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 9:3-4

9:3 All the officials of the provinces, the satraps, the governors and those who performed the king’s business were assisting the Jews, for the dread of Mordecai had fallen on them. 9:4 Mordecai was of high rank ⁵  in the king’s palace, and word about him was spreading throughout all the provinces. His influence ⁶  continued to become greater and greater.

Esther 8:9

8:9 The king’s scribes were quickly ⁷  summoned – in the third month (that is, the month of Sivan), on the twenty-third day. ⁸  They wrote out ⁹  everything that Mordecai instructed to the Jews and to the satraps and the governors and the officials of the provinces all the way from India to Ethiopia ¹⁰  – a hundred and twenty-seven provinces in all – to each province in its own script and to each people in their own language, and to the Jews according to their own script and their own language.

[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).

[9:4]  ⁵ tn Heb “great”; NRSV “powerful”; NIV “prominent”; NCV “very important.”

[9:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “the man Mordecai” (so NASB, NRSV).

[8:9]  ⁹ tn Heb “in that time”; NIV “At once.”

[8:9]  ¹⁰ sn Cf. 3:12. Two months and ten days have passed since Haman’s edict to wipe out the Jews.

[8:9]  ¹¹ tn Heb “it was written”; this passive construction has been converted to an active one in the translation for clarity and for stylistic reasons.

[8:9]  ¹² tn Heb “Cush” (so NIV), referring to the region of the upper Nile in Africa. Cf. KJV and most other English versions “Ethiopia.”