What Does Esther 1:18 Mean in the King James?
Likewise shall the ladies of Persia and Media say this day unto all the king’s princes, which have heard of the deed of the queen. Thus shall there arise too much contempt and wrath.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The queen’s “deed” is already a davar, a matter becoming a word, and once heard, it gathers force among others.
THE MEANING
The verse names a live chain: a deed is heard, spoken of among others, and becomes a source of contempt and anger. What people say about an act can acquire force beyond the act itself.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that an act ends with the person who does it dissolves here: once heard, it becomes a shared account with its own force.
THE ROOT
דְּבַר
devar
GROWS FROM
דבר
d-b-r
Speak; word or matter
English “deed” sounds like a finished act, but the Hebrew davar can name both a matter and a word. The queen’s act is already becoming something spoken of, and that word moves through the court carrying the possibility of contempt and anger.
ALSO GROWS
davar: Word; matter, affair, or thing
דָּבָר
The same word family holds both the event and what is said about it.
dibber: He spoke; spoke
דִּבֵּר
The matter takes spoken form as it moves among the king’s officials.
שָׁמְעוּ
sham'u
GROWS FROM
שמע
sh-m-ʿ
Hear, listen
“heard” in this verse is sham'u. The hinge is not only the queen’s act but who hears of it: a report gains reach through its listeners. Here, hearing carries one act into a wider circle where it can provoke a shared reaction.
ALSO GROWS
shemuah: Report, news; what is heard
שְׁמוּעָה
The report names the content that travels from hearer to hearer.
shomea: One who hears
שֹׁמֵעַ
The officials become the audience through whom the queen’s deed enters the wider court.
THE PATTERN
A report can outgrow its first event: once words move among people, they can kindle anger and fracture relationships.
The words of a talebearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly.A froward man soweth strife: and a whisperer separateth chief friends.Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!THE THREAD
A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.Esther calls the queen’s deed a davar, a matter that is heard and becomes speech among others. Proverbs uses the same word family for a spoken word shaped with care, showing that words carry force in how they enter the shared world.
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