Esther 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.

Esther 2:16

2:16 Then Esther was taken to King Ahasuerus at his royal residence in the tenth ⁵  month (that is, the month of Tebeth) in the seventh ⁶  year of his reign.

Esther 3:7

3:7 In the first month (that is, the month of Nisan), in the twelfth year ⁷  of King Ahasuerus’ reign, pur ⁸  (that is, the lot) was cast before Haman in order to determine a day and a month. ⁹  It turned out to be the twelfth month (that is, the month of Adar). ¹⁰ 

[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).

[2:16]  ⁵ tc The Greek MSS Codex Alexandrinus (A) and Codex Vaticanus (B) read “twelfth” here.

[2:16]  ⁶ tc The Syriac Peshitta reads “fourth” here.

[3:7]  ⁹ sn This year would be ca. 474 b.c. The reference to first month and twelfth month indicate that about a year had elapsed between this determination and the anticipated execution.

[3:7]  ¹⁰ tn The term פּוּר (pur, “lot”) is an Akkadian loanword; the narrator therefore explains it for his Hebrew readers (“that is, the lot”). It is from the plural form of this word (i.e., Purim) that the festival celebrating the deliverance of the Jews takes its name (cf. 9:24, 26, 28, 31).

[3:7]  ¹¹ tc The LXX adds the following words: “in order to destroy in one day the race of Mordecai, and the lot fell on the fourteenth day of the month.” The LXX reading is included by NAB.

[3:7]  ¹² tn Since v. 7 seems to interrupt the flow of the narrative, many scholars have suggested that it is a late addition to the text. But there is not enough evidence to warrant such a conclusion. Even though its placement is somewhat awkward, the verse supplies to the reader an important piece of chronological information.