Esther 2:1

After these things, when the wrath of King Ahasuerus was appeased,.... Which went off with his wine, and so was quickly after, a few days at most, unless this can be understood as after the

After these things, when the wrath of king Ahasuerus was appeased, he remembered Vashti, and what After these things, when the wrath of king Ahasuerus was appeased, he remembered Vashti, and what she

ESTHER CHAPTER 2 The virgins of the kingdom being gathered together, a queen is to be chosen, . Esther, nursed by Mordecai, is chosen to be one of the virgins, ; and preferred before the rest, . The manner of her purification, . She pleaseth the king, and is made queen, . The king makes a feast for his princes and servants, . Mordecai discovereth a treason against the king, ,22; which is recorded in their chronicles, . He remembered Vashti with grief and shame, that in his wine and rage he had so severely punished, and so irrevocably rejected, so beautiful and desirable a person, and that for so small a provocation, to which she was easily led by the modesty of her sex, and by the laws and customs of Persia.

Esther 2:1 After these things, when the wrath of king Ahasuerus was appeased, he remembered Vashti, and what she had done, and what was decreed against her.Ver. 1. After these things] After the wine was out, the fuel of his anger spent, and the lust thereof satisfied. When the wrath of king Ahasuerus was appeased] There is nothing that a man is more ready to keep than his wrath; therefore the Hebrews put servare for servare iram, to keep for to keep his anger, as Jeremiah 3:5 Psalms 103:9 Leviticus 19:18. Ahasuerus, by invading Greece, had so incensed them, that their wrath αειμνηστος, unappeasable, for they thenceforth hated all barbarians for the Persians’ sake, and forbade them their sacrifices, as they used to do murderers. But Ahasuerus’ s wrath against Vashti was after a time assuaged. He remembered Vashti] Not without some remorse, but without all true repentance. He forsook not his rash anger as a sin, but regretted it for a time, and laid it asleep, to be raked up again upon as slight an occasion. In graceless persons vitia raduntur, non eradicantur; absconduntur saepius, non exscinduntur; vices may be barbed or benumbed, not mastered and mortified. A merchant may part with his goods, and yet not hate them. A man may part with his sins for self-respects, and yet retain his affection to them; as Phaltiel did to Michal, when he went weeping after her afar off. He may remember his Vashti, his bosom sins from which he seemeth divorced, and by such a sinful remembering of them, recommit them. See Ezekiel 23:21 compared with Esther 2:8. And what was decreed against her] But whose fault was that? Wine and anger are the worst of all counsellors, say the ancients? and Ahasuerus found it so; as did also Alexander the Great, and many others, but all too late. Hence they came in afterwards with their Non putaram, Had I known; which Scipio said should never be heard out of a great man’ s mouth (Plutarch). Augustus also was wont to say, that nothing doth so ill become a commander as hastiness and rashness (Sueton.). Cicero taxeth him for a fool, qui eundem laedit et laudat, who first wrongeth a man, and then commendeth him.

II.(1) After these things.—We have seen that the great feast at Susa was in the year 483 B.C. , and that in the spring of 481 B.C. Xerxes set out for Greece. At some unspecified time, then, between these limits the proposal now started is to be placed. The marriage of Esther, however (Esther 2:16), did not come about till after the return from Greece, the king’s long absence explaining the otherwise curious delay, and moreover, even in this interval, he was entangled in more than one illicit connection.

CHAPTER II The counsellors advise that a selection of virgins should be made throughout the empire, out of whom the king should choose one to be queen in place of Vashti, 1-4. Account of Mordecai and his cousin Esther, 5-7. She is chosen among the young women, and is placed under the care of Hegai, the king's chamberlain, to go through a year's purification, 8-11. The manner in which these young women were introduced to the king, and how those were disposed of who were not called again to the king's bed, 12-14. Esther pleases the king, and is set above all the women; and he makes her queen in the place of Vashti, and does her great honour, 15-20. Mordecai, sitting at the king's gate, discovers a conspiracy formed against the king's life by two of his chamberlains; he informs the king, the matter is investigated, they are found guilty and hanged, and the transaction is recorded, 21-23. NOTES ON CHAP. II

Chap. 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. 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.

These events must belong to the time between the great assembly held at Susa in Xerxes’ third year (483 B.C.), and the departure of the monarch on his expedition against Greece in his fifth year, 481 B.C.

ESTHER MADE QUEEN, Esther 2:1-18. 1. After these things — How long after the divorce of Vashti is uncertain. It may have been only a few months, or it may have been a year or more after.