Esther 2:6

_WHO HAD BEEN CARRIED AWAY FROM JERUSALEM WITH THE CAPTIVITY WHICH HAD BEEN CARRIED AWAY WITH JECONIAH KING OF JUDAH, WHOM NEBUCHADNEZZAR THE KING OF BABYLON HAD CARRIED AWAY._ 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...

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

WHO HAD BEEN CARRIED AWAY FROM JERUSALEM,.... Which, according to some f, is to be connected, not with Mordecai, but with Kish, his great-grandfather; and indeed otherwise Mordecai must be now a very old man, and Esther his first cousin, they being brothers' children, must be at an age, one would think, not to be reckoned among young virgins, and not be so amiable as she is represented; and indeed, according to the former Targum, she was seventy five years of age, which is not credible; and yet this, and more she must be, to be equal to Mordecai, if he was carried captive, as follows: WITH THE CAPTIVITY WHICH HAD BEEN CARRIED AWAY WITH JECONIAH KING OF JUDAH, WHOM NEBUCHADNEZZAR THE KING OF BABYLON HAD CARRIED AWAY; which was eleven years before the destruction of Jerusalem, for so long Zedekiah reigned after that captivity of Jeconiah: hence Sir John Marsham g makes this affair of Esth...

JECONIAH Or, Jehoiachin; (2 Kings 24:6)....

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...

JECONIAH. Jehoiachin (2 Kings 24:6). CARRIED AWAY. Compare 2 Kings 24:14; 2 Kings 24:15; Jeremiah 1:24:133 years before the generally received date (i.e. 598-465. 133), which, therefore, cannot be correct. From the carrying away of Jeconiah to the marriage of Esther to Astyages in his seventh year was only twenty-two years (489-467). See App-50....

_who had been carried away_ According to Heb. grammar, the relative pronoun should refer to Mordecai. If, however, he was even as a boy one of the captives in the time of Jeconiah (Jehoiachin, 2 Kings 24:6), b.c. 598, and if, as we have seen, Ahasuerus is to be identified with Xerxes, Mordecai's age would be something like 120 years, while his cousin Esther must also have been much too old. To get rid of this difficulty (which would only be diminished, not removed, if we were to adopt the otherwise very improbable view that an earlier ruler than Xerxes is intended), it has been sought, in contravention of the grammatical usage of the original, to make the antecedent to be not Mordecai but Kish, taken as the name of the great-grandfather of the former, and as otherwise unknown. But the true explanation doubtless is that the chronological difficulty never occurred to the framer of the stor...

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....

2:6 Jeconiah (e-17) Jehoiachin, 2 Kings 24:6 , &c....