desired. She had been given seven female assistants. The idea was that she would conceive and put on a sex show for the king; for the idea was that she was to do what Vashti had refused to do. But see on :15. The Gentile Vashti thereby appears as more moral and ethical than the Jewish Esther, as we find so often in Biblical history. 

Esther 2:14 In the evening she went, and on the next day she returned into the second women’s house, to the custody of Shaashgaz, the king’s eunuch, who kept the concubines. She came in to the king no more, unless the king delighted in her, and she was called by name- That Esther 'went in' to the king in the evening and then returned in the morning, having spent the night with the king, to the separate dwelling, of women with whom the king had slept and who were no longer virgins, indicates clearly enough that she slept with him. She knew this was to be the procedure and that statistically he was unlikely to 'marry' her seeing there were many such competitors. To participate in this, let alone with the enthusiasm for it which Mordecai showed, was clearly sinful and a betrayal of all the moral principles Israel were supposed to be committed to. If Vashti had refused to be sexually immoral on pain of death, Esther surely could have done likewise.

Esther 2:15 Now when the turn of Esther, the daughter of Abihail the uncle of Mordecai, who had taken her for his daughter, came to go in to the king, she required nothing but what Hegai the king’s eunuch, the keeper of the women, advised. Esther obtained favour in the sight of all those who looked at her- I suggested on :13 that she had been given the seven other young women in order to prepare a sex show for the king. But it could appear that she didn't take them with her, and only used the cosmetics and clothing provided. Perhaps it was this unusual departure from the norm which focused the king's attention singularly upon her. So perhaps she too was being taught that her even slight attention to some level of morality was being blessed. However we notice her obedience to Hegai, her trainer and handler. This totally contrasts with Daniel and his friends, whose example was surely known to Esther. They too had a handler and trainer, another eunuch; but they refused what they were given. She contrasts weakly and poorly with Daniel.

Esther 2:16 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- "The royal house" is literally "the house of the kingdom", the term used for the temple in 2 Chron. 2:1,12. This extends the  impression discussed on Esther 1:7 that we have here a fake, imitation temple of Yahweh. This was about five years after the Vashti incident; see on :2.

Esther 2:17 The king loved Esther more than all the women, and she obtained favour and kindness in his sight more than all the virgins; so that he set the royal crown on her head, and made her queen instead of Vashti- This was also from God; He worked on the tastes and perceptions of the king so that he favoured Esther. For all such attraction is subjective and deeply personal. But God worked through this. For four years, the king had been sleeping with beautiful virgins, trained by the pimp Hegai to sexually gratify him. He therefore hardly knew what it was to truly "love" a woman. We can read this as meaning that he didn't truly love her. Or, we see something abnormal here- something from the God who is never specifically mentioned. A man who had had all this sexual experience for the previous four years... actually loved one woman, Esther. And God was going to work through that, to the salvation of His people.

Esther 2:18 Then the king made a great feast for all his princes and his servants, even Esther’s feast; and he proclaimed a holiday in the provinces, and gave gifts according to the king’s bounty- "Holiday" is literally "release"- from taxation, or from military service, or from both, for a specified period. The invisible hand of God was working to make Esther popular with the Persian people.

Esther 2:19 When the virgins were gathered together the second time, Mordecai was sitting in the king’s gate- It would seem that the gathering of virgins to the king for him to choose a queen was a regular occurrence. The houses for the girls were already built and the system of preparing them was already organized. But it could be that there was an attempt to replace Esther with the puppet of some other group. Esther had won the conquest because (under God's hand) the king preferred her. But there were likely other men and interest groups like Mordecai who wanted their daughters to be chosen. The repetition of Mordecai being "In the king's gate" in :21 would suggest that it was because of his position there that he uncovered the assassination plot. And this would have solidified his position, when perhaps it was under threat from other pretenders who were aware that Esther was his daughter, even though the king seems unaware of it. Or we could read this as his appointment to sit in the king's gate; and the implication might be that Esther was somehow behind it. The second gathering of the virgins was perhaps to witness Esther's coronation. They would all have been seething with jealousy and frustration.

Esther 2:20 Esther had not yet made known her relatives nor her people, as Mordecai had commanded her; for Esther obeyed Mordecai, like she did when she was brought up by him- LXX "and Esther changed not her manner of life" may suggest she did not have any spiritual transformation whilst in the palace. She was still a spiritually weak young woman who rose up to the situation. She presents as always obedient- and likewise obedient to whatever Hegai told her to wear and what sex to do, the night she went in to the king. It is only the need of her people that was the call for her to individuate, and suddenly initiate a plan to save her people. And we see such growth, not only spiritually but also of persons, as they mature under the guidance of God's invisible hand.

It is observable that many believers start their walk with the Lord by keeping their commitment to Him somewhat secret. Yet we are a city set on a hill, a candle lit by the Lord to give light to others. Salvation requires us  to “declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’” (Rom. 10:9). There must be public confession. And so the Lord often works through providence to create situations where a believer has to 'come out'. Esther is a classic case of this, and we see it in the spiritual paths of many Muslim background believers. Mordecai quite possibly justified his command to Esther by reflecting that Moses had likewise concealed his Hebrew ethnicity until he was 40 years old, when he likewise served in the court of a Gentile despot. And yet those years weren't Moses at his best, and again, God providentially orchestrated situations so that Moses too had to come out as Hebrew, and save his people.

Esther 2:21 In those days, while Mordecai was sitting in the king’s gate, two of the king’s eunuchs who were doorkeepers, Bigthan and Teresh, were angry, and sought to lay hands on the King Ahasuerus- LXX claims they were angry because Mordecai had been promoted.

Esther 2:22 This thing became known to Mordecai, who informed Esther the queen; and Esther informed the king in Mordecai’s name- This was clearly the invisible hand of God working to set up Esther and Mordecai positively in the king's eyes.

Esther 2:23 When this matter was investigated, and it was found to be so, they were both hanged on a tree; and it was written in the book of the chronicles in the king’s presence- And yet the king seems to have forgotten about Mordecai, who was well known as a Jew, because he signs the decree for killing all the Jews without thinking about that. He comes over as a superficial man with no interest in the past or its consequences. And yet God was working to nudge even such a person towards Him.