What Does Esther 1:9 Mean in the King James?

Also Vashti the queen made a feast for the women in the royal house which belonged to king Ahasuerus.

Esther 1:9 · KJV

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

Vashti’s gathering bears the same Hebrew feast-word as the king’s banquets, placing her own act of hosting inside the chapter’s central royal scene.

THE MEANING

Vashti hosts a feast for women in the royal house. She convenes a gathering of her own within the royal household.

THE ROOT

מִשְׁתֶּה

mishteh

GROWS FROM

שתה

To drink.

The verse’s word for feast grows from ⁨שָׁתָה⁩ (shatah, to drink), so drinking is built into its naming of the occasion. A related form, ⁨שָׁתוּי⁩ (shatuy, drunk), keeps that bodily action visible, while the feast-word applies it to a gathering. Vashti is not merely in the royal house; she is its host for a distinct gathering.

ALSO GROWS

drink: To drink or imbibe.

שָׁתָה

This verb is the action embedded in the word for feast, showing what gives the gathering its name.

drunk: Intoxicated; having drunk.

שָׁתוּי

This related form keeps the root’s bodily sense of drinking visible in the word family.

THE PATTERN

A feast creates a gathering where a host brings a community together around shared food and drink.

And he pressed upon them greatly; and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house; and he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat.

Genesis 19:3 · KJVLot receives his guests by hosting them with a feast in his house.

In the third year of his reign, he made a feast unto all his princes and his servants; the power of Persia and Media, the nobles and princes of the provinces, being before him:

Esther 1:3 · KJVThe king gathers his officials and nobles at a feast hosted in his name.

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;

Esther 1:5 · KJVThe king extends the feast to the people gathered at the palace, broadening its circle of guests.

THE THREAD

In the third year of his reign, he made a feast unto all his princes and his servants; the power of Persia and Media, the nobles and princes of the provinces, being before him:

Esther 1:3 · KJV

The Hebrew word ⁨מִשְׁתֶּה⁩ (mishteh, a drinking feast) names both the king’s feast in this verse and Vashti’s in 1:9. That shared word places her gathering alongside his in the chapter’s central pattern of feasting, though the hosts and guests differ.

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