King James Version · The Persian return
Esther 1
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Now it came to pass in the days of , (this is which reigned, from India even unto , over an hundred and seven and twenty provinces:) That in those days, when the king sat on of , which was in the palace, In the third year of his reign, he made a feast unto all his princes and his servants; the of and , the nobles and princes of the provinces, being before him: When he shewed the riches of his kingdom and the of his excellent majesty many days, even an hundred and fourscore days. And when these days were expired, the king made a feast unto all the people that were present in the palace, both unto great and small, seven days, in the court of the garden of the king’s palace; Where were white, green, and blue, hangings, fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rings and pillars of marble: the beds were of gold and silver, upon a pavement of red, and blue, and white, and black, marble. And they gave them drink in vessels of gold, (the vessels being diverse one from another,) and royal in abundance, according to the state of the king. And the drinking was according to ; none did compel: for so the king had appointed to all the officers of his house, that they should do according to every man’s pleasure. Also the queen made a feast for the women in the royal house which belonged to king . On the seventh day, when of the king was merry with , he commanded Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, and Abagtha, Zethar, and Carcas, the seven chamberlains that in the of the king, To bring the queen before the king with the royal, to shew the people and the princes her beauty: for she was fair to look on. But the queen refused to come at the king’s by his chamberlains: therefore was the king very wroth, and his burned in him. Then the king said to men, which knew the times, (for so was the king’s manner toward all that knew law and : And the next unto him was Carshena, Shethar, Admatha, , Meres, Marsena, and Memucan, the seven princes of and , which saw the king’s , and which sat the first in ;) What shall we do unto the queen according to law, because she hath not performed the of the king by the chamberlains? And Memucan answered before the king and the princes, the queen hath not done wrong to the king only, but also to all the princes, and to all the people that are in all the provinces of the king . For this deed of the queen shall come abroad unto all women, so that they shall despise their husbands in their eyes, when it shall be reported, The king commanded the queen to be brought in before him, but she came not. Likewise shall the ladies of and say this day unto all the king’s princes, which have heard of the deed of the queen. Thus shall there arise too much contempt and . If it please the king, let there go a royal from him, and let it be written among the laws of the and the , that it be not altered, That come no more before king ; and let the king give her royal estate unto another that is better than she. And when the king’s which he shall make shall be published throughout all his empire, (for it is great,) all the wives shall give to their husbands , both to great and small. And the saying pleased the king and the princes; and the king did according to the word of Memucan: For he sent letters into all the king’s provinces, into every province according to the writing thereof, and to every people after their language, that every man should bear rule in his own house, and that it should be published according to the language of every people.
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.