SEV Biblia, Chapter 2:6
el cual había sido trasportado de Jerusalén con los cautivos que fueron llevados con Jeconías rey de Judá, a quien hizo trasportar Nabucodonosor rey de Babilonia.
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 6. Who had been carried away from Jerusalem , etc.] Which, according to some f79 , 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 makes this affair of Esther to be within the time of the Babylonish captivity, and places Ahasuerus her husband between Darius the Mede and Cyrus, contrary to history and Scripture, (see Daniel 6:28) Ver. 7 . And he brought up Hadassah (that is Esther) his uncle’s daughter , etc.] Her Hebrew name was Hadassah, which signifies a myrtle, to which the Israelites, and good men among them, are sometimes compared, ( Zechariah 1:8). Her Persian name was Esther, which some derive from “satar”, to hide, because hidden in the house of Mordecai, so the former Targum, and by his advice concealed her kindred: or rather she was so called by Ahasuerus, when married to him, this word signifying in the Persian language a “star” and so the latter Targum says she was called by the name of the star of Venus, which in Greek is asthr ; though it is said f82 , that the myrtle, which is called “hadassah” in Hebrew, is in the Syriac language “esta”; so “asa” in the Talmud signifies a myrtle; and, according to Hillerus f84 , “esther” signifies the black myrtle, which is reckoned the most excellent; and so “amestris”, according to him, signifies the sole myrtle, the incomparable one. Xerxes had a wife, whose name was Amestris, which Scaliger thinks is as if it was rtsa µh , and the same with Esther; but to this are objected, that her father’s name was Otanes, and her cruelty in the mutilation of the wife of Masistis, her husband’s brother, and burning alive fourteen children of the best families of the Persians, as a sacrifice to the infernal gods; and besides, Xerxes had a son by her marriageable, in the seventh year of this reign f85 , the year of Ahasuerus, in which he married Esther: but it is observed by some, that these things are confounded with the destruction of Haman’s family, or told by the Persians to obliterate the memory of Esther, from whom they passed to the Greek historians: for she had neither father nor mother ; according to the former Targum, her father died and left her mother with child of her, and her mother died as soon as she was delivered of her: and the maid was fair and beautiful ; which was both the reason why she was taken and brought into the king’s house, and why Mordecai took so much care of her: whom Mordecai, when her father and mother were dead, took for his own daughter ; loved her, and brought her up as if she had been his daughter, and called her so, as the Targum. The Rabbins, as Jarchi and Aben Ezra observe, say, he took her in order to make her his wife; and so the Septuagint render it; though perhaps no more may be intended by that version than that he brought her up to woman’s estate. Josephus calls him her uncle; and so the Vulgate Latin version, his brother’s daughter; but both are mistaken.
Matthew Henry Commentary
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. Thos who suggest that Esther committed sin to come at this dignity, do no 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 leadin pursuits and highest worldly happiness of men! Disappointment an vexation must follow; and he most wisely consults his enjoyment, eve in this present life, who most exactly obeys the precepts of the Divin 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 all this And let no change in our condition be a pretext for forgetting ou duties to parents, or the friends who have stood in their place.
Original Hebrew
אשׁר 834 הגלה 1540 מירושׁלים 3389 עם 5973 הגלה 1473 אשׁר 834 הגלתה 1540 עם 5973 יכניה 3204 מלך 4428 יהודה 3063 אשׁר 834 הגלה 1540 נבוכדנצר 5019 מלך 4428 בבל׃ 894
