What Does Esther 9:29 Mean?
Then Esther the queen, the daughter of Abihail, and Mordecai the Jew, wrote with all strength, to make this second letter of Purim stand.
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
Then Esther the queen, the daughter of Abihail, and Mordecai the Jew, wrote with all authority, to confirm this second letter of Purim.THE KEY
The Hebrew word for “confirm” means to cause something to stand: this letter gives Purim’s remembrance a standing form.
THE MEANING
Esther and Mordecai write with full authority, and their second letter confirms the Purim account. The wording makes confirmation an act of establishing, so the letter gives shared remembrance a place to stand. Here, a repeated account carries weight because it is formally affirmed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The second letter is not mere duplication: its repetition gives the remembrance standing through an act of confirmation.
THE ROOT
לְקַיֵּם
leqayyem
GROWS FROM
קום
q-w-m
Rise, stand, be established.
“make stand” in this verse is leqayyem. The word translated “confirm” carries the sense of causing something to stand. Esther and Mordecai’s writing is therefore an act of establishment, not simply a restatement.
ALSO GROWS
qum: Rise; stand.
קוּם
This is the root’s basic action: what is established is made to stand.
qiyem: Uphold, establish, fulfill.
קִיֵּם
This related form makes the root’s standing image explicit: to confirm is to uphold something so it holds.
maqom: Place; standing place.
מָקוֹם
A place is where something can stand; the letter gives the shared remembrance a stable place.
תֹּקֶף
toqef
GROWS FROM
תקף
t-q-p
Be strong, prevail; strength, force, authority.
The Hebrew behind “all authority” also carries the force of strength and prevailing. The letter’s authority has weight: it gives force to the confirmation.
ALSO GROWS
taqqifā: Strong, mighty.
תַּקִּיפָא
This related form describes strength as the capacity to prevail, echoing the force carried by the letter.
teqaf: Be strong; prevail.
תְּקַף
The verbal branch shows that this authority is active force, not only a title.
אֲבִיחַיִל
Avichayil
GROWS FROM
חיל
ḥ-y-l
Strength, might, capacity.
Abihail combines אֲבִי (avī, “my father”) with חַיִל (ḥayil, “strength, might”), giving the name the sense “my father is strength.” In a verse where Esther writes with full authority, her name carries strength within its own form.
ALSO GROWS
ḥayil: Strength, valor, capacity.
חַיִל
This is the strength element in Abihail’s name, resonating with the authority named in the verse.
ḥēyl: Force; army, host.
חֵיל
The same root can name collective force as well as personal might, fitting a letter that gives a shared remembrance standing.
THE PATTERN
A written word gives shared memory a form that can be carried, witnessed, and relied on.
Now therefore write this song for you, and teach it to the children of Israel; set it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the children of Israel.And the LORD answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon the tablets, so that the one who calls it out may run.It seemed good to me as well, having followed all things closely from the first, to write for you in sequence, most mighty Theophilus,THE THREAD
To make these days of Purim stand in their appointed times, as Mordecai the Jew and Esther the queen had made them stand upon the Jews, and as the Jews had made them stand upon their living souls and upon their seed, the words of the fasts and of their outcry.The same Hebrew verb לְקַיֵּם (leqayyem, “to confirm, establish”) appears here. What stands in the letter becomes recurring appointed days, showing that its confirmation holds beyond the moment of writing.
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