Esther 2:16

_IN THE EVENING SHE WENT, AND ON THE MORROW SHE RETURNED INTO THE SECOND HOUSE OF THE WOMEN, TO THE CUSTODY OF SHAASHGAZ, THE KING'S CHAMBERLAIN, WHICH KEPT THE CONCUBINES: SHE CAME IN UNTO THE KING NO MORE, EXCEPT THE KING DELIGHTED IN HER, AND THAT SHE WERE CALLED BY NAME._ No JFB commentary on these verses....

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...

Verse 16. _THE TENTH MONTH - TEBETH_] Answering to part of our _December_ and _January_....

Tebeth (compare the corresponding Egyptian month, “Tobi” or “Tubi”), corresponded nearly to our January. IN THE SEVENTH YEAR OF HIS REIGN - In December, 479 B.C., or January, 478 B.C. Xerxes quitted Sardis for Susa in, or soon after, September, 479 B.C. It has been regarded as a “difficulty” that Vashti’s place, declared vacant in 483 B.C., was not supplied until the end of 479 B.C., four years afterward. But since two years out of the four had been occupied by the Grecian expedition, the objection cannot be considered very weighty....

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

SO ESTHER WAS TAKEN UNTO KING AHASUERUS, INTO HIS HOUSE ROYAL,.... Did not return on the morrow to the house of the women, as those who only became the king's concubines did, Esther 2:14, but she was taken to be his wife, and designed for his queen, and so was retained in his palace, and placed in an apartment suitable to the dignity she was about to be advanced unto: AND THIS WAS DONE IN THE TENTH MONTH, WHICH IS THE MONTH TEBETH; and answers to part of December and part of January; not the twelfth month Adar, as the Septuagint version, and so Josephus q, contrary to the original text: either that law had not obtained among the Persians, or the king thought himself not bound by it, which forbid marriage at any other time than the beginning of the vernal equinox r: IN THE SEVENTH YEAR OF HIS REIGN; and the divorce of Vashti being in the third year of his

TENTH MONTH That is, January....

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...

TEBETH. See App-51. SEVENTH YEAR. The first feast was in the third year. The search probably took one year; the preparation another; oblations another. Other seasons are unnamed....

_the tenth month, which is the month Tebeth_ In the time of the Babylonish exile the months ceased to be called by the old Canaanitish names which the Jews had previously given them, e.g. Abib (Exodus 13:4), Ziv (1 Kings 6:1), and were denoted by numbers only. After the exile the new Babylonish names, of which Tebeth is one, began to come into use. The name does not occur elsewhere in the Old Testament. It corresponded to the latter part of December and earlier part of January, and is derived from a Babylonian root _tebu_, which appears also in Hebrew, and means _to sink_or _dip_, referring to the rainfall by which it is characterised. _in the seventh year of his reign_ probably in January, b.c. 479. Xerxes had at that time lately returned from his ill-starred expedition against Greece....