Esther 1

1:1-9 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 dinner of herbs with quietness, than this banquet of wine, with all the noise 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 drank to excess, it was their own fault. This caution of a heathen prince, even when he would show his generosity, may shame many called 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 them read it, and tremble, Hab 2:15,16.

Now it came to pass in the days of Ahasuerus,.... Who he was is not easy to say; almost all the kings of Persia are so named by one or another writer. He cannot be the Ahasuerus in Da 9:1, he was Astyages, the father of Cyaxares or Darius the Mede; but this must be one who had his royal palace in Shushan, which was never the royal city of the Medes, but of the Persians only; nor does he seem to be the Ahasuerus in Ezr 4:6, who is thought to be Cambyses, the son and successor of Cyrus; since, according to the canon of Ptolemy, he reigned but eight years, whereas this Ahasuerus at least reigned twelve, Es 3:7, though indeed some account for it by his reigning in his father's lifetime; besides, Cambyses was always an enemy to the Jews, as this was not; and yet this way go many of the Jewish writers {n} and so a very learned man, Nicolaus Abram {o}; according to Bishop Usher {p}, this was Darius Hystaspis, who certainly was a friend to the Jewish nation; but he is rather the Artaxerxes of Ezra and Nehemiah; and so says the Midrash {q}. Dr. Prideaux {r} thinks Ahasuerus was Artaxerxes Longimanus, which is the sense of Josephus {s}, and who is thought by many to be the Artaxerxes in the foresaid books. Capellus {t} is of opinion, that Darius Ochus is meant, to which Bishop Patrick inclines; but I rather think, with Vitringa {u} and others {w}, that Xerxes is the Ahasuerus that was the husband of Esther here spoken of; so the Arabic writers {x}; and as he was the son and successor of Darius Hystaspis, if he is meant by Artaxerxes in the preceding books, the history of which is carried to the thirty second year of his reign, Ne 13:6 and who reigned but four years more; this book of Esther stands in right order of time to carry on the history of the Jewish affairs in the Persian monarchy; and Mr. Broughton {y} owns, that the name of Xerxes, in Greek, agrees with Achasuerus in Hebrew; and in Es 10:1 his name is Achashresh, which, with the Greeks, is Axeres or Xerxes {z}:

this is Ahasuerus, which reigned from India even unto Ethiopia; properly so called; the Ethiopians had been subdued by Cambyses the son and successor of Cyrus {a}, and the Indians by Darius Hystaspis the father of Xerxes {b}; and both, with other great nations, were retained in subjection to him {c}; and many of both, as well as of other nations, were with him in his expedition into Greece {d}:

over an hundred and twenty and seven provinces; there were now seven provinces more under his jurisdiction than were in the times of Darius the Mede, Da 6:1.

{n} Targum & Jarchi in loc. Seder Olam Rabba, c. 29. Zuta, p. 108. {o} Pharus Vet. Test. l. 11. c. 12. p. 305. {p} Annal. Vet. Test. p. 160. so Broughton, Works, p. 38, 259, 581. {q} Midrash Esther, fol. 86. 2. {r} Connection, &c. par. 1. B. 4. p. 252, &c. {s} Antiqu. l. 11. c. 6. sect. 1. and so Suidas in voce εσθηρ. {t} Chronolog. Sacr. p. 294. {u} Hypotypos. Hist. Sacr. p. 110. {w} Schichart. de Festo Purim. Rainold. Praelect. 144. p. 231. Alsted. Chronolog. p. 126, 181. {x} In Abulpharag. Hist. Dynast. p. 87. {y} Ut supra. (Broughton, Works, p. 38, 259, 581.) {z} Vid. Hiller. Arcan. Keri & Ketib, p. 87. & Onomastic. Sacr. p. 639. {a} Herodot. Thalia, sive, l. 3. c. 97. {b} lb. Melpomene, sive, l. 4. c. 44. {c} lb. Polymnia, sive, l. 7. c. 9. {d} lb. c. 65, 69, 70.

1:1 Ahasuerus - Many suppose this to be Darius Hystapas, for his kingdom was thus vast, and he subdued India, as Herodotus reports: and one of his wives was called Atossa, differing little from Hadassah, which is Esther's other name, Esth 2:7. Provinces - So seven new provinces were added to those hundred and twenty mentioned, Dan 6:1.

An Exposition, With Practical Observations, of The Book of Esther How the providence of God watched over the Jews that had returned out of captivity to their own land, and what great and kind things were done for them, we read in the two foregoing books; but there were many who staid behind, having not zeal enough for God’s house, and the holy land and city, to carry them through the difficulties of a removal thither. These, one would think, should have been excluded the special protection of Providence, as unworthy the name of Israelites; but our God deals not with us according to our folly and weakness. We find in this book that even those Jews who were scattered in the provinces of the heathen were taken care of, as well as those who were gathered in the land of Judea, and were wonderfully preserved, when doomed to destruction and appointed as sheep for the slaughter. Who drew up this story is uncertain. Mordecai was as able as any man to relate, on his own knowledge, the several passages of it; quorum pars magna fuit—for he bore a conspicuous part in it; and that he wrote such an account of them as was necessary to inform his people of the grounds of their observing the feast of Purim we are told (ch. 9:20, Mordecai wrote these things, and sent them enclosed in letters to all the Jews), and therefore we have reason to think he was the penman of the whole book. It is the narrative of a plot laid against the Jews to cut them all off, and which was wonderfully disappointed by a concurrence of providences.