Esther 2:5

2:5 Now there happened to be a Jewish man in Susa the citadel whose name was Mordecai. ¹  He was the son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, a Benjaminite,

Esther 6:13

6:13 Haman then related to his wife Zeresh and to all his friends everything that had happened to him. These wise men, ²  along with his wife Zeresh, said to him, “If indeed this Mordecai before whom you have begun to fall is Jewish, ³  you will not prevail against him. No, you will surely fall before him!”

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¹ sn Mordecai is a pagan name that reflects the name of the Babylonian deity Marduk. Probably many Jews of the period had two names, one for secular use and the other for use especially within the Jewish community. Mordecai’s Jewish name is not recorded in the biblical text.

² tc Part of the Greek tradition and the Syriac Peshitta understand this word as “friends,” probably reading the Hebrew term רֲכָמָיו (rakhamayv, “his friends”) rather than the reading of the MT חֲכָמָיו (hakhamayv, “his wise men”). Cf. NLT “all his friends”; the two readings appear to be conflated by TEV as “those wise friends of his.”

³ tn Heb “from the seed of the Jews”; KJV, ASV similar.