King James Version · The Persian return
Additions to Esther 15
Touch any underlined name to see who or where it is.
1And upon the third day, when she had ended her prayers, she laid away her garments, and put on her apparel. 2And being gloriously adorned, after she had called upon , who is the beholder and of all things, she took two maids with her: 3And upon the one she leaned, as carrying herself daintily; 4And the other followed, bearing up her train. 5And she was ruddy through the perfection of her beauty, and her countenance was cheerful and very amiable: but her was in anguish for fear. 6Then having passed through all the doors, she stood before the king, who sat upon his royal , and was clothed with all his robes of majesty, all glittering with gold and precious stones; and he was very dreadful. 7Then lifting up his countenance that shone with majesty, he looked very fiercely upon her: and the queen fell down, and was pale, and fainted, and bowed herself upon the head of the maid that went before her. 8Then changed of the king into mildness, who in a fear leaped from his , and took her in his arms, till she came to herself again, and comforted her with loving words and said unto her, 9, what is the matter? I am thy brother, be of good cheer: 10Thou shalt not , though our our be general: come near. 11And so be held up his golden sceptre, and laid it upon her neck, 12And embraced her, and said, Speak unto me. 13Then said she unto him, I saw thee, my , as of , and was troubled for fear of thy majesty. 14For wonderful art thou, , and thy countenance is full of . 15And as she was speaking, she fell down for faintness. 16Then the king was troubled, and all his servants comforted her.
The 1611 translation, public domain. Its original printing included the Apocrypha, which is why the deuterocanonical books can be read here. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · The Persian return, 539 BC to 332 BC ›
Persia takes Babylon and reverses its policy, sending exiled peoples home to rebuild their temples. Judah returns as a small province, rebuilding under imperial permission rather than independence.
- Persia
- The largest empire the world had yet seen, from the Indus to the Aegean, run through provinces, a royal road, and a postal system. Its policy on conquered peoples was to send them home and fund their temples, in exchange for loyalty and prayers for the king. The Cyrus Cylinder states the policy in Cyrus's own words, and Ezra opens with the same policy applied to Judah.
- Judah
- A small, poor province called Yehud, a fraction of the old kingdom, with a rebuilt temple that made the people who remembered the first one weep. No king, and no prospect of one. Leadership passes to priests and scribes, which shapes everything afterward.
- Greece
- Persia and Greece collide at Marathon and Salamis, Persia loses, and Athens spends the following decades on the Parthenon, tragedy, and Socrates. Herodotus writes the first history in order to explain that war. Then Plato and Aristotle, whose vocabulary the church will still be using at Nicaea eight centuries later.
- Further afield
- Rome throws out its kings and becomes a republic. In India and China this is the age of the Buddha's early followers and of Confucian teaching taking hold. More of what the world still thinks with was invented in this era than in almost any other.