What Does Esther 9:6 Mean?
And in Shushan the palace the Jews slew and made five hundred men perish.
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 in Shushan the palace the Jews slew and destroyed five hundred men.THE KEY
The second verb, “destroyed,” comes from אבד, the root of “perish” and “be lost,” so the verse names both killing and causing people to perish.
THE MEANING
You encounter an unsoftened report: in Shushan, the Jews kill five hundred men. The two verbs keep the violence explicit, while the number makes its scale visible.
THE ROOT
וְאַבֵּד
weʾabbēd
GROWS FROM
אבד
To perish or be lost; in the Piel stem, to cause to perish, destroy.
“made five hundred men perish” in this verse is weʾabbēd. The root’s basic sense is to perish or be lost, while this form makes the verb causative: to cause others to perish. Beside “slew,” it gives the sentence a second, distinct description of the violence.
ALSO GROWS
ʾāvad: To perish, be lost
אָבַד
This is the root’s basic verbal sense beneath the causative form in the verse.
ʾavēdāh: A loss; something lost
אֲבֵדָה
The noun names loss or what is missing, carrying the root’s sense of disappearance beneath “destroyed.”
ʾavaddōn: Destruction; Abaddon
אֲבַדּוֹן
This related noun carries the same root into an explicit term for destruction.
הָרְגוּ
hāregū
GROWS FROM
הרג
To kill, slay.
“slew” in this verse is hāregū. This is the direct verb for killing. Set beside אבד in its causative form, it distinguishes the act of killing from causing people to perish.
ALSO GROWS
hārag: To kill, slay
הָרַג
This is the root’s basic verbal form, naming the direct act stated in the verse.
hārūg: A slain person
הָרוּג
This related form names the person acted upon, keeping the human cost of the verb in view.
THE PATTERN
These passages make mass death visible by stating its scale as a number or fraction.
And the king said to Esther the queen, "The Jews have slain and made five hundred men perish in Shushan the palace, and the ten sons of Haman. What have they done in the rest of the king's provinces? Now, what is your asking? It shall be given to you. And what is your seeking further? It shall be done."So the LORD set pestilence upon Israel, and seventy thousand men of Israel fell.By these three is the third part of men killed, by the fire, and by the smoke, and by the brimstone, which comes out of their mouths.THE THREAD
But the wicked will lose the way, and the enemies of the LORD will be like the weight of the pastures. They will run out, and in smoke they will run out.The Hebrew verb יֹאבֵדוּ (yōʾvēdū, “they perish”) shares the root אבד with “destroyed” in Esther. Psalm describes people perishing; Esther’s causative form names people causing others to perish.
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