Ester 2:7

7 Und er erzog Hadassa, das ist Esther, die Tochter seines Oheims; denn sie hatte weder Vater noch Mutter. Und das Mädchen war schön von Gestalt und schön von Angesicht. Und als ihr Vater und ihre Mutter gestorben waren, hatte Mordokai sie als seine Tochter angenommen.

Ester 2:7 Meaning and Commentary

Esther 2:7

And he brought up Hadassah (that is Esther) his uncle's
daughter
Her Hebrew name was Hadassah, which signifies a myrtle, to which the Israelites, and good men among them, are sometimes compared, ( Zechariah 1:8 ) . Her Persian name was Esther, which some derive from "satar", to hide, because hidden in the house of Mordecai, so the former Targum, and by his advice concealed her kindred: or rather she was so called by Ahasuerus, when married to him, this word signifying in the Persian language a "star" ^F8 and so the latter Targum says she was called by the name of the star of Venus, which in Greek is (asthr) ; though it is said ^F9, that the myrtle, which is called "hadassah" in Hebrew, is in the Syriac language "esta"; so "asa" in the Talmud ^F11 signifies a myrtle; and, according to Hillerus ^F12, "esther" signifies the black myrtle, which is reckoned the most excellent; and so "amestris", according to him, signifies the sole myrtle, the incomparable one. Xerxes had a wife, whose name was Amestris, which Scaliger thinks is as if it was (rtoa Mh) , and the same with Esther; but to this are objected, that her father's name was Otanes, and her cruelty in the mutilation of the wife of Masistis, her husband's brother, and burning alive fourteen children of the best families of the Persians, as a sacrifice to the infernal gods; and besides, Xerxes had a son by her marriageable, in the seventh year of this reign ^F13, the year of Ahasuerus, in which he married Esther: but it is observed by some, that these things are confounded with the destruction of Haman's family, or told by the Persians to obliterate the memory of Esther, from whom they passed to the Greek historians:

for she had neither father nor mother;
according to the former Targum, her father died and left her mother with child of her, and her mother died as soon as she was delivered of her:

and the maid was fair and beautiful;
which was both the reason why she was taken and brought into the king's house, and why Mordecai took so much care of her:

whom Mordecai, when her father and mother were dead, took for his own
daughter;
loved her, and brought her up as if she had been his daughter, and called her so, as the Targum. The Rabbins, as Jarchi and Aben Ezra observe, say, he took her in order to make her his wife; and so the Septuagint render it; though perhaps no more may be intended by that version than that he brought her up to woman's estate. Josephus

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FOOTNOTES:

F14 calls him her uncle; and so the Vulgate Latin version, his brother's daughter; but both are mistaken.

F8 Castell. Lex. Persic. Latin. col. 329. Vid. Pfeiffer. difficil. Script. cent. 3. loc. 28.
F9 Caphtor Uperah, fol. 60. 2.
F11 T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 44. 1.
F12 Onomastic. Sacr. p. 621, 622.
F13 Herodot. Calliope, sive, l. 9. c. 107. 111. & Polymnia, sive, l. 7. c. 61. 114.
F14 Ut supra. (Antiqu. l. 11. c. 6. sect. 2.)

Ester 2:7 In-Context

5 Es war ein jüdischer Mann in der Burg Susan, sein Name war Mordokai, der Sohn Jairs, des Sohnes Simeis, des Sohnes Kis', ein Benjaminiter,

6 der aus Jerusalem weggeführt worden war mit den Weggeführten, die mit Jekonja, dem König von Juda, weggeführt wurden, welche Nebukadnezar, der König von Babel, weggeführt hatte.

7 Und er erzog Hadassa, das ist Esther, die Tochter seines Oheims; denn sie hatte weder Vater noch Mutter. Und das Mädchen war schön von Gestalt und schön von Angesicht. Und als ihr Vater und ihre Mutter gestorben waren, hatte Mordokai sie als seine Tochter angenommen.

8 Und es geschah, als das Wort des Königs und sein Befehl gehört, und als viele Mädchen in die Burg Susan unter die Aufsicht Hegais zusammengebracht wurden, da wurde auch Esther in das Haus des Königs aufgenommen, unter die Aufsicht Hegais, des Hüters der Frauen.

9 Und das Mädchen gefiel ihm und erlangte Gunst vor ihm. Und er beeilte sich, ihre Reinigungssalben und ihre Teile ihr zu geben, und ihr die sieben Mägde zu geben, welche aus dem Hause des Königs ausersehen waren; und er versetzte sie mit ihren Mägden in die besten Gemächer des Frauenhauses.