Now there was a Jew in Susa the citadel whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jair, son of Shimei, son of Kish, a Benjaminite,
The book of Esther opens in the Persian palace, and here we meet an unknown exile — a Jew named Mordecai, from a family carried off from Jerusalem. That short family record raises the questions the whole book turns on: why is he still far from home, and who placed him in the capital?
God working without His name
The name of God never appears in Esther. One writer reads that silence as the key to the whole story.
William KellyHere we have the grand development of secret providence, when God's name cannot be named. God can work where He cannot proclaim Himself.
Four generations from the exile
The next verse traces this family back to the deportation under Jeconiah, king of Judah. Some readers assume Mordecai himself made that journey. The numbers then make no sense, as one commentator explains.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinThey claim that Mordecai belonged to the captives carried away by Nebuchadnezzar. Then they say that, if that were so, Mordecai must have been over 130 years old and Esther at least 70. But does it say that Mordecai was carried away in the time of King Jeconiah? It was not Mordecai who was carried away but his great-grandfather Kish.
So Mordecai was born into exile. He had never seen the city his family came from.
Leslie M. GrantMordecai's grandfather had been carried captive by the Babylonians. Since that was over 70 years earlier, Mordecai was no doubt born in Persia. So were the great majority of Jews who lived during that captivity.
Son of Kish, a Benjamite
The name Kish points back to Israel's first royal family.
H. L. RossierThis Kish was no doubt of Saul's family, as his name shows... The name of Kish was famous for its link with the kingship God once set up in Israel. He rejected that kingship because it was unfaithful. We may well think that Mordecai's great-grandfather belonged to this dethroned royal family. When Cyrus gave his decree, Zerubbabel, the last of David's family, returned to Jerusalem with the faithful part of Judah. A representative of Saul's family stayed with the ruined, rejected people.
That old family line has unfinished business. Saul, the son of Kish, was Israel's first king.
Arend RemmersSaul, the son of Kish, spared Agag, King of the Amalekites, and was rejected by God for his disobedience (1 Sam. 15). Mordecai, who was also a son of Kish (Esther 2:5), arranged the execution of Haman, the Agagite (Esther 3:1). By this he carried out the judgment of God and gained great honour.
Why he was still in Persia
Cyrus had allowed the Jews to go home. Mordecai stayed, and commentators differ over how to read that. Some see a real failure, measured against other captives:
Morrish Bible DictionaryHow different Mordecai is from Ezra or Nehemiah! They were captives like him. But they were not content to spend their lives at the gate of a pagan king's palace when they had the chance to return to Jerusalem.
Others read his staying as duty rather than indifference:
H. L. RossierHe had not used the decree of Cyrus to return to Jerusalem. This was not out of indifference. Like Daniel and Nehemiah, he had a duty to carry out at the king's court. He could not leave without special permission, and his position probably forbade him to ask for it.
One man in the right place
Whatever we make of his choice, the people in danger later in the book are the exiles who stayed.
J. N. DarbyThe people in danger were from the captivity of Judah (Esther 2:5-6). They were among those who had not returned to the land of Canaan. If this shows a lack of faith and energy on their part, and little love for the house and city of God, then it proves all the more the absolute and sovereign goodness and faithfulness of that God Himself.
Older translations introduce him as "a certain Jew"; the ESV has simply "a Jew." That plain phrase becomes the hinge of everything that follows.
C. H. MackintoshOf all the officers, ministers and attendants around the palace, only one was to discover the plot against the king's life: "a certain Jew whose name was Mordecai." ... In the royal records there was an entry about "a certain Jew," and it had to come at once before the eyes of the restless king. Mordecai must come into notice.
Summary
- Hidden. God's name is absent from Esther, but His hand is not: He works where He cannot announce Himself.
- Descended. Mordecai was not the exile himself. His great-grandfather Kish was carried away, and Mordecai was born in Persia.
- Marked. He comes from the line of Kish, the family of Israel's first king. Saul spared Agag; Mordecai brings Agag's descendant to justice.
- Disputed. Commentators differ on why he never returned to Jerusalem. Some see slackness beside Ezra and Nehemiah. Others see a post at court he was not free to leave.
- Positioned. The exiles who stayed were the ones later in danger. Their rescue rested on the sovereign goodness of God, who worked through one "certain Jew" in the palace.