SEV Biblia, Chapter 1:8
Y la bebida fue según esta ley: Que nadie se constriñese; porque así lo había mandado el rey a todos los mayordomos de su casa; que se hiciese según la voluntad de cada uno.
Clarke's Bible Commentary - Esther 1:8
Verse 8. None did compel: for so the king had appointed] Every person drank what he pleased; he was not obliged to take more than he had reason to think would do him good. Among the Greeks, each guest was obliged to keep the round, or leave the company: hence the proverb h piqi, h apiqi; Drink or begone. To this Horace refers, but gives more license:- Pasco libatis dapibus; prout cuique libido est.
Siccat inaequales calices conviva, solutus Legibus insanis: seu quis capit acria fortis Pocula; seu modicis humescit aetius. HORAT. Sat. lib. ii., s. vi., ver. 67.
There, every guest may drink and fill As much or little as he will; Exempted from the Bedlam rules Of roaring prodigals and fools.
Whether, in merry mood or whim, He fills his goblet to the brim; Or, better pleased to let it pass, Is cheerful with a moderate glass. FRANCIS.
\At the Roman feasts there was a person chosen by the cast of dice, who was the Arbiter bibendi, and prescribed rules to the company, which all were obliged to observe. References to this custom may be seen in the same poet. ODAR. lib. i., Od. iv., ver. xviii. - Non regna vini sortiere talis.
And in lib. ii., Od. vii., ver. xxv. -- Quem Venus arbitrum Dicet bibendi? Mr. Herbert, in his excellent poem, The Church Porch, has five verses on this vile custom and its rule:- Drink not the third glass, which thou canst not tame When once it is within thee, but before Mayst rule it as thou list; and pour the shame, Which it would pour on thee, upon the floor.
It is most just to throw that on the ground, Which would throw me there if I keep the round.
He that is drunken may his mother kill, Big with his sister; he hath lost the reins; Is outlawed by himself. All kinds of ill Did with his liquor slide into his veins.
The drunkard forfeits man; and doth divest All worldly right, save what he hath by beast. Nothing too severe can be said on this destructive practice.
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 8. And the drinking was according to the law, none did compel , etc.] According to the law Ahasuerus gave to his officers next mentioned, which was not to oblige any man to drink more than he chose; the Targum is, ‘according to the custom of his body;’ that is, as a man is able to bear it, so they drank: some read it, “the drinking according to the law, let none exact”; or require it to be, according to the custom then in use in Persia; for they were degenerated from their former manners, and indulged to intemperance, as Xenophon f56 suggests: the law formerly was, not to carry large vessels into feasts; but now, says he, they drink so much, that they themselves must be carried out, because they cannot go upright: and so it became a law with the Greeks, at their festivals, that either a man must drink or go out f57 ; so the master of a feast, at which Empedocles was, ordered either that he should drink, or the wine be poured on his head f58 ; but such force or compulsion Ahasuerus forbad: and thus with the Chinese now, they force none to drink, but modestly invite them f59 : for so the king had appointed to all the officers of his house, that they should do according to every man’s pleasure ; to let them have what wine they would, but not force them to drink more than was agreeable to them.
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
והשׁתיה 8360 כדת 1881 אין 369 אנס 597 כי 3588 כן 3651 יסד 3245 המלך 4428 על 5921 כל 3605 רב 7227 ביתו 1004 לעשׂות 6213 כרצון 7522 אישׁ 376 ואישׁ׃ 376
