Esther 1:1

THE ROYAL FEAST AT SHUSHAN, Esther 1:1-9.

1. This is Ahasuerus Our author is careful to distinguish this Ahasuerus from other monarchs of the same name who are mentioned in the Hebrew books. We read of a Median Ahasuerus in Daniel 9:1, and in Ezra 4:6 Cambyses, son of Cyrus, bears the same name. Neither of these, however, reigned from India even unto Ethiopia, that is, from the Indus to the Upper Nile. But as three different Persian kings reigned over this extent of country, we conclude that the name Ahasuerus was not, as some have imagined, a title common to all the kings of Persia. Only one of these three wide-ruling sovereigns was known as Ahasuerus, and him we identify with Xerxes, the son and successor of Darius Hystaspis. For the argument by which this opinion is supported, see Introduction. The word India ( הדו , Hoddu) occurs in the Bible only here and in Esther 8:9, and designates the country bordering on the river Indus, but not including, as now, the whole peninsula of Hindostan.

Ethiopia Hebrew, Gush; the name of an indefinite extent of country bordering on the south of Egypt, and watered by the branches of the Upper Nile. Herodotus mentions (vii, 9) both Indians and Ethiopians as subjects of Xerxes.

A hundred and seven and twenty provinces These provinces were subdivisions of the Persian empire, according to races or tribes inhabiting different localities. They are not to be confounded with satrapies, for one satrapy might include many provinces. Darius Hystaspis divided the empire into twenty satrapies, ( Herod., 3:89,) each of which comprised a number of nations or tribes. The Jewish community at Jerusalem formed a province, (Ezra 2:1; Nehemiah 1:3,) but it was under a governor of the region west of the Euphrates. See note on Ezra 5:3. Darius the Mede set over his Babylonian kingdom one hundred and twenty “princes,” (Daniel 6:2,) but these were not the same as the Persian satraps, who resembled rather the “three presidents of whom Daniel was first,” while the “princes” were probably more like the rulers of provinces in the later Persian empire.