5 And at the fulness of these days hath the king made to all the people who are found in Shushan the palace, from great even unto small, a banquet, seven days, in the court of the garden of the house of the king --
6 white linen, white cotton, and blue, fastened with cords of fine linen and purple on rings of silver, and pillars of marble, couches of gold, and of silver, on a pavement of smaragdus, and white marble, and mother-of-pearl, and black marble --
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Commentary on Esther 1 Matthew Henry Commentary
An Exposition, With Practical Observations, of
The Book of Esther
Chapter 1
Several things in this chapter itself are very instructive and of great use; but the design of recording the story of it is to show how way was made for Esther to the crown, in order to her being instrumental to defeat Haman's plot, and this long before the plot was laid, that we may observe and admire the foresight and vast reaches of Providence. "Known unto God are all his works' before-hand. Ahasuerus the king,
This shows how God serves his own purposes even by the sins and follies of men, which he would not permit if he know not how to bring good out of them.
Est 1:1-9
Which of the kings of Persia this Ahasuerus was the learned are not agreed. Mordecai is said to have been one of those that were carried captive from Jerusalem (ch. 2:5, 6), whence it should seem that this Ahasuerus was one of the first kings of that empire. Dr. Lightfoot thinks that he was that Artaxerxes who hindered the building of the temple, who is called also Ahasuerus (Ezra 4:6, 7), after his great-grandfather of the Medes, Dan. 9:1. We have here an account,
Est 1:10-22
We have here a damp to all the mirth of Ahasuerus's feast; it ended in heaviness, not as Job's children's feast by a wind from the wilderness, not as Belshazzar's by a hand-writing on the wall, but by is own folly. An unhappy falling out there was, at the end of the feast, between the king and queen, which broke of the feast abruptly, and sent the guests away silent and ashamed.