Esther Chapter 2

“After these things, when the wrath of King Ahasuerus was appeased, etc.] Which went off with his wine, and so was quickly after, a few days at most, unless this can be understood as after the expedition of Xerxes into Greece, from whence he returned to Shushan, in the seventh year of his reign; and if he is the Ahasuerus here meant, he married Esther that year, (<170216>Esther 2:16) and it seems certain, that after his expedition he gave himself up to his amours, and in his way to Sardis he fell in love with his brother’s wife, and then with his daughter f75: he remembered Vashti; her beauty, and was grieved, as…”

“ESTHER CHOSEN TO BE QUEEN. (Est. 2:1-20) After these things, when the wrath of king Ahasuerus was appeased--On recovering from the violent excitement of his revelry and rage, the king was pierced with poignant regret for the unmerited treatment he had given to his beautiful and dignified queen. But, according to the law, which made the word of a Persian king irrevocable, she could not be restored. His counsellors, for their own sake, were solicitous to remove his disquietude, and hastened to recommend the adoption of all suitable means for gratifying their royal master with another consort of equal or superior…”

“These events must belong to the time between the great assembly held at Susa in Xerxes’ third year (483 B.C.), and the departure of the monarch on his expedition against Greece in his fifth year, 481 B.C. return to 'Top of Page'”

“Keeper - Of all the women, both virgins and concubines: only the virgins he himself took care of, as requiring more care and caution, and the concubines be committed to Shaashgaz, Est 2:14, his deputy. Purification - That is, to cleanse them from all impurities, to perfume, and adorn, and every way prepare them for the king: for the legal purification of the Jews he never regarded. Esther 2:7”

“2:6 His family (literally He): Since King Jehoiachin was exiled in 597 BC (2 Kgs 24:6-16), over 100 years earlier, it was probably one of Mordecai’s ancestors who was part of the group taken into Babylonian captivity.”

“am 3543, bc 461 he remembered: Dan 6:14-18 what was decreed: Est 1:12-21 Esther 2:2”

“When, after these things, the wrath of King Ahashverosh was laid (שׁך, from שׁכך, to be sunk, spoken of wrath to be laid), he remembered Vashti and what she had done, and what was decreed against her (גּזר, to determine, to decree irrevocably; comp. גּזרה, Dan 4:14); a desire for reunion with her evidently making itself felt, accompanied perhaps by the thought that she might have been too harshly treated. To prevent, then, a return of affection for his rejected wife ensuing, - a circumstance which might greatly endanger all who had concurred in effecting her repudiation, - the servants of the king, i.e., the…”