Ester 1:3

1:3 in the third ¹  year of his reign he provided a banquet for all his officials and his servants. The army ²  of Persia and Media ³  was present, ⁴  as well as the nobles and the officials of the provinces.

Ester 3:6

3:6 But the thought of striking out against ⁵  Mordecai alone was repugnant to him, for he had been informed ⁶  of the identity of Mordecai’s people. ⁷  So Haman sought to destroy all the Jews (that is, the people of Mordecai) ⁸  who were in all the kingdom of Ahasuerus.

[1:3]  ¹ sn The third year of Xerxes’ reign would be ca. 483 b.c.

[1:3]  ² tc Due to the large numbers of people implied, some scholars suggest that the original text may have read “leaders of the army” (cf. NAB “Persian and Median aristocracy”; NASB “the army officers”; NIV “the military leaders”). However, there is no textual evidence for this emendation, and the large numbers are not necessarily improbable.

[1:3]  ³ sn Unlike the Book of Daniel, the usual order for this expression in Esther is “Persia and Media” (cf. vv. 14, 18, 19). In Daniel the order is “Media and Persia,” indicating a time in their history when Media was in the ascendancy.

[1:3]  ⁴ sn The size of the banquet described here, the number of its invited guests, and the length of its duration, although certainly immense by any standard, are not without precedent in the ancient world. C. A. Moore documents a Persian banquet for 15,000 people and an Assyrian celebration with 69,574 guests (Esther [AB], 6).

[3:6]  ⁵ tn Heb “to send a hand against”; KJV, NRSV “to lay hands on.”

[3:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “they had related to him.” For stylistic reasons this has been translated as a passive construction.

[3:6]  ⁷ tc The entire first half of the verse is not included in the LXX.

[3:6]  ⁸ tc This parenthetical phrase is not included in the LXX. Some scholars emend the MT reading עַם (’am, “people”) to עִם (’im, “with”), arguing that the phrase is awkwardly placed and syntactically inappropriate. While there is some truth to their complaint, the MT makes sufficient sense to be acceptable here, and is followed by most English versions.