Esther 2 Bible study: Hadassah, that is, Esther

The chapter opens where chapter 1 left off: "After these things, when the wrath of King Ahasuerus was pacified, he remembered Vashti, and what she had done, and what was decreed against her" (2:1) (tap pacified). The king's servants speak next: "Let beautiful young virgins be sought for the king" (2:2) (tap sought), gathered by officers "in all the provinces of his kingdom" (2:3), "and let the maiden who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti" (2:4). "The thing pleased the king, and he did so" (2:4). The chapter closes that thread with the same words: the king "set the royal crown on her head, and made her queen instead of Vashti" (2:17) (tap crown). Chapter 1 used the same words of Vashti, when the king commanded "to bring Vashti the queen before the king wearing the royal crown" (1:11). The chapter tells the gathering of the young women in the WEB's plain words (2:2-4, 2:8, 2:12-14) and passes no verdict on it, and these notes add none.

Esther 2:7→leads toMark 9:36-37

Mordecai "brought up Hadassah, that is, Esther, his uncle’s daughter; for she had neither father nor mother", and "when her father and mother were dead, Mordecai took her for his own daughter" (2:7). When his disciples "had disputed with one another on the way about who was the greatest" (Mark 9:34), Jesus "took a little child and set him in the middle of them. Taking him in his arms, he said to them" (Mark 9:36), "Whoever receives one such little child in my name receives me; and whoever receives me, doesn’t receive me, but him who sent me" (Mark 9:37). Jesus doesn't cite Esther, and no link between the Hebrew and Greek words is claimed, so setting the two side by side is a reading, resting on a shared subject: taking in a child. Some hear in Jesus' words how much the receiving of a little child is worth, and read Mordecai's bringing up of a child with neither father nor mother in that light. Others read each in its own setting: Jesus speaks of receiving a little child "in my name" (Mark 9:37), in answer to disciples who argued over who was the greatest, and Esther tells Mordecai's care for his uncle's daughter without drawing a lesson from it; they draw no line between the two.

נָגַדnagadsay na-GAD

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "be conspicuous", and in the form used here, "declare, tell". Strong's: "to announce (always by word of mouth to one present)". "Esther had not made known her people nor her relatives, because Mordecai had instructed her that she should not make it known" (2:10): the verb comes twice in that verse, and again in "Esther had not yet made known her relatives nor her people" (2:20). Then it is Mordecai's, when he learns of the plot: "who informed Esther the queen" (2:22). It comes 14 times in the Hebrew of Esther. In the next chapter, Mordecai "had told them that he was a Jew" (3:4), and "they had made known to him Mordecai’s people" (3:6).