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Esther 2: A Benjaminite exile in Susa, and an orphan made queen

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Esther 1:19ESV

If it please the king, let a royal order go out from him, and let it be written among the laws of the and the so that it may not be repealed, that Vashti is never again to come before King Ahasuerus. And let the king give her royal position to another who is better than she.

ESV

And let the king appoint officers in all the provinces of his kingdom to gather all the beautiful young virgins to the harem in the citadel, under custody of Hegai, the king's eunuch, who is in charge of the women. Let their cosmetics be given them.

ESV

Now there was a Jew in the citadel whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jair, son of Shimei, son of Kish, a Benjaminite,

ESV

who had been carried away from among the captives carried away with Jeconiah king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of had carried away.

ESV

So when the king's order and his edict were proclaimed, and when many young women were gathered in the citadel in custody of Hegai, Esther also was taken into the king's palace and put in custody of Hegai, who had charge of the women.

Esther 3:15ESV

The couriers went out hurriedly by order of the king, and the decree was issued in the citadel. And the king and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of was thrown into confusion.

Esther 1
Esther 3

The search for a new queen gathers young women from every province into the harem at Susa the citadel. Among them is Esther, the orphaned cousin of Mordecai, a Benjaminite whose family the chapter traces back to the deportation from Jerusalem, when Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon carried Jeconiah king of Judah into exile. Esther keeps her people hidden, wins the king's favour and is crowned, and Mordecai, sitting in the king's gate, uncovers a plot against the king's life.

Map of Esther 2: A Benjaminite exile in Susa, and an orphan made queen — 3 sites plotted

Regions on this map

Verses 3, 5 and 8: the citadel the young women are brought to, and where Mordecai lives.

  • The winter capital of the Persian kings, on the plain of Elam below the Zagros, and the stage for the whole book. The ESV's “Susa the citadel” is the fortified royal quarter on its mound, set apart from the city around it. All 500 votes put it at modern Shush, in Iran's Khuzestan.

    Today: Shush, Khuzestan, Iran

Verse 6: Mordecai's family was taken from Jerusalem to Babylon with King Jeconiah in 597 BC. The road drawn is the usual route up the Fertile Crescent and down the Euphrates; the verse names only its two ends.

  • Nebuchadnezzar's capital on the Euphrates, where the deportees were taken. By Esther's day it is a Persian city and the Jews are spread across the empire, as far east as Susa.

    Today: Babylon, near Hillah, Iraq

  • The city Mordecai's family was carried from, with Jeconiah king of Judah, more than a century before this chapter. Esther names it once, to say where the exiles came from.

    Today: Jerusalem

Esther 2, verse by verse

  1. Esther 2:3And let the king appoint officers in all the provinces of his kingdom to gather all the beautiful young virgins to the harem in the citadel, under custody of Hegai, the king's eunuch, who is in charge of the women. Let their cosmetics be given them.
  2. Esther 2:5Now there was a Jew in the citadel whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jair, son of Shimei, son of Kish, a Benjaminite,
  3. Esther 2:6who had been carried away from among the captives carried away with Jeconiah king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of had carried away.
  4. Esther 2:8So when the king's order and his edict were proclaimed, and when many young women were gathered in the citadel in custody of Hegai, Esther also was taken into the king's palace and put in custody of Hegai, who had charge of the women.