King James Version · The Persian return
Additions to Esther 13
Touch any underlined name to see who or where it is.
1The copy of the letters was this: The great king writeth these things to the princes and governours that are under him from India unto in an hundred and seven and twenty provinces. 2After that I became over many nations and had over the whole world, not lifted up with presumption of my , but carrying myself always with equity and mildness, I purposed to settle my subjects continually in a quiet life, and making my kingdom peaceable, and open for passage to the utmost coasts, to renew peace, which is of all men. 3Now when I asked my counsellors how this might be brought to pass, , that excelled in among us, and was approved for his constant good will and steadfast fidelity, and had the of the second place in , 4Declared unto us, that in all nations throughout the world there was scattered a certain malicious people, that had laws contrary to all nations, and continually despised of kings, so as the uniting of our kingdoms, honourably intended by us cannot go forward. 5Seeing then we understand that this people alone is continually in opposition unto all men, differing in the strange manner of their laws, and evil affected to our state, working all the mischief they can that our kingdom may not be firmly established: 6Therefore have we commanded, that all they that are signified in writing unto you by , who is ordained over the affairs, and is next unto us, shall all, with their wives and children, be of their , without all mercy and , the fourteenth day of the twelfth month of this present year: 7That they, who of old and now also are malicious, may in one day with go into the , and so ever hereafter cause our affairs to be well settled, and without trouble. 8Then thought upon all the works of , and made his unto him, 9Saying, O , , the King Almighty: for the whole world is in thy , and if thou hast appointed to Israel, there is no man that can gainsay thee: 10For thou hast made and earth, and all the wondrous things under the . 11Thou art of all things, and and there is no man that can resist thee, which art . 12Thou knowest all things, and thou knowest, , that it was neither in contempt nor pride, nor for any of , that I did not to proud . 13For I could have been content with good will for the of Israel to kiss the soles of his feet. 14But I did this, that I might not prefer the of man above the of : neither will I any but thee, O , neither will I do it in pride. 15And now, O and King, spare thy people: for their eyes are upon us to bring us to nought; yea, they to destroy the , that hath been thine . 16Despise not the , which thou hast out of for thine own self. 17Hear my , and be merciful unto thine : turn our sorrow into joy, that we may live, O , and thy name: and destroy not the mouths of them that thee, O . 18All Israel in like manner cried most earnestly unto , because their was before their eyes.
The 1611 translation, public domain. Its original printing included the Apocrypha, which is why the deuterocanonical books can be read here. Notes and cards are EKLI’s own.
The world at this moment · The Persian return, 539 BC to 332 BC ›
Persia takes Babylon and reverses its policy, sending exiled peoples home to rebuild their temples. Judah returns as a small province, rebuilding under imperial permission rather than independence.
- Persia
- The largest empire the world had yet seen, from the Indus to the Aegean, run through provinces, a royal road, and a postal system. Its policy on conquered peoples was to send them home and fund their temples, in exchange for loyalty and prayers for the king. The Cyrus Cylinder states the policy in Cyrus's own words, and Ezra opens with the same policy applied to Judah.
- Judah
- A small, poor province called Yehud, a fraction of the old kingdom, with a rebuilt temple that made the people who remembered the first one weep. No king, and no prospect of one. Leadership passes to priests and scribes, which shapes everything afterward.
- Greece
- Persia and Greece collide at Marathon and Salamis, Persia loses, and Athens spends the following decades on the Parthenon, tragedy, and Socrates. Herodotus writes the first history in order to explain that war. Then Plato and Aristotle, whose vocabulary the church will still be using at Nicaea eight centuries later.
- Further afield
- Rome throws out its kings and becomes a republic. In India and China this is the age of the Buddha's early followers and of Confucian teaching taking hold. More of what the world still thinks with was invented in this era than in almost any other.