1:16 Memucan then replied to the king and the officials, “The wrong of Queen Vashti is not against the king alone, but against all the officials and all the people who are throughout all the provinces of King Ahasuerus.
6:1 Throughout that night the king was unable to sleep, 8 so he asked for the book containing the historical records 9 to be brought. As the records 10 were being read in the king’s presence,
1 tn Heb “heard”; KJV, NAB, NLT “published”; NIV, NRSV “proclaimed.”
2 tc The phrase “vast though it is” is not included in the LXX, although it is retained by almost all English versions.
3 tn Heb “peoples” (so NASB, NRSV).
4 tn Heb “reached” (so NAB, NLT); KJV, NASB, NIV “came”; TEV “wherever the king’s proclamation was made known.”
5 tn Heb “great” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV, NLT); NAB “the Jews went into deep mourning.”
6 sn Although prayer is not specifically mentioned here, it is highly unlikely that appeals to God for help were not a part of this reaction to devastating news. As elsewhere in the book of Esther, the writer seems deliberately to keep religious actions in the background.
7 tn Heb “were spread to many”; KJV, NIV “many (+ people NLT) lay in sackcloth and ashes.”
8 tn Heb “and the sleep of the king fled.” In place of the rather innocuous comment of the Hebrew text, the LXX reads here, “And the Lord removed the sleep from the king.” The Greek text thus understands the statement in a more overtly theological way than does the Hebrew text, although even in the Hebrew text there may be a hint of God’s providence at work in this matter. After all, this event is crucial to the later reversal of Haman’s plot to destroy the Jewish people, and a sympathetic reader is likely to look beyond the apparent coincidence.
9 tn Heb “the book of the remembrances of the accounts of the days”; NAB “the chronicle of notable events.”
10 tn Heb “they”; the referent (the records) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
11 tn Heb “this” (so NASB); most English versions read “that” here for stylistic reasons.
12 tn Heb “great”; NRSV “powerful”; NIV “prominent”; NCV “very important.”
13 tn Heb “the man Mordecai” (so NASB, NRSV).