Esther 1:22

he sent letters into all the king's provinces There was an excellent system of posts in Persia, which, according to Herodotus, was in full working order in the time of Xerxes. See further on Esther 3:13.

to every people after their language It would be interesting to know in detail the languages in which these letters may be supposed to have been written. We cannot, however, hope to attain completeness in our list, although there are a considerable number which we may confidently include, as spoken by the subjects of an Empire reaching -from India even unto Ethiopia" (see Esther 1:1 with note). They may be classed as follows:

(1) Semitic. In Babylonia Assyrian or the cognate Babylonian was the language of the government, while probably Aramaic, which is closely akin to these, was commonly spoken. This last, it would appear, was used throughout a large portion of the Persian Empire, and Aramaic inscriptions one of them bearing date in the fourth year of Xerxes [61] have been found in a country as distant from the centre of Persian rule as Egypt. The great Semitic family of languages, of which Aramaic is a member, prevailed in more or less varying forms (in addition to the above-named Assyrian and Babylonian) in a large part of the Persian king's dominions, viz. Phoenician, Arabic, Hebrew, and Western or Biblical Aramaic.

[61] See the Palaeographical Society's Oriental Series, plate lxiii.

(2) Turanian. In parts of Assyria and Babylonia there may also have been surviving dialects which belong to a wholly different group of languages, and formed the speech of the old Accadian and Sumerian population. These were branches of the Turanianor Agglutinativefamily of which Turkish is one of the representatives at the present day. To this class also belonged Georgian, the most important of the languages spoken on the southern side of the principal Caucasus range.

(3) Aryan. This great family, to which can be traced most of the languages of modern Europe, would include Sanscrit and Prakrit, the latter of which is the mother of a large number of the Indian dialects, Zend, the old language of Bactria, and, lastly, the language of Greece, which doubtless at the time of Xerxes was making its way steadily eastward from the country of its birth.

and should publish it according to the language of his people The literal rendering of the Hebrew is that every man should be ruling in his own house and speaking according to the language of his own people. This has been explained to refer to cases where men had taken wives from other nations. The wife then must conform to her husband as regards the matter in question, and the language used in the family must be the mother tongue of the latter (so the Targum). The clause will thus be a particular application of the general ordinance that -every man should bear rule in his own house." Nehemiah (Nehemiah 13:23 f.) points out as one of the evils of marriages between Jews and non-Jews confusion of language on the part of the children of such unions.

It is, however, doubtful if the text is sound, and a conjecture has been widely adopted, which involves the change of not more than one Heb. consonant. [62] The meaning then will be, and shall speak whatsoever seems good to him, i.e. shall give whatever orders he chooses. In favour of this emendation it is pointed out that the new verb introduced by it into the Heb. text is one which, though not very frequent elsewhere, occurs in three other passages in this Book (Esther 3:8; Esther 5:13; Esther 7:4). On the other hand it is dubious whether the construction which it involves is permissible Hebrew. The LXX. omits the words, and translates the preceding clause, so that they might have fear in their houses, meaning apparently, so that the husbands might be respected at home. [63]

[62] כָּל־שֹׁוֶה עִמּוֹ instead of כִּלְשׁוֹן עַמּוֹ.

[63] ὥστε εἶναι φόβον αὐτοῖς ἐν ταῖς οἰκίαις αὐτῶν.