Esther - 2:16



16 So Esther was taken to King Ahasuerus into his royal house in the tenth month, which is the month Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign.

Verse In-Depth

Explanation and meaning of Esther 2:16.

Differing Translations

Compare verses for better understanding.
So she was brought to the chamber of king Assuerus the tenth month, which is called Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign.
So Esther was taken in to King Ahasuerus in his house in the tenth month, which is the month Tebeth, in the seventh year of his rule.

*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.


Historical Commentaries

Scholarly Analysis and Interpretation.

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.

The tenth month - Tebeth - Answering to part of our December and January.

So Esther was taken unto king Ahasuerus into his house royal in the tenth month, which [is] the (h) month Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign.
(h) Which contained part of December and part of January.

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 reign, it was four years before Esther was taken by him; who, if Xerxes, it may be accounted for by his preparation for, and engagement in, a war with Greece, which took him up all this time; and from whence he returned in the seventh year of his reign, at the beginning of it, and married Esther at the close of it, see Esther 2:1 as may be suggested.
(q) Ut supra (Antiqu. l. 11. c.6. sect. 2.) (r) Strabo. Geograph. l. 1. p. 504.

She was taken into the king's house (מלכוּת בּית instead of המּלך בּית, the palace of the kingdom, the royal residence) in the tenth month, i.e., the month Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign.

*More commentary available at chapter level.


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