ESTHER was the orphan cousin and adopted daughter of Mordecai, descended from a Benjamite family of the Babylonian captives of Nebu chadnezzar (Esther, ii. 5-7). The place of her residence was in the city Shusan, or Sum, now Sus (not Shuster, as stated by Dr. Adam Clarke —seer Trans. Geog. Soc.,' voL which, throughout the book, is in English mistranslated 'Shushan the palace,' though, in the Septuagiut version, it is rightly iv Zo4crois an 7r67iei, that is, 'in Susa the city.' The monarch, Ahasuerue (chap. i.), after having entertained all his nobles and princes with sumptuous festivity during more than six months, gave a great feast in his palace-garden to all the men of Susa, great and small, while the women were separately feasted by the queen in the royal house. To the men royal wine was supplied in abundance, and the drinking was according to every mates pleasure; when the king, being on the seventh day merry with wine, sent his seven chamberlains with orders to bring the queen to exhibit herself before his guests ; but Vestal (which in Persian means the beauti fully fair) refusing to come (the command was improper), ha was very wroth, and his anger burned within him. Ahasuerus however punished her by degradation and banishment, and by his royal mandate letters were despatched to the people of each province, decreeing that every man bear rule in hie own house. To furnish the royal harem with the greatest means of choice, there was made throughout the empire (ch. a general levy of the fairest virgins ; and Esther, the beautiful young Jewess, being preferred by Hege, the keeper of the king's women, before all others of the numerous assemblage, aho succeeded to the place of the banished queen Vashti. The twelve months' coametical purification of the maidens previous to their admission to the king (ver. 12).was required, says Dr. Clarke, "to show if they were with child, that the monarch might not be imposed on by fathering a spurious offspring ; and because many having been brought up in low life, and fed on coarse, strong, and locli;estible food, they had a copious and strongly-odorous perspiration, v,hich was far from pleasant." Esther's foater-father, Mordecai the Jew (chap. iii.), having refused to do reverence to Haman, the chief minister and favourite of Ahasuerus, he, with all the other Jews from Babylon then dispersed throughout the Persian empire, were by Haman devoted to destruction, and the royal mandate being accordingly issued "to destroy, to kill, and to cause to perish all Jews, young and old, little children and women, in one day, and to take the spoil of them for a prey (ver. 13), t
the king and 11=10 sat down to drink ;" but the fickle tyrant, influenced in the meantime by the pathetic entreaties of Esther, and 1 b7 the recollection that Mordecai had discovered a conspiracy against his was induced to hang his favourite Haman on • gallows thirty yards high, which that minister had prepared for Mordecai. lie then promoted Mordecai to the highest honours in the empire; and still ' yielding to the influence of the fairJeweas and of Mordecai, he hastily 1 issued orders empowering all the Jews destroy, to slay, and to tuuse to perish all the people that would assault them, both little ones and women, in one day, throughout all the provinces of King I Ahasuerus, and to take the spoil of them for a prey" (viii. 11, 12), so that "the Jews smote all their enemies with the sword, with slaughter and destruction, and did what they would unto those that hated them" , (chap. ix. 5). Byes special request of Esther, the ten sons of Haman were hanged on the gallows, and in the city of Sou the Jews massacred 800 of the king's Persian subjects, and in the provinces 75,000 (ix. 12, 13, 15, 16). This signal revenge of Haman's intended destruction of the Jews in Persia has ever since been commemorated (ix. 21-28) on the 14th and 15th days of the month Adar, in the Jewish 'Feast of Purim,' that is, in Persian, ' the Iota,' with reference to those which were cast before Haman (chap. 7 ; 26). The word which io the authorised version is repeatedly translated gallows,' should properly be ' cross,' or tree. Hence it was that in the first ages of Christianity the Jews, when celebrating this feast of Purim, were accused of deriding the Christian crucifixion, in abusing and setting fire to an effigy of Haman affixed to • lofty wooden cross—a custom which ou this account was abolished in the Roman empire by the decrees of Justinian and Theodosius.