King James Version · The Persian return
Esther 6
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On that night could not the king sleep, and he commanded to bring the book of records of the chronicles; and they were read before the king. And it was found written, that had told of Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s chamberlains, the keepers of the door, who sought to lay hand on the king . And the king said, What and dignity hath been done to for this? Then said the king’s servants that ministered unto him, There is nothing done for him. And the king said, Who is in the court? Now was come into the outward court of the king’s house, to speak unto the king to hang on the gallows that he had prepared for him. 5And the king’s servants said unto him, Behold, standeth in the court. And the king said, Let him come in. So came in. And the king said unto him, What shall be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to ? Now thought in , To whom would the king delight to do more than to myself? And answered the king, For the man whom the king delighteth to , Let the royal apparel be brought which the king useth to wear, and the horse that the king rideth upon, and the royal which is set upon his head: And let this apparel and horse be to the hand of one of the king’s most noble princes, that they may array the man withal whom the king delighteth to , and bring him on horseback through the street of the city, and proclaim before him, Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighteth to . Then the king said to , Make haste, and take the apparel and the horse, as thou hast said, and do even so to the , that sitteth at the king’s : let nothing fail of all that thou hast spoken. Then took the apparel and the horse, and arrayed , and brought him on horseback through the street of the city, and proclaimed before him, Thus shall it be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to . And came again to the king’s . But hasted to his house , and having his head covered. And told Zeresh his wife and all his friends every thing that had befallen him. Then said his men and Zeresh his wife unto him, If be of the of the , before whom thou hast begun to fall, thou shalt not prevail against him, but shalt surely fall before him. And while they were yet talking with him, came the king’s chamberlains, and hasted to bring unto the banquet that had prepared.
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.