Esther 9

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Now in the twelfth month, that is, the month , on the thirteenth day of the same, when the king’s and his drew near to be put in execution, in the day that the of the to have over them, (though it was turned to the contrary, that the had them that hated them;) The gathered themselves together in their cities throughout all the provinces of the king , to lay hand on such as sought their hurt: and no man could withstand them; for the fear of them fell upon all people. And all the of the provinces, and the lieutenants, and the deputies, and officers of the king, helped the ; because the fear of fell upon them. For was great in the king’s house, and his fame went out throughout all the provinces: for this man waxed greater and greater. Thus the smote all their with the stroke of , and slaughter, and , and did what they would unto those that hated them. And in the palace the slew and destroyed five hundred men. ⁷And Parshandatha, and Dalphon, and Aspatha, ⁸And Poratha, and Adalia, and Aridatha, ⁹And Parmashta, and Arisai, and Aridai, and Vajezatha, The ten sons of the son of Hammedatha, of the , slew they; but on the spoil laid they not their hand. ¹¹On that day the number of those that were slain in the palace was brought before the king. And the king said unto the queen, The have slain and destroyed five hundred men in the palace, and the ten sons of ; what have they done in the rest of the king’s provinces? now what is thy petition? and it shall be granted thee: or what is thy request further? and it shall be done. Then said , If it please the king, let it be granted to the which are in to do to morrow also according unto this day’s , and let ’s ten sons be hanged upon the gallows. ¹⁴And the king commanded it so to be done: and the was given at ; and they hanged ’s ten sons. For the that were in gathered themselves together on the fourteenth day also of the month , and slew three hundred men at ; but on the prey they laid not their hand. But the other that were in the king’s provinces gathered themselves together, and stood for their lives, and had rest from their , and slew of their seventy and five thousand, but they laid not their hands on the prey, On the thirteenth day of the month ; and on the fourteenth day of the same rested they, and made it a day of feasting and gladness. But the that were at assembled together on the thirteenth day thereof, and on the fourteenth thereof; and on the fifteenth day of the same they rested, and made it a day of feasting and gladness. Therefore the of the villages, that dwelt in the unwalled towns, made the fourteenth day of the month a day of gladness and feasting, and a good day, and of sending portions one to another. And wrote these things, and sent letters unto all the that were in all the provinces of the king , both nigh and far, ²¹To stablish this among them, that they should keep the fourteenth day of the month , and the fifteenth day of the same, yearly, As the days wherein the rested from their , and the month which was turned unto them from sorrow to joy, and from into a good day: that they should make them days of feasting and joy, and of sending portions one to another, and gifts to . ²³And the undertook to do as they had begun, and as had written unto them; Because the son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, of all the , had devised against the to destroy them, and had cast Pur, that is, the lot, to consume them, and to destroy them; But when came before the king, he commanded by letters that his device, which he devised against the , should return upon his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows. Wherefore they called these days after the name of Pur. Therefore for all the words of this letter, and of that which they had seen concerning this matter, and which had come unto them, The ordained, and took upon them, and upon their , and upon all such as joined themselves unto them, so as it should not fail, that they would keep these two days according to their writing, and according to their every year; And that these days should be remembered and kept throughout every generation, every family, every province, and every city; and that these days of should not fail from among the , nor the memorial of them from their . Then the queen, the daughter of , and the , wrote with all , to confirm this second letter of . And he sent the letters unto all the , to the hundred twenty and seven provinces of of , with words of peace and truth, To confirm these days of in their times appointed, according as the and the queen had enjoined them, and as they had decreed for themselves and for their , the matters of the fastings and their cry. And the of confirmed these matters of ; and it was written in the book.

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.

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