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The virgins of the kingdom being gathered together, a queen is to be chosen, Esther 2:1-4. Esther, nursed by Mordecai, is chosen to be one of the virgins, Esther 2:5-8; and preferred before the rest, Esther 2:9-11. The manner of her purification, Esther 2:12-14. She pleaseth the king, and is made queen, Esther 2:15-17. The king makes a feast for his princes and servants, Esther 2:18-20. Mordecai discovereth a treason against the king, Esther 2:21,22; which is recorded in their chronicles, Esther 2:23.

He remembered Vashti with grief and shame, that in his wine and rage he had so severely punished, and so irrevocably rejected, so beautiful and desirable a person, and that for so small a provocation, to which she was easily led by the modesty of her sex, and by the laws and customs of Persia.

The king’s servants, for their own interests, were obliged to quiet the king’s mind, and procure him another amiable consort.

Keeper of the women; either,

1. Of the virgins, who are oft called women, as here, Esther 2:11,12, and elsewhere. So it is a synecdoche. Or,

2. Of all the women, both virgins and concubines; only the virgins he himself took care of, as requiring more care and caution, and the concubines he committed to Shaashgaz, Esther 2:14, his deputy.

For purification, i.e. to cleanse them from all impurities and indecencies, to anoint, and perfume, and adorn, and every way prepare them for the king’s presence and service; for the legal purifications of the Jews he never regarded.

No text from Poole on this verse.

No text from Poole on this verse.

Who had been carried away: this may be referred either,

1. To Kish, Mordecai’s grandfather last mentioned; or,

2. To Mordecai, who was then carried away, either,

3. In the loins of his parents, in which sense Levi is said to be tithed in Abraham, Hebrews 7; and as those persons named Ezra 2 are said to have been carried away by Nebuchadnezzar, Ezra 2:1, which is not true of the most of them in their own persons, but only as in their fathers’ loins. Or,

4. In his own person; and then indeed he was a man of more than ordinary years. But of that See Poole "Esther 1:1".

That is, Esther; Hadassah was her Hebrew name before her marriage, and she was called Esther by the king after it.

Esther was brought, or taken, and that by force, as that word oft signifies. So great was the power and tyranny of the Persian kings, that they could and did take what persons they liked to their own use.