2. History. — She was the daughter of Abihail (who was probably the son of Shimei), a Benjamite, and uncle of Mordecai (q. v.). Her ancestor Kish had been among tlie captives led away from .Jerusalem (part of which was in the tribe of Benjamin) by Nebu- chadnezzar when Jehoiachin was taken captive. Tlie fiimily did not avail itself of the permission to return to Palestine under the edict of Cj'rus. Her parents being dead, Esther was brought up as a daughter by her cousin Mordecai, who had an office in the court or household of the Persian monarcli " at Shushan, in the palace." The reigning king of Persia, Ahasuerus, having divorced his queen, Vashti, on account of the becoming spirit with which she refused to submit to the indignity which a compliance with his drunken commands involved, search was made throughout the empire for the most beautiful maiden to be her suc- cessor. Those whom the oflicers of the harem deemed the most beautiful were removed thither, the eventual choice among them remaining with the king himself. That choice fell on Esther, who found favor in the eyes of Ahasuerus, and was advanced to a station enviable onlj' by comparison M'itli that of the less favored in- mates of the royal harem. B.C. 479. The king M'as not aware, however, of her race and parentage ; and so, with the careless ]irofusion of a sensual despot, on the representation of Hainan the Agagite, his prime minister, that the Jews scattered through his empire were a pernicious race, he gave him full power and authority to kill them all, young and old, Avomen and children, and take possession of all their property. The circumstance that Esther herself, though queen, seemed to be included in this doom of extirpation, en- abled lier to turn the royal indignation ni)(in Haman, wliose resentment against Mordecai had led him to ob- tain from the king this monstrous edict. The laws of the empire would not allow the king to recall a decree once uttered ; but the Jews were authorized to stand on their defence ; and this, with the known change in the intentions of the court, averted the worst conse- quences of tlie decree. The Jews established a yearly feast in memory of this deliverance, which is observed
ESTHER
307
ESTHER
jimong thom to this day. See Purim. Such is the substance of the history of Esther, as related in the book which bears her name. (See below.) The de- tails, as given in th;it book, afford a most curious pic- ture of the usages of the ancient Persian court, the ac- curacy of which is vouched for not only by the histori- cal authority of the book itself, but by its agreement with tiie inthnations aftbrded by the ancient writers, as well as by the fact that the same usages are in sub- stance preserved in the Persian court at the present day. See Harem.
Sir John Malcolm tells ns that the sepulchre of Esther and Mordecai stands near the centre of the city of Hamadan. It is a square building, terminated by a dome, with an inscription in Hebrew upon it, trans- lated and sent to him by Sir Gore Ouselej', ambassadoi; to the court of Persia, as follows : ' ' Thursday, fifteenth of the month Adar, in the 3'ear 4-174 from the creation of the world, was finished the building of this temple over the graves of Esther and Mordecai, by the hands of the good-haarted lirothers Elias and Samuel, the sons of the deceased Ishmael of Kashan." According to the vulgar Jewish rera, this would have been not more than eleven centuries ago ; but the date ma}' be after the computation of the Eastern Jews, which would make it about A.D. 250. Local tradition saj's that it was thoroughly repaired about 175 j'ears since by a Jewish rabbi named Ismael {Kitto, Pict. Bible, at Esth.
X, 1). See ACHMETHA.
T<.iiib 01' Jlordccai ami lOstlier.
.3. Proposed Identifications with Personages in Profane JUstiiry. — Tiie question as to the identity of tlie Per- sian king referred to in connection with Esther is dis- cussed under Ahasuerus, and tiie reasons there given lead to the conclusion that he was Xerxes, the son of Darius Hystaspis. .(See, however, a contrarj' view in the Jour, of Sac. Lit. July, 18G0, p. 40() sq.)
A second inquir)' remains, Who, then, was Esther.? Ariissona, Alossa, and others arc indeed excluded by the above decision ; but are we to conclude, with Scal- iwr, that because Ahasuerus is Xerxes, therefore Esther is Amesti-vi? Sui-cly not. None of the his- torical particulars related by Herodotus concerning Amestris (Herod ix, 108; comp. Ctesias, ap. Photius, Cod. 72, p. 57) make it possible to identify her with Esther. Amestris was the daugliter of Otancs (Ono- phas in Ctesias'), one of Xerxes's pcncrals, and brother to Ids fatlier Darius (Herod, vii, GI, 82). Esther's fa- ther and mother had been Jews. Amestris was wife to Xerxes before the Greek expedition (Herod, vii, 61), and her sons accompanied Xerxes to Greece
(Herod, vii, 09), and had all three come to man's es- tate at the death of Xerxes in the 20th year of his reign. Darius, the eldest, had married immediately after the return from Greece. Esther did not enter the king's palace till his 7th year, just the time of Darius's marriage. These objections are conclusive, without adding tlie dilference of character of the two queens. The truth is that history is wholh' silent both about Yashti and Esther. Herodotus onlj' hap- pens to mention one of Xerxes's wives ; Scripture onlj' mentions two, if indeed cither of them were wives at all. But since we know that it was the custom of the Persian kings before Xerxes to have several wives, besides their concubines ; that Cyrus had several (Herod, iii, 3); that Cambyses had four whose names are mentioned, and others besides (iii, 31, 32, 08) ; that Smerdis had several (ib. C8, 60) ; and that Darius had six wives, whose names are mentioned (ih. passim), it is most improbable that Xerxes should have been con- tent with one wife. Anotlier strong objection to the idea of Esllier being his one legitimate wife, and per- haps to her being strictly his wife at all, is that the Persian kings selected their wives not from the harem, but, if not foreign princesses, from the noblest Persian families, either their own nearest relatives, or from one of the seven gieat Persian houses. It seems therefore natural to conclude th;,t E.^thcr, a captive, and one of the harem, was net of the highest rank of wives, but that a special honor, with the name of queen, may have been given to her, as to Yashti before her, as the favor- ite concubine or inferior wife, whose ofl'spring, howev- er, if she had any, would not have succeeded to the Persian throne. This view, which seems to be strict- ly in accordance with what we know of the manners of the Persian court, removes all difficulty in reconcil- ing the historj' of Esther with the scanty accounts left us by profane authors of the reign of Xerxes.