What Does Esther 4:9 Mean?
And Hatach came and told Esther the words of Mordecai.
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 Hatach came and told Esther the words of Mordecai.THE KEY
In Hebrew, being “told” is making something stand before you, and “words” can also mean matters, so Mordecai’s message arrives as something placed in Esther’s view.
THE MEANING
A message reaches you through another person, and what is said becomes a matter set before you. A messenger can carry another’s voice into your hearing without replacing its source.
THE ROOT
וַיַּגֵּד
vayaged
GROWS FROM
נגד
nagad
Be in front or conspicuous; in a causative form, make known or declare.
The verb translated “told” comes from a root whose core sense is being in front or conspicuous; here it means to make something known. The message is presented before Esther, as though disclosure brings it into view.
ALSO GROWS
nagid: Leader, prince, one who is in front.
נָגִיד
This branch shares the root’s sense of being in front, echoing how the telling brings Mordecai’s message before Esther.
higgid: Tell, declare, make known.
הִגִּיד
This is the same causative telling expressed in the verse: Hatach makes Mordecai’s words known to Esther.
דִּבְרֵי
divrei
GROWS FROM
דבר
davar
Speak; a spoken word, matter, or thing.
The Hebrew noun דָּבָר (davar, “word” or “matter”) can name both what is spoken and the matter being spoken about. The English “words” can therefore hold more than sounds: it can carry the substance made known through them.
ALSO GROWS
davar: Word, matter, thing.
דָּבָר
This branch shows that the words carried to Esther can also be understood as the matter placed before her.
dibber: Speak, utter.
דִּבֵּר
This verbal branch connects the message’s content to the act of speaking that carries it from Mordecai through Hatach.
THE PATTERN
A message becomes present to its hearer by passing through a messenger who carries words from another.
Like the cold of snow in the day of harvest, so is a steady messenger to those who send him, for he brings back the living soul of his masters.And you will speak to him, and set the words in his mouth. And I will be with your mouth, and with his mouth, and I will instruct you both in what you will do.How then will they call upon him in whom they have not trusted? And how will they trust the one of whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a herald?THE THREAD
I stood between the LORD and you at that time, to show you the word of the LORD, for you were afraid before the face of the fire, and did not go up into the mountain, saying,Both verses use דָּבָר (davar, “word” or “matter”) for what is carried to a hearer. Moses stands between the LORD and the people to show them the word; Esther receives Mordecai’s words through Hatach.
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