Esther 2:1

Esther 2:1-18. Esther's elevation to be queen

1. After these things Two years elapsed between the council of leading men held at Susa (see on Esther 1:1) and Xerxes" actual departure on his expedition against Greece (b.c. 481). If we were to accept the historical character of the story, we should have to suppose that the search for an eligible consort would go on during his absence. But the writer in all probability does not contemplate any such interval, or recognise in his own mind the war of that date.

he remembered Vashti This and the words which follow suggest that the king was inclined to relent if the decree had not been irrevocable. The LXX., he no longer remembered Vashti, has no claim to be regarded as the right reading.

III

SPECIMEN OF THE FIRST TARGUM ON ESTHER

(on chap. Esther 2:1 ff.).

[The following extracts may be of interest, as serving to exhibit the character of the paraphrastic translations of Old Testament Books into Aramaic. These Versions seem to have had their origin in a religious necessity, when the use of the Hebrew language was dying out as the speech of ordinary life. But the Targums on Esther and the other Megilloth (Rolls) are thought, unlike earlier ones, not to have been intended for public use. They were composed after the need for Aramaic translations had passed away, but, inasmuch as these came to be permanently cherished, the later ones were modelled upon them, and thus present us in the main with the same features. [89]]

[89] See further in Hastings" Dict. of the Bible, Art. Targum.

After these things, when he had recovered and calmed down from his excessive potations, and when the violence of king Ahasuerus's rage had abated, he began to remember Vashti. His great men answered him and spake thus, Art thou not he that passed sentence upon her, that she should die for what she did? The king said to them, I did not command that she should be put to death, but that she should present herself before me, and when she did not present herself, I commanded that she should be deprived of her queenly rank. They said to him, It is not so, but thou didst pronounce sentence of death upon her at the instance of the seven princes. Forthwith he was violently enraged, and ordered that the seven princes should be hung upon the gibbet. And the king's young men who ministered to him said, Let there be sought out for the king's needs young virgins, fair to look upon, and let the king appoint officers in every province of his kingdom, and let them assemble all young virgins that are fair to look upon unto Shushan the palace to the house of the women where there are baths and washing places, and where Hegai, the king's chief eunuch, custodian of the women, holds office, and let it be decreed that unguents for their anointing be furnished to them, and let the young woman who finds favour in the eyes of the king be raised to the rank of queen in the place of Vashti. And the thing was pleasing in the king's sight, and he did thus.