house and anyone disobeying him should be taken care of. After that, the story shifts into searching for a new queen.
Mainly, the Book of Esther can be divided into three parts, 1-2, 3-9:19, and 9:20-10. The first part is of the affairs on queen and, the second part is the plot to destroy the Jews and its unsuccessful outcome, and the third part is the festival of Purim. The following is the detailed outline:
I. Affairs on queen (Esther 1:1-2:23)
A. Overview to the court of Susa (1:1-9)
C. The search for a new queen and Esther becomes the queen (2:1-23)
II. The plot to destroy the Jews and its unsuccessful outcome (3:1-9:19)
III. The festival of Purim (9:20-10:3)
A. Mordecai legalizes both Purim dates (9:20-28)
B. Esther adds her authorization (9:29-32)
C. The greatness of Mordecai (10:1-3)
The micro-structure of my scope, Esther 1:10-15, is as follows:
I. Esther 1:10-12: The summoning of the queen and Queen Vashti¡¯s refusal
II. Esther 1:13-15: Wise men¡¯s concerns and advices
I have divided it in such way because the first part concerns directly with the queen, when the second part is of the king con¡¯s wise men.
The Book of Esther has three different versions: the Hebrew Masoretic Text (MT), the Septuagint (LXX), and the Alpha Text (AT). AT is quite similar to that of the Hebrew text but not exactly the same as the MT. The LXX is the Greek translation of the MT. AT is the shorter version compared to the other two by about 20%. When comparing the MT with AT, AT have excluded the Semitic synecdoche found in the MT. It was probably taken out because it did not quite fit into the Greek context:
1:10d ----------- the heart of the king the king
While the MT uses the synecdoche of ¡°the heart¡± to make the sentence more illustrative and a bit poetic, AT has excluded ¡°the heart¡± part and ended up with using only ¡°the king¡±.
Following is the trans...