What Does Esther 1:7 Mean?
They gave them drink in vessels of gold, from vessel to vessel, and royal wine in abundance, according to the hand of the king.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And they gave them drink in vessels of gold, (the vessels being diverse one from another,) and royal wine in abundance, according to the state of the king.THE KEY
The wine is abundant, but its measure is not abstract: the Hebrew locates it in the king’s hand.
THE MEANING
The vessels differ, and the wine is abundant. Beneath “according to the state,” the Hebrew pictures the feast as measured by the king’s hand, his reach and capacity to give.
THE ROOT
יָד
yad
GROWS FROM
יד
Hand; by extension, power, reach, or capacity to act.
The Hebrew phrase is literally “according to the hand of the king.” The hand gives the measure of the feast a concrete image: abundance follows the king’s reach and capacity to give.
ALSO GROWS
yad: The physical hand.
יָד
This is the literal image beneath the phrase “according to the state of the king.”
yad: A figurative sense of a hand as the means or power to act.
יָד
It shows how the king’s hand can name the measure of what he provides.
רָב
rav
GROWS FROM
רבה
r-b-h
To increase, become many, or multiply.
The word for abundance carries the sense of many-ness and increase. Beside the image of the king’s hand, it presents the wine as provision on a lavish scale.
ALSO GROWS
rav: Much, many, or great.
רַב
This form describes the plentiful wine in the verse.
ravah: To increase or multiply.
רָבָה
This verbal branch reveals abundance as increase, not merely a label for luxury.
THE PATTERN
Abundance is measured by the giver’s hand and received by those who gather.
You give to them, and they gather; you open your hand, and they are filled with good.You open your hand and fill every living thing with delight.And God is able to make all favor overflow toward you, so that you, always holding all you need in everything, may overflow into every good work.THE THREAD
You give to them, and they gather; you open your hand, and they are filled with good.Esther names the king’s hand as the measure of the feast; this psalm makes the giving hand visible as it opens. Both verses connect abundance to the hand from which provision comes.
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