Commentaria in Esther
Mardochai the son of Jair, the son of Semei, the son of Cis, of the stock of Jemini,—that is, of the tribe of Benjamin, say the Chaldee, the Septuagint and Josephus. For Jemini was a noble man of this tribe; or certainly Benjamin Jemini. Hence we gather that Mardochai and Esther were sprung from Benjamin, and of the royal stock of Saul; and Josephus, Serarius and others assert it. For Cis was the father of Saul, he of Jonathas and Miphiboseth, from whom Mardochai and Esther seem to descend. For many intermediate generations are passed over here in silence, as elsewhere. The Chaldee adds: “Mardochai was a pious man, and prayed before his God for his people.” Whether this is true will be plain from the course of the history. Hence it is plain that Esther was the daughter of Cis, for whom Herodotus, book III, has “daughter of Cyrus,” because he did not know Cis, but Cyrus; and he thought Esther to be a Persian, not a Jewess; for Esther, or Hadassah, seems to be the Atossa of Hero-
6. Who had been carried away from Jerusalem at the time that Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon carried away Jechonias king of Juda,—whom Nabuchodonosor king of Babylon had carried away to Babylon, IV Kings, last chapter. The word “who” Rupertus, book VIII, chapter v, Cajetan, Scaliger and Serarius refer to “Cis,” as if he, not Mardochai, was carried away with Jechonias; for thus, they say, he would have lived about two hundred years, which in that age was unusual. But it is clear that “who” refers to “Mardochai,” not to “Cis”; both because the connection of the sentence and the plain construction, which is wholly about Mardochai, require it; and because it is expressly said that Mardochai was carried away with Jechonias, chapter xi, verse 4; whence it is clear that he was carried away in his own person, not in his father or grandfather (as some explain). Hence I gather and conclude that this history happened not under Artaxerxes Longimanus, as many will have it, much less under Artaxerxes Mnemon; because Mardochai could not live so long: for what Scaliger says, that he lived two hundred years, others 165, others 190, seems incredible, and is refuted by the fact that Esther, who was Mardochai’s niece by his brother, verse 7, is called a maiden, that is, a young girl. For she was without doubt in the flower of age when, preferred for beauty to the other virgins, she was given as wife to Ahasuerus; for how would the king have desired or admitted into marriage a wrinkled and deformed old woman? Wherefore Mardochai, Esther’s uncle, could not then be a hundred years old. I conclude therefore and assert that this history happened under Darius son of Hystaspes, and that he was the Ahasuerus husband of Esther, as I showed in the Preface, whose age and years I thus reckon and calculate: Mardochai, when carried away with Jechonias, was a boy of about three years. Add 70 years of captivity, then three years of Cyrus, six of Cambyses, and three of Darius son of Hystaspes (for in the third year of his reign he married Esther, as is plain from chapter i, verse 3); you will make up the years of Mardochai’s life and age, 85. So that Esther, begotten by a younger brother of Mardochai, would have been about 30 years of age, which is the flower of her youth and suited to marriage. Hence it is clear that Mardochai was one and the same (not two, as Serarius and others will have it), who lived with Esdras, Nehemias, Zorobabel, and the High Priest Jesus, and was one of the leaders of the people returning from Babylon, I Esdras chapter ii, verse 2.
7. Who had brought up his brother’s daughter—The Hebrew, Chaldee and Septuagint have “the brother of his father,” that is, uncle, as if Esther were a cousin, or contemporary, of Mardochai, niece of Mardochai (not grand-niece) Edissa, who by another name was called Esther.—In Hebrew, therefore, she was called Hadassah (our translator, Edissa in Persian); and when she was taken into the bed of Darius king of the Persians, she was called Esther. Hence Xerxes the son of Darius had a wife whose name was Amester or Amestris, according to Herodotus, book VII, as if a second Esther.
Furthermore Hadassah, or Edissa, in Hebrew is the same as myrtle; she was therefore so called for her extraordinary beauty, probity, courtesy and grace both of body and of manners, especially for her virginal modesty and chastity, in which she was a type of the Blessed Virgin and of other virgins and saints, as I showed by many analogies on Zacharias i, 8; where for this reason in the second year of Darius son of Hystaspes Zacharias saw an Angel standing among the myrtle trees, that is, in the court of Esther, who was called Hadassah, that is, myrtle, and who was already destined to be the wife of Darius for the salvation of her people, as I showed in the same place. She was therefore called Hadassah, that is, myrtle, on account of her eminent beauty; for the myrtle is the most beautiful of plants: hence also Venus, the most beautiful, was surnamed Myrtea. So also Philip king of France was surnamed the Fair for his extraordinary beauty. So Sanchez, Serarius and others. Now this beauty of body, and more of mind, in Esther, as in the myrtle, was solid and constant, according to the saying: “A myrtle is always a myrtle, even if it be among nettles,” as Esther was among the Persians.
Furthermore Hadassah, or Edissa, seems to be Atossa, whom Herodotus, book III, calls the wife of Darius son of Hystaspes; and adds, book VII, near the beginning, that her firstborn son was Xerxes, who succeeded his father Darius in the kingdom. Wherefore some think that Xerxes was the son of Esther by Darius. Hear Herodotus, book VII, where, having related that Darius, before he was made king, had a wife, the daughter of Gobryas, and by her begot Artabazanes, but when he was made king he married Atossa and by her begot Xerxes, who contended with his brother Artabazanes over the right of succession to the kingdom, and Demaratus the Spartan, favouring him, suggested: “That to the other things he said he should add this, that he was born of Darius when already king and holding the empire of the Persians; but Artabazanes of Darius when he was a private man; therefore it was neither equitable nor just that anyone else rather than himself should obtain that dignity. Since at Sparta too the custom was such that, if sons are born to a man before he reigns, and then another is born to him when already king, the succession to the kingdom belongs to the one born later. Xerxes, using this reasoning supplied by Demaratus, as speaking justly, Darius declared king, although even apart from Demaratus’s advice Xerxes (as I think) would have reigned; since all power was in Atossa’s hands.” So Herodotus, who adds below that Xerxes made war on the Greeks, and counted in his camp 170 myriads of soldiers, that is, seventeen hundred thousand, but that in so great a number there was none who could be compared with Xerxes in greatness, whether of mind or of body, or in august form and appearance; and that Xerxes, contemplating from a high place such great forces, wept; and asked by Artabanus the reason, said: “Reflecting on human life, pity came over me for these, of whom, though there are so many, not one will survive to the hundredth year;” and Artabanus replied: “This life is so wretched and so full of troubles that there is no man in whose mind the wish to die rather than to live does not often arise, and to whom life, though short, does not seem too long; and so death is the most desirable refuge of a toilsome life, and therefore not to be mourned but rather desired and sought.”