(10) Was merry with wine.--The habit of the Persians to indulge in wine to excess may be inferred from Esther 1:8.
Chamberlains.--Literally, eunuchs. The names of the men, whatever they may be, are apparently not Persian. The enumeration of all the seven names is suggestive of personal knowledge on the part of the writer.
Verse 10. - When the heart of the king was merry with wine. We are told that once a year, at the feast of Mithra, the king of Persia was bound to intoxicate himself (Duris, Fr. 13). At other times he did as he pleased, but probably generally drank reason was somewhat obscured. Mehuman, etc. Persian etymologies have been given for most of these names, but they are all more or less uncertain; and as eunuchs were often foreigners, mutilated for the Persian market (Herod., 3:93; 8:105), who bore foreign names, like the Hermotimus of Herodotus (8:104-106), it is quite possible that Persian etymologies may here be out of place. Bigtha, however, if it be regarded as a shortened form of Bigthan (Esther 2:21) or Bigthana (ch. 6.), would seem to be Persian, being equivalent to Bagadana ( = Theodorus), "the gift of God." Chamberlains. Really, as in the margin, "eunuchs." The influence of eunuchs at the Persian court was great from the time of Xerxes. Ctesias makes them of importance even from the time of Cyrus ('Exc. Pera,' § 5, 9).
1:10-22 Ahasuerus's feast ended in heaviness, by his own folly. Seasons of peculiar festivity often end in vexation. Superiors should be careful not to command what may reasonably be disobeyed. But when wine is in, men's reason departs from them. He that had rule over 127 provinces, had no rule over his own spirit. But whether the passion or the policy of the king was served by this decree, God's providence made way for Esther to the crown, and defeated Haman's wicked project, even before it had entered into his heart, and he arrived at his power. Let us rejoice that the Lord reigns, and will overrule the madness or folly of mankind to promote his own glory, and the safety and happiness of his people.
On the seventh day,.... Of the feast, the last day of it, which the Rabbins, as Jarchi observes, say was the sabbath day, and so the Targum:
when the heart of the king was merry with wine; when he was intoxicated with it, and knew not well what he said or did; and the discourse at table ran upon the beauty of women, as the latter Targum; when the king asserted there were no women so beautiful as those of Babylon, and, as a proof of it, ordered his queen to be brought in:
he commanded Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, and Abagtha, Zethar, and Carcas, the seven chamberlains, that served in the presence of Ahasuerus the king; or "eunuchs", as the word is sometimes rendered; and such persons were made use of in the eastern countries to, wait upon women, and so were proper to be sent on the king's errand to the queen.
Chamberlains.--Literally, eunuchs. The names of the men, whatever they may be, are apparently not Persian. The enumeration of all the seven names is suggestive of personal knowledge on the part of the writer.
when the heart of the king was merry with wine; when he was intoxicated with it, and knew not well what he said or did; and the discourse at table ran upon the beauty of women, as the latter Targum; when the king asserted there were no women so beautiful as those of Babylon, and, as a proof of it, ordered his queen to be brought in:
he commanded Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, and Abagtha, Zethar, and Carcas, the seven chamberlains, that served in the presence of Ahasuerus the king; or "eunuchs", as the word is sometimes rendered; and such persons were made use of in the eastern countries to, wait upon women, and so were proper to be sent on the king's errand to the queen.