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.

Who had been carried away from Jerusalem with the captivity which had been carried away with Jeconiah king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away. No JFB commentary on these verses.

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

Esther 2:7 And he brought up Hadassah, that [is], Esther, his uncle’ s daughter: for she had neither father nor mother, and the maid [was] fair and beautiful; whom Mordecai, when her father and mother were dead, took for his own daughter.Ver. 7. And he brought up] He both nourished and nurtured her in the true religion and admonition of the Lord, Ephesians 6:4, he was her foster-father and her instructor. Hadassah] Not the same with Atossa, as Tremellius would have it. Hadassah was the name given her by her parents, and it signifieth a myrtle tree, which loveth to grow in a bottom; whence the Church is compared to it for her lowly mindedness, Zechariah 1:8. That is, Esther] This was her Persian name, say some: in heathen histories she is called Amestris (Herod. lib. 7, Sealig.). His uncle’ s daughter] Not his brother’ s daughter, as the Vulgate rendereth it, after Josephus and Aben Ezra. She was his first cousin, and this was one reason that moved him to adopt her, viz. the bond of nature. For she had neither father nor mother] A poor orphan she was; but Christ left her not comfortless, John 14:18. He had provided and enabled Mordecai, to feed her and raise her; to train her up in the fear of God, and to defend her chastity from the rage of lust; besides that her head was by him destined to a diadem; Esther the captive shall be Esther the queen; Esther, the fatherless and motherless, shall be a nursing mother to the Church; and meanwhile meet with a merciful guardian, Mordecai. Why, then, should we not trust God with ourselves and our children? And the maid was fair and beautiful] Gratior est pulchro, &c. For her beauty she was brought to the king; and not without some respect to this it was that she was raised by Mordecai. This beauty was a privilege of nature; and because of the forcible battery that would be laid to it, God gives her a guarding. Esther was now in the flower of her age, and her beauty was the flower of her virtue, as Chrysippus called it. Whom Mordecai, when her father and mother were dead] And so she might have been put to seek her bread in desolate places, being left to the wide world, as they say; but the Lord was her rereward, Isaiah 58:8, he took her up, Psalms 27:10, as the gathering army or rear guard did the lame, feeble, and sick Israelites, Joshua 6:9. In the civil law provision is made for orphans, and such as were cast out; some hospitals to entertain them, some liberties to comfort and compensate their troubles. Among us also, besides harbours and hospitals for such, to the great commendation of the founders, very good provision is made by the laws, and many lives thereby preserved. God oft professes himself the pupils’ patron; gives great charge to all not to hurt them, and menaces the Jews for their hardheartedness toward them.

(7) Hadassah.—This is evidently formed from the Hebrew hadas, the myrtle: Esther is generally assumed to be a Persian name, meaning a star. Unless we assume that this latter name was given afterwards, and is here used by anticipation, we have here an early case of the common Jewish practice of using two names, a Hebrew and a Gentile one—e.g., Saul, Paul; John, Mark; Joses, Justus, &c. Uncle.—Abihail (see Esther 2:15).

Verse 7. He brought up Hadassah] הדשה hadassah signifies a myrtle in Chaldee: this was probably her first or Babylonish name. When she came to the Persian court, she was called Esther, [Persian] aster, or [Persian] sitara, which signifies a star in Persian: the name is undoubtedly Persian. Esther was the daughter of Abihail, the uncle of Mordecai, and therefore must have been Mordecai's cousin, though the Vulgate and Josephus make her Mordecai's niece: but it is safest here to follow the Hebrew.

7. brought up] Heb. was foster-father to Hadassah. The word is rendered ‘nursing-father’ in Numbers 11:12; Isaiah 49:23. Hadassah, that is, Esther] Hadassah, from the Heb. hγdas, ‘myrtle.[66]’ For this was substituted, either on her becoming queen or earlier, the name Esther, from the Persian Sitareh, a star, or from Istar, the Assyrio-Babylonian equivalent of Ashtoreth. For the attempt to identify her with Amestris, the wife of Xerxes, see Introduction, p. xiv. The fact that Mordecai took Esther to be as his own daughter is given as accounting for the familiarity between them. [66] Cp. the Greek names Μυρτία, Μυῤῥίνη, Μύρτις.The Targum Shηnξ expounds, from the Jewish point of view, the significance of the name Hadassah. She was so called “because as the myrtle spreads fragrance in the world, so did she spread good works. And for this cause she was called in the Hebrew language Hadassah, because the righteous are likened to myrtle.” The same commentary adds, “She was also called Hadassah because, as the myrtle does not dry up either in summer or in winter, so the righteous have a share in this world and in the world to come.” (Cassel, Comm. pp. 299 f.) his uncle’s daughter] The Heb. which properly means uncle, viz. a father’s brother, has also sometimes a wider sense, beloved one, friend. We gather from the story that the writer considered Esther to be much younger than her cousin Mordecai.

Hadassah, הדסה hădassâh from הדס hădas (“myrtle”) would seem to have been the Hebrew, and Esther the Persian, name of the damsel.

7. Hadassah, that is, Esther — Tyrwhitt regards Hadassah as the court name, by which she was known among the Persians, and Esther as her Jewish maiden name, by which she was known to her own people.