SEV Biblia, Chapter 1:6
El pabellón era de blanco, verde, y cárdeno, tendido sobre cuerdas de lino y púrpura en anillos de plata y columnas de mármol; los reclinatorios de oro y de plata, sobre losado de pórfido y de mármol, y de alabastro y de cárdeno.
Clarke's Bible Commentary - Esther 1:6
Verse 6. White, green, and blue hangings] It was customary, on such occasions, not only to hang the place about with elegant curtains of the above colours, as Dr. Shaw and others have remarked, but also to have a canopy of rich stuffs suspended on cords from side to side of the place in which they feasted. And such courts were ordinarily paved with different coloured marbles, or with tiles painted, as above specified. And this was the origin of the Musive or Mosaic work, well known among the Asiatics, and borrowed from them by the Greeks and the Romans. The beds of gold and silver mentioned here were the couches covered with gold and silver cloth, on which the guests reclined.
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 6. Where were white, green, and blue hangings , etc.] Or curtains of fine linen, as the Targum, which were of these several colours; the first letter of the word for “white” is larger than usual, to denote the exceeding whiteness of them. The next word is “carpas”, which Ben Melech observes is a dyed colour, said to be green. Pausanias makes mention of Carpasian linen, and which may be here meant; the last word used signifies blue, sky coloured, or hyacinth: fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rings, and pillars of marble ; these pillars are said, in the Targum, to be of divers colours, red, green, and shining yellow and white, on which the silver rings were fixed, and into them were put linen strings of purple colour, which fastened the hangings to them, and so made an enclosure, within which the guests sat at the feast: the beds were of gold and silver ; the couches on which they sat, or rather reclined at eating, as was the manner of the eastern nations; these, according to the Targum, were of lambs’ wool, the finest, and the softest, and the posts of them were of gold, and their feet of silver. Such luxury obtained among the Romans in later times f41 : these were placed in a pavement of red, and blue, and white, and black, marble ; which, according to some, are the porphyrite, Parian, alabaster, and marble of various colours; the marble of the Persians is of four colours, white, black, red and black, and white and black f42 ; but others take them to be precious stones, as Jarchi and Aben Ezra; the first is by the Targum interpreted crystal, by others the emerald, one of which Theophrastus f43 speaks of as four cubits long, and three broad, which might be laid in a pavement; the third is, by Bochart f44 , supposed to be the pearl; and in the Talmud it is said to be of such a nature, that if placed in the middle of a dining room, will give light in it as at noonday, which seems to be what is called lychnites; to which Lucian ascribes a like property: nor need all this seem strange, since great was the luxury of the eastern nations.
Philostratus speaks of a temple in India paved with pearls, and which he says all the Barbarians use in their temples; particularly it is said f48 , that the roofs of the palaces of Shushan and Ecbatana, the palaces of the kings of Persia, shone with gold and silver, ivory, and amber; no wonder then that their pavements were of very valuable and precious stones: and from hence it appears, that the “lithostrata”, the word here used by the Septuagint, or tesserated pavements, were in use four hundred years before the times of Sylla, where the beginning of them is placed by Pliny f49 ; there was a “lithostraton” in the second temple at Jerusalem, by us rendered the pavement, ( John 19:13), perhaps the same with the room Gazith, so called from its being laid with hewn stone. Aristeas f50 , who lived in the times of Ptolemy Philadelphus, testifies that the whole floor of the temple was a “lithostraton”, or was paved with stone: it is most likely therefore that these had their original in the eastern country, and not in Greece, as Pliny supposed.
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
חור 2353 כרפס 3768 ותכלת 8504 אחוז 270 בחבלי 2256 בוץ 948 וארגמן 713 על 5921 גלילי 1550 כסף 3701 ועמודי 5982 שׁשׁ 8336 מטות 4296 זהב 2091 וכסף 3701 על 5921 רצפת 7531 בהט 923 ושׁשׁ 8336 ודר 1858 וסחרת׃ 5508
