Esther 2

Babylonians leveled Jerusalem and the Temple in 586 BC, after destroying many other walled cities throughout the Jewish nation of Judah. Assyrian invaders had erased the northern Jewish nation of Israel more than a century earlier, in 722 BC.

Myrrh and frankincense were two of the most exotic and expensive fragrances available. They were made from sap of small trees and shrubs growing in what are now Saudi Arabia, northern Africa, and India. People would grind up the dried sap and put it in perfumes. They also burned it as a woody fragrance, and a sweet-smelling incense. They burned the incense in religious services. They also burned incense in homes as air fresheners in the days before soap and deodorants.

It’s anyone’s guess what a lady would take to improve her chances of becoming queen. Maybe makeup or perfume to mask the smell of body odor. For Esther, she apparently took some excellent advice about what the king likes to do on a date night.

This would keep in the dark the women who hadn’t seen the king yet, so they wouldn’t have the advantage of someone else’s experience. It’s a bit like keeping the kids from Period One in algebra from sharing test questions with the kids in Period Five.

A concubine was a woman who lived with a man in a legally binding relationship as a secondary wife, but who had less social status and fewer privileges than a wife.

That’s the tenth month on the Jewish calendar. It runs from mid-December to mid-January, from one full moon to the next.

This is an awkward verse that some scholars say may be an editor’s error. It seems to say Mordecai sat at the gateway entrance into the palace. Gates were places where people met and where officials dealt with problems and questions raised by the citizens and visitors. Legal cases were often settled there. Yet it’s unclear what Mordecai was doing at the gate.