What Does Esther 1:5 Mean in the King James?
And when these days were expired, the king made a feast unto all the people that were present in Shushan the palace, both unto great and small, seven days, in the court of the garden of the king’s palace;
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 days reach fullness, and the feast makes that completed measure visible across every rank.
THE MEANING
The days reach their fullness, and abundance takes form in a seven-day feast in the king’s garden. You see the invitation span great and small, while the gathering remains within a space the king owns and orders.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the idea that sharing a feast erases hierarchy: the great and small gather together, yet the garden remains the king’s.
THE ROOT
מְלֹאת
melo't
GROWS FROM
מלא
to fill, be full, reach fullness
“expired” in this verse is melo't. The Hebrew says the days are filled, presenting their ending as a full measure reached. That fullness opens into a feast, so completion becomes the threshold to abundance.
ALSO GROWS
male: to be full; to fill
מָלֵא
This is the root’s basic action: the days are described as filled, not simply gone.
melo: fullness; full measure
מְלֹא
This noun keeps the sense of fullness visible in the verse’s image of time reaching its measure.
מִשְׁתֶּה
mishteh
GROWS FROM
שתה
to drink
The word for feast grows from the concrete act of drinking. The gathering’s abundance is something people take in together, even as the king controls the setting.
ALSO GROWS
shatah: to drink
שָׁתָה
This verb is the act at the root of the feast’s name.
yishteh: he drinks; he will drink
יִשְׁתֶּה
This verb form keeps the banquet tied to the embodied act of drinking.
גָּדוֹל
gadol
GROWS FROM
גדל
to grow, become great
The word for the great comes from a root of growing or becoming great. Beside small, it makes social rank a scale visible within the same gathering; the feast spans that scale without erasing it.
ALSO GROWS
gadal: to grow; to become great
גָּדַל
This verb shows the growth sense beneath the word translated great.
higdil: to make great; to enlarge
הִגְדִּיל
This form shows the same root describing an increase in size or standing.
THE PATTERN
A feast reveals whether abundance stays with its host or reaches across rank and need.
And in this mountain shall the LORD of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the LORD is your strength.So that servant came, and shewed his lord these things. Then the master of the house being angry said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind.THE THREAD
And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in unto her.Both verses use מלא (male, “be full”) for days reaching completion: Esther’s days are filled before the feast, and Jacob’s days are fulfilled before what comes next. The shared root makes completion feel like a full measure reached at a threshold.
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