SEV Biblia, Chapter 1:4
para mostrar él las riquezas de la gloria de su reino, y la honra de la hermosura de su grandeza, por muchos días, ciento ochenta días.
Clarke's Bible Commentary - Esther 1:4
Verse 4. The riches of his glorious kingdom] Luxury was the characteristic of the Eastern monarchs, and particularly of the Persians. In their feasts, which were superb and of long continuance, they made a general exhibition of their wealth, grandeur, &c., and received the highest encomiums from their poets and flatterers. Their ostentation on such occasions passed into a proverb: hence Horace:- Persicos odi, puer, apparatus: Displicent nexae philyra coronae; Mitte sectari, rosa quo locorum Sera moretur. I tell thee, boy, that I detest The grandeur of a Persian feast; Nor for me the linden's rind Shall the flowery chaplet bind.
Then search not where the curious rose Beyond his season loitering grows. FRANCIS.
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 4. When he showed the riches of his glorious kingdom , etc.] Xerxes was the fourth king of the Persian monarchy, and was “far richer than all” that went before him, all their riches coming into his hands, ( Daniel 11:2), and now that prophecy began to be fulfilled, “that by his strength, through his riches, he should stir up all against the realm of Grecia”; which he began to do in the third year of his reign, and for which these his nobles might be called together, as to have their advice, so to animate them to come in the more readily into the expedition, by showing them the riches he was possessed of; for to none of the kings of Persia does this largeness of riches better belong than to Xerxes: and the honour of his excellent majesty ; the grandeur he lived in, the pomp and splendour of his court; he was the most grand and magnificent of all the kings of the Medes and Persians f33 : and this he did many days, even an hundred and fourscore days ; to which seven more being added, as in the following verse, it made one hundred and eighty seven, the space of full six months; though some think the feast did not last so long, only seven days, and that the one hundred and eighty days were spent in preparing for it; but the Persian feasts were very long, large, and sumptuous. Dr. Frye says, this custom of keeping an annual feast one hundred and eighty days still continues in Persia. Cheus f35 , a Chinese emperor, used frequently to make a feast which lasted one hundred and twenty days; though it cannot be well thought that the same individual persons here were feasted so long, but, when one company was sufficiently treated, they removed and made way for another; and so it continued successively such a number of days as here related, which was six months, or half a year; a year then in use consisting of three hundred and sixty days, as was common with the Jews, and other nations, and so the Persians f36 .
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 1-9 - The pride of Ahasuerus's heart rising with the grandeur of his kingdom he made an extravagant feast. This was vain glory. Better is a dinne of herbs with quietness, than this banquet of wine, with all the nois and tumult that must have attended it. But except grace prevails in the heart, self-exaltation and self-indulgence, in one form or another will be the ruling principle. Yet none did compel; so that if any dran to excess, it was their own fault. This caution of a heathen prince even when he would show his generosity, may shame many calle Christians, who, under pretence of sending the health round, send sin round, and death with it. There is a woe to them that do so; let the read it, and tremble, Hab 2:15, 16.
Original Hebrew
בהראתו 7200 את 853 עשׁר 6239 כבוד 3519 מלכותו 4438 ואת 853 יקר 3366 תפארת 8597 גדולתו 1420 ימים 3117 רבים 7227 שׁמונים 8084 ומאת 3967 יום׃ 3117
