Esther5chapter 5

What is done

This chapter is heard inside the whole scroll at Purim. The site's own table in src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts records that the scroll is read twice, in the evening and again the next morning, from a handwritten roll, and that the congregation is expected to hear every word. Haman's name returns through this chapter, and the table records the Ashkenazi custom of answering it with noisemakers after the reader has said it. Sephardi and Mizrahi communities keep the day with much less noise or none. The table cites Mishnah Megillah 2, Babylonian Talmud Megillah 18a and the Rema's gloss to Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayim 690:17.

How it is read

Rashi is the one commentator on this chapter whose English the corpus carries, quoted here from The Metsudah Five Megillot, Lakewood, N.J., 2001, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. The edition prints its own numbered notes inside his words, and a note is named here as the edition's. Esther's royal clothing is read in two ways. The plain sense is regal dress. Rashi then reports that the Rabbis said Divine Inspiration enwrapped her, and he supports it from the spirit that enwrapped Amasai, which the edition's note locates at 1 Chronicles 12:19 (Rashi on Esther 5:1:1). This site's row for 1 Chronicles 12 records that Rashi, commenting there, reads that same word of Amasai as a will or a desire. The two notes stand in different books, and both are Rashi's.

The king's offer of half the kingdom is read two ways as well. Rashi's first reading, which the edition's note sends to Maseches Megillah 15b, takes it as something at the midpoint of the empire, the Temple. Koresh had begun to build it and then stopped the work, and Achashveirosh stopped it too. The simple meaning, Rashi adds, is that the king would give her even half his empire (Rashi on Esther 5:3:1).

Why Esther invited Haman is left open on purpose. "Our Rabbis listed many reasons for the matter" (Rashi on Esther 5:4:1). He names two. One is to make the king and the princes jealous of Haman. The other is so that the king would think Haman desired her and kill him. The edition's note adds a third from Megillah 15b. The Jews might rely on her place at court, so she seemed to side with Haman, and they turned fully to prayer.

The smaller notes are exact. Every feast is called by a word for drinking because wine is its chief feature (Rashi on Esther 5:4:2). What Esther promised for the morrow was to reveal her people and her lineage (Rashi on Esther 5:8:1). Haman held back his anger because he feared to take revenge without the king's leave (Rashi on Esther 5:10:1). His complaint that all his honour was worth nothing to him Rashi glosses plainly (Rashi on Esther 5:13:1). Rashi then reports what the Rabbis said lay behind it. Mordechai would show him a deed by which Haman had sold himself as a slave for food. Both men had commanded troops in the same war (Rashi on Esther 5:13:2).

The corpus carries sixteen further notes on this chapter without an English text, each marked linked because Sefaria holds no English version of the ref. Seven stand cited and unquoted at Ibn Ezra on Esther 5:1:1, 5:3:1, 5:5:1, 5:8:1, 5:9:1, 5:10:1 and 5:11:1. Eight stand at Malbim on Esther 5:1:1, 5:2:1, 5:6:1, 5:7:1, 5:9:1, 5:11:1, 5:12:1 and 5:14:1, and one at a further note of Rashi on Esther 5:5:1.

What the rabbis say

The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. Thirty-three are Midrash and seven are Talmud. On the first verse it holds Bereshit Rabbah 56:1, Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition), Megillah 1:30 and 1:33, and Esther Rabbah 9:1 and 9:2. On the second it holds Megillah 15b:9 with Midrash Tehillim 22:21 and 22:9. On the third it holds Megillah 15b:10-11 and 15b:11, and on the fourth Megillah 15b:12. On the fifth it holds Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Vayechi 32 and Sifrei Aggadah on Esther, Midrash Panim Acherim, Version II 5:2 and 5:3.

Haman's day carries the rest. On the ninth verse the corpus holds Aggadat Bereshit 2:2, Midrash Mishlei 26:4, Midrash Tehillim 100:1, Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 50:6 and Sifrei Aggadah on Esther, Midrash Panim Acherim, Version II 5:4. On the tenth it holds Bereshit Rabbati, Parashat Miketz 22, Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 43:31:3, and the same Version II at 5:5 and 5:6. On the eleventh it holds Megillah 15b:17, Midrash Lekach Tov on Esther, Introduction 1, Midrash Tanchuma, Mishpatim 8:4, Otzar Midrashim, Midrashim on Missing and Extra Letters 1:29, and Shemot Rabbah 31:3. On the twelfth it holds Bereshit Rabbah 19:2, Esther Rabbah 9:3, Midrash Aggadah, Genesis 3:1:3 and Midrash Lekach Tov, Genesis 3:1:3. On the thirteenth it holds Megillah 15a:22 and 15b:2, Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer 25:10 and Version II at 5:7. On the fourteenth it holds Esther Rabbah 9:4, Midrash Mishlei 10:1 and 11:5, and Midrash Sekhel Tov, Shemot 10:26:4. 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 5:1:1 to 5:13:2, The Metsudah Five Megillot, Lakewood, N.J., 2001, reported CC-BY; Rashi on Esther 5:5:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Esther 5:1:1, 5:3:1, 5:5:1, 5:8:1, 5:9:1, 5:10:1 and 5:11:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Malbim, Malbim on Esther 5:1:1, 5:2:1, 5:6:1, 5:7:1, 5:9:1, 5:11:1, 5:12:1 and 5:14:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/esther/5.json, the 40 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, and scripts/data/hebraic-context/1-chronicles-1-15.mjs, the row for 1 Chronicles 12 on Rashi's reading of the word used of Amasai.