Esther 2:11

_AND MORDECAI WALKED EVERY DAY BEFORE THE COURT OF THE WOMEN'S HOUSE, TO KNOW HOW ESTHER DID, AND WHAT SHOULD BECOME OF HER._ Mordecai walked every day before the court of the women's house. The harem is an inviolable sanctuary, and what is transacted within its walls is as much a secret to these without as if they were thousands of miles away; but hints were given him through the eunuchs....

1-20 We see to what absurd practices those came, who were destitute of Divine revelation, and what need there was of the gospel of Christ, to purify men from the lusts of the flesh, and to bring them back to the original institution of marriage. Esther was preferred as queen. Those who suggest that Esther committed sin to come at this dignity, do not consider the custom of those times and countries. Every one that the king took was married to him, and was his wife, though of a lower rank. But how low is human nature sunk, when such as these are the leading pursuits and highest worldly happiness of men! Disappointment and vexation must follow; and he most wisely consults his enjoyment, even in this present life, who most exactly obeys the precepts of the Divine law. But let us turn to consider the wise and merciful providence of God, carrying on his deep but holy designs in the midst of...

Mordecai occupied, apparently, a humble place in the royal household. He was probably one of the porters or doorkeepers at the main entrance to the palace Esther 2:21....

EXPOSITION THE QUEST FOR MAIDENS, AND THE CHOICE OF ESTHER TO BE QUEEN IN VASHTI'S PLACE (Esther 2:1). Vashti having ceased to be queen, Ahasuerus appears to have been in no haste to assign her dignity to any one else. Probably there was no one among his other (secondary) wives of whom he was specially fond, or who seemed to him pre-eminent above the rest. And he may even have begun to relent in Vashti's favour (as seems to be somewhat obscurely intimated in Esther 2:1), and to wish to take her back. Under these circumstances the officers of his cour

AND MORDECAI WALKED EVERY DAY BEFORE THE COURT OF THE WOMEN'S HOUSE,.... Being one of the court, and in an high post, as Aben Ezra thinks, he might walk there without being examined, and called to an account for it: TO KNOW HOW ESTHER DID; to inquire of her health and prosperity, or peace, the word here used signifies, even all sorts of it: AND WHAT SHOULD BECOME OF HER; or was done to her, whether she was well used, or as yet introduced to the king, how it fared with her, and what befell her....

ESTHER CHOSEN QUEEN. Ere long Ahasuerus longs for his lost queen's comradeship. He is moved to issue a summons throughout all his territories, commanding all fair maidens to appear as candidates for the queenship. This command removes the fancy that a Jewess had no right to come. She had to come. Among the assembled fair ones was the cousin and ward of Mordecai, called Hadassah, _i.e._ Myrtle. Let us notice that this name is the same as that of the place Adasah in Judah where, on Adar 13th, 161 B.C., the Maccabees defeated Nicanor, the general of the armies of Syria (p. 607). That final victory set Judah free from foreign rule, so that the throne of David was established again after its destruction about 600 B.C. (see 1Ma_7:39 ff.). The maiden seems intended by our writer as a symbol of that victory. She surpasses all her rivals, and is chosen by Ahasuerus as his queen; and now she recei...

TO KNOW. This was Mordecai's solicitude. All this proves that these events must have taken place before the emancipation made by Cyras (the son of this Astyages, App-57), recorded in Ezr. No such secrecy would have been necessary, and no thought of allowing the People, whom he had just emancipated, to be exterminated, as is described in the book of Esther: But Cyrus, being her son, would be carefully prepared by her and Mordecai to begin his reign by such emancipation from Babylon (note, not from Shushan: compare Esther 1:1 with Jeremiah 25:11; Jeremiah 25:12), thus fulfilling Isaiah 44:28 with...

_walked every day before the court of the women's house_ In later times it would have been impossible for one in Mordecai's position, even though holding some post of humble character about the palace, to approach the harem. We cannot, however, say with certainty that the rule was equally stringent in the days of Xerxes. Mordecai was clearly allowed at this time personal intercourse with his adopted daughter, whether in the presence of a third person or otherwise: not so at a later stage of the narrative (Esther 4:2)....

B. Solicitude of Mordecai TEXT: Esther 2:5-11 5 There was a certain Jew in Shushan the palace, whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, a Benjamite, 6 who had been carried away from Jerusalem with the captives that had been carried away with Jeconiah king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away. 7 And he brought up Hadassah, that is, Esther, his uncle's daughter: for she had neither father nor mother, and the maiden was fair and beautiful; and when her father and mother were dead, Mordecai took her for his own daughter. 8 So it came to pass, when the king's commandment and his decree was heard, and when many maidens were gathered together unto Shushan the palace to the custody of Hegai, that Esther was taken into the king's house, to the custody of Hegai, keeper of the women....

THE CHOICE OF ESTHER TO BE QUEEN. MORDECAI'S SERVICE 1. He remembered, etc.] LXX has 'he thought no more of Vashti, remembering what,' etc....