Estherchapter 10
3 verses · unknown · 5th century BC · History
Now King Xerxes imposed tribute throughout the land, even to its farthest shores.
Introduction
unknown, History, Esther Overview.
This chapter was written for Jews reading the close of a book that never once names God. It is three verses long, and it ends the story in the style of a royal record. It turns from the feast to the king's government and to the man who served next to him. Listen for the record it names, the place a reader could go for the rest. Notice what the last sentence says Mordecai sought for his people. Read it as the book's final word on how one of their own used power.
Context
- Who
- Jews reading the end of a book in which God is never once named
- What
- A closing record of the king's tribute and of Mordecai's greatness as second to the king and a friend to his people.
- Where
- The Persian empire, its lands and the islands of the sea, as the royal archives recorded it.
- When
- After 473 BC, in the later reign of Ahasuerus, which ended at his murder in 465 BC.
- Why
- To close the book by showing the power once turned against the Jews now held by one who sought their good.
Historical context
The chapter closes the way a Persian royal record closes: a note on taxation and a citation of the archive. Laying tribute 'on the land, and upon the isles of the sea' describes the regular imperial assessment reaching both the inland provinces and the coastal and island territories along the Aegean, the parts of the empire nearest Greece, and the hardest to hold.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
Referring the reader to the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia is a real gesture, not a literary flourish. Those court records existed; Greek historians used them, and the standard practice of the ancient Near East was to end an official account by naming where the fuller version was kept.
Mordecai's position, second to the king, and great among the Jews, describes the highest office under the crown, the man who managed the empire on the king's behalf. Joseph held the equivalent under Pharaoh and Daniel under Darius, and hearers would have felt the pattern.
The last line is about his reputation among his own people rather than at court: he sought their welfare and spoke peace to all his descendants. A Jew at the top of a pagan government is measured here by what he did for the powerless, not by his rank.
Significance
The book ends without ever using the word God. No miracle, no prophet, no temple, no prayer quoted. Just a beauty contest, a sleepless night, a filing system, and a lot thrown eleven months early.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
That is the message for people living far from Jerusalem with no visible sign of heaven's attention. The hand is not absent because it is not seen. Hearers were meant to close the scroll and reread their own ordinary lives.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
This chapter closes the reading of the scroll at Purim. The site's own table in src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts records that the whole scroll is read twice, in the evening and again the next morning, from a handwritten roll. The congregation is expected to hear every word of it. The table cites Mishnah Megillah 2 and Babylonian Talmud Megillah 18a. The book has no weekly portion and no Haftarah in the same table, so this is the one place in the year where a congregation hears this short chapter read.
How it is read
The corpus keeps English for three notes on this chapter. The first is Ibn Ezra's, quoted from the Sefaria Community Translation, which Sefaria reports as CC0. He reads the tribute as a sign of the king's success. The verse mentions it "to inform that he succeeded in all of his ways, and his strength was seen, now that Mordekhai was his deputy" (Ibn Ezra on Esther 10:1:1). The tribute reached lands outside the king's rule that feared him, and distant islands.
The other two are Rashi's, quoted from The Metsudah Five Megillot, Lakewood, N.J., 2001, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. The book ends on praise of Mordechai, and Rashi reads a limit into it. He was accepted by most of his brethren, and "this teaches us that part of the Sanhedrin separated from him because he became close to the monarchy and neglected his studies" (Rashi on Esther 10:3:1). The edition's note names Maseches Megillah 16b. The last note reads his care for all his seed as care for the whole seed of his people (Rashi on Esther 10:3:2). A Christian reader should notice that the tradition closes the book with a hero's cost as well as his praise.
The corpus carries six further notes on this chapter without an English text, each marked linked because Sefaria holds no English version of the ref. Three stand cited and unquoted at Malbim on Esther 10:1:1, 10:2:1 and 10:3:1. Two stand at Ibn Ezra on Esther 10:2:1 and 10:3:1, and one at a further note of Rashi on Esther 10:3:3.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries twenty-eight rabbinic locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. Nineteen are Midrash and nine are Talmud. On the first verse, the tribute, it holds Chagigah 8a:8, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Megillah 1:14, Ein Yaakov, Megillah 1:20 and Megillah 11a:16. Mekhilta DeRabbi Shimon Ben Yochai 14:5, Midrash Aggadah, Deuteronomy 16:10:1 and Midrash Lekach Tov on Esther 1:1:2 stand with them. So do Midrash Lekach Tov, Deuteronomy 16:10:1, Sifrei Aggadah on Esther, Midrash Panim Acherim, Version I 1:1 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 905:3. On the second it holds Jerusalem Talmud Megillah 1:5:3 and 2:4:2, Megillah 12a:6, Ruth Rabbah (Lerner) 4:5:3 and Ruth Rabbah 4:5.
Mordechai's greatness draws the heaviest run. On the third verse the corpus holds Esther Rabbah at 10:12, 10:13, 6:2 and 6:8, Jerusalem Talmud Berakhot 9:5:16, and Megillah 15a:4 and 16b:17. Midrash Lekach Tov, Deuteronomy 33:25:1, Midrash Sekhel Tov at Bereshit 43:12:1 and Shemot 16:5:3, Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 50:12 and Vayikra Rabbah 32:6 stand with them. One more, Sanhedrin 108b:3, stands under an anchor the corpus prints as Esther 10:7. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Esther 10:3:1 and 10:3:2, The Metsudah Five Megillot, Lakewood, N.J., 2001, reported CC-BY; Rashi on Esther 10:3:3, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Esther 10:1:1, Sefaria Community Translation, reported CC0; Ibn Ezra on Esther 10:2:1 and 10:3:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Malbim, Malbim on Esther 10:1:1, 10:2:1 and 10:3:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/esther/10.json, the 28 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, the FESTIVAL_READINGS entry for esther at Purim citing Mishnah Megillah 2, Babylonian Talmud Megillah 18a and the Rema's gloss to Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayim 690:17, and no portion or Haftarah for this book.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Mordecai next to the king, seeking the good of his people
Esther 10:1-3
Now King Xerxes imposed tribute: Mordecai's deeds are referred to "the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Media and Persia". The last verse names him "seeking the good of his people and speaking peace to all his countrymen". The war with Agag of 1 Samuel 15 closes in an archive.
Esther 10:1
“And the King Ahasuerus laid a tribute on the land, and upon the isles of the sea. Which include all his dominions, both on the continent, and on the sea, the Aegean sea; though Aben Ezra thinks it regards such as were not under his government, but stood in fear of him, of whom he demanded tribute. If Ahasuerus was Xerxes, perhaps his exchequer might be drained by his wars with the Grecians, which put him upon this; though some understand this of his renewing the taxes and tribute, which he remitted upon his marriage with Esther, Est 2:18.”
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Esther 10:1
“A tribute - Perhaps an allusion to some fresh arrangement of the tribute likely to have followed on the return of Xerxes from Greece. Upon the isles of the sea - Cyprus, Aradus, the island of Tyre, Platea, etc., remained in the hands of the Persians after the victories of the Greeks, and may be the “isles” here intended.”
And all of Mordecai’s powerful and magnificent: The Berean gives the powerful accomplishments to Mordecai, and Albert Barnes read the power and might as the king's, shown in his buildings at Persepolis. Barnes explains the order Media and Persia: Media's kingdom came first. Matthew Henry notes that those Persian chronicles are lost, while this book remains.
Esther 10:2
“The book of the chronicles of Media and Persia? - The Persians have ever been remarkable for keeping exact chronicles of all public events. Their Tareekhs, which are compositions of this kind, are still very numerous, and indeed very important.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
For Mordecai the Jew was second: The Hebrew book ends here, with Mordecai second to the king. Clarke notes that the Greek and the Vulgate add ten verses and six chapters, now among the Apocrypha. Henry reads speaking peace as a courtesy that made good deeds more welcome to his countrymen.
Esther 10:3
“Viewed in this light, the providence of God is plainly traceable in all the steps that led to his unexpected advancement. This providential interposition is all the more remarkable, that, as in the analogous case of Joseph, it was displayed in making the ordinary and natural course of things lead to the most marvellous results.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
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Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Keil, The Books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.