Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Esther 1:4

When he showed the riches of his glorious kingdom and the honor of his excellent majesty many days, [even] a hundred and fourscore days.

4. the riches etc. ] Herod. (vii. 27) tells of the golden plane tree and the golden vine given by Pythius, a rich man of Celaenae, to Darius. Aeschylus ( Persae, 161) mentions the walls hung with gold. [57] The text may refer among other things to the ingots of gold which Darius had stored in the treasury (Herod. iii. 96).

[57] .

an hundred and fourscore days ] This may mean a series of entertainments to successive relays of guests. The ‘princes’ could scarcely be all spared from their satrapies at once.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Verse 4. The riches of his glorious kingdom] Luxury was the characteristic of the Eastern monarchs, and particularly of the Persians. In their feasts, which were superb and of long continuance, they made a general exhibition of their wealth, grandeur, c., and received the highest encomiums from their poets and flatterers. Their ostentation on such occasions passed into a proverb: hence Horace: –

Persicos odi, puer, apparatus:

Displicent nexae philyra coronae

Mitte sectari, rosa quo locorum

Sera moretur.

I tell thee, boy, that I detest

The grandeur of a Persian feast;

Nor for me the linden’s rind

Shall the flowery chaplet bind.

Then search not where the curious rose

Beyond his season loitering grows.

FRANCIS.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Making every day a magnificent feast, either for all his princes, or for some of them, who might come to the feast successively, as the king ordered them to do. The Persian feasts are much celebrated in authors for their length and luxury.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

When he showed the riches of his glorious kingdom,…. Xerxes was the fourth king of the Persian monarchy, and was “far richer than all” that went before him, all their riches coming into his hands,

Da 11:2, and now that prophecy began to be fulfilled, “that by his strength, through his riches, he should stir up all against the realm of Grecia”; which he began to do in the third year of his reign, and for which these his nobles might be called together, as to have their advice, so to animate them to come in the more readily into the expedition, by showing them the riches he was possessed of; for to none of the kings of Persia does this largeness of riches better belong than to Xerxes:

and the honour of his excellent majesty; the grandeur he lived in, the pomp and splendour of his court; he was the most grand and magnificent of all the kings of the Medes and Persians i:

and this he did many days, even an hundred and fourscore days; to which seven more being added, as in the following verse, it made one hundred and eighty seven, the space of full six months; though some think the feast did not last so long, only seven days, and that the one hundred and eighty days were spent in preparing for it; but the Persian feasts were very long, large, and sumptuous. Dr. Frye k says, this custom of keeping an annual feast one hundred and eighty days still continues in Persia. Cheus l, a Chinese emperor, used frequently to make a feast which lasted one hundred and twenty days; though it cannot be well thought that the same individual persons here were feasted so long, but, when one company was sufficiently treated, they removed and made way for another; and so it continued successively such a number of days as here related, which was six months, or half a year; a year then in use consisting of three hundred and sixty days, as was common with the Jews, and other nations, and so the Persians m.

i Pausan. Laconica, sive, l. 3. p. 165. k Travels, p. 348. apud Patrick in loc. l In Martin. Sinic. Hist. l. 3. p. 78. m Prideaux’s Connect. par. 1. p. 197.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

(4) An hundred and fourscore days.As a period of mere feasting, this long time (half a year) is simply incredible, but we must understand it as a time during which troops were collected, and the plan of invasion settled.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

4. When he showed Literally, in his showing; that is, while he showed or descanted on his wealth and power. The riches of his glorious kingdom and the honour of his excellent majesty are not to be understood of the wealth and magnificence displayed at the royal banquet, but rather the extent and vast resources of his empire, as exhibited by the number and dignity of his guests. If his object in assembling these great officers of his realm was to deliberate on the invasion of Greece, we see a reason for this showing of his vast wealth and power. He would thus convince his princes of his abundant ability to conquer Greece.

A hundred and fourscore days We are not to understand, as some have done, that the royal feast continued all these six months. The great banquet was given, as the next verse shows, after these days had expired. But many a feast of less note might have been held during the one hundred and eighty days. Ctesias relates that the king of Persia furnished provisions daily for twenty-five thousand men. We need not suppose, however, that all the princes of the empire were absent from their homes and entertained for six months at Shushan; but rather, as Rawlinson suggests, “we may conclude that the time was extended in order to allow of the different persons making their appearance at the court successively.” Xerxes is said to have been four years in mustering his forces and making preparations for his expedition against the Greeks, ( Herod., 7:20,) and he might well have spent the half of one year in consulting with his nobles, forming plans, and estimating the character and extent of his resources.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Est 1:4 When he shewed the riches of his glorious kingdom and the honour of his excellent majesty many days, [even] an hundred and fourscore days.

Ver. 4. When he shewed the riches of his glorious kingdom ] Or, that he might show, &c. There were other ends of this feast, as was before noted; but this is instanced by the Holy Ghost, to set forth the pride and vanity of this great monarch, abusing God’s gifts to his own ambition, and priding himself in that wealth which had been gotten by the hard labour of his poor subjects; from whom haply his exactors had received no less sums of curses than of coin. O curas hominum! O quantum est in rebus inane! O the concerns of men, O how great it is in vain things.

And the honour of his excellent majesty ] Atqui virtute, non vanitate acquirenda est gloria, saith the orator, glory is to be gotten by virtue, and not by these like vanities, Hezekiah smarted for his folly in this kind; Nebuchadnezzar much more. This great potentate was shortly after brought low enough.

Desinat elatis quisquam confidere rebus;

Magna repente ruunt, summa cadunt subito (Claudian).

Let him cease from burying whoever is to divided by things, They suddenly destroy great things, the greatest things perish suddenly.

Many days, even an hundred and fourscore days ] A hundred, fourscore, and five days, saith Joseph Ben Gorion. So long lasted the first feast; though Lyra will have it, that so long they were in preparing, but the feasting was not till after these days expired; and that then both prince and people were feasted together seven days. Of the Sybarites indeed we read, that when they made great feasts, they invited their women twelve months before, that they might come the more richly and luxuriously attired, and might be the more sumptuously entertained. But the text plainly shows that Lyra here did delirare, is crazy, miss the meaning; for after that, the princes, from sundry parts, had been half a year in feasting.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

an hundred and fourscore days. This was to allow all peoples to be feasted in turn. Not all at the same time; or one feast of that duration.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

When he: Isa 39:2, Eze 28:5, Dan 4:30

the riches: Psa 76:1-4, Psa 145:5, Psa 145:12, Psa 145:13, Dan 2:37-44, Dan 7:9-14, Mat 4:8, Mat 6:13, Rom 9:23, Eph 1:18, Col 1:27, Rev 4:11

excellent: 1Ch 29:11, 1Ch 29:12, 1Ch 29:25, Job 40:10, Psa 21:5, Psa 45:3, Psa 93:1, Dan 4:36, Dan 5:18, 2Pe 1:16, 2Pe 1:17

Reciprocal: Est 5:11 – the glory Act 25:23 – with 1Th 2:6 – of men

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Est 1:4. Many days, even a hundred and fourscore days Making every day a magnificent feast either for all his princes, or for some of them, who might come to the feast successively, as the king ordered them to do. The Persian feasts are much celebrated in authors for their length and luxury.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments