Online Bible 1995 March/ROM-1025.iso/olb/gill/3_100_t.lzh/3_163.TXT

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reigners; according to the Targum, there were Israel-
ites there, but not Mordecai and his family; yea, it is
said in the Midrash ", that they were all Jews, and that
their number was 18,500; but this is not probable; it
is very likely there were some Jews among them, as
there were many in the army of Xerxes, when he made
his expedition into Greece, according to 'the poet
Choerilus °; which is not to be wondered at, since
there were so many of ,.hem in his dominions, and they
men of valour and fidelity, and .to whose nation he was
so kind and favourable: and this feast was kept seven
days ia the court of the garden of the king's palace;
which no doubt was very large, and sufficient to hold
such a number as was assembled together on this oc-
casion, when there was not room enough for them in
the palace. There is in history an account of a Persian
king that supped with 15,000 men, and in the supper
spent 40 talents P.
Ver. 6. Where were white, green, and blue hangings,
&c.] Or curtains of fine linen, as the Targum, which
were of these several colours; the first letter of the
word for white is larger than usual, to denote the ex-
ceeding whiteness of them. The next word is carpas,
which Ben Melech observes is a dyed colour, said to be
green. Pausanias {q} makes mention of Carpasian liuen,
and which may be here meant; the last word used
signifies blue, sky-coloured, or hyacinth:fastened with
cords of fine lincn and purple to silvcr rings, and pillars
of marble; these pillars are said, in the Targum, to be
of divers colours, red, greetS, and shiuing yellow and
white, on which the silver rings were fixed, and into
thein were put linen strings of purple colour, which
fastened the haugings to them, and so made an enclo-
sure, within which the guests sat. at the feast: the beds
were of gold and silver; the couches on which they
sat, or rather reclined at eating, as was the manner of
the eastern nations; these, according to the Targum,
were of lambs" wool, the fines, and the softest, and the
posts of them were of gold, and their feet of silver.
Such luxury obtained among the Romans in after-
times{r}: these were placed in a pavement of red, and
blue, and white, and black, marble; which, according to
some, are the porphyrite, Par,an, alabaster, and marble
of various colours; the marble of the Persians is of
four colours, white, black, red and black, and white
and black{s}; but others take them to be precious
stones, as Jarchi and Aben Ezra; the first is by the
Targum interpreted crystal, by others the emerald, one
of which Theophrastus t speaks of as four cubits loug,
and three broad, which might be laid in a pavement;
the third is, by Bochart {u}, supposed to be the pearl;
and in the Talmud'{w} it is said to be of such a nature,
that if placed in the middle of a dining-room, will give
light in it as at noon-day, which seems to be what is
called !yehnites; to which Lucian {x} ascribes a like
property: nor need all this seem strange, since great
was the luxury of the eastern nations. Philostratus {*}
speaks of a temple in India paved with pearls, and
which he says all the Barbarians use in their temples;
particularly it is said {z}, the the roofs of the palaces of
Shushan and Ecbatana, the palaces of the kings of
Persia, shone with gold and silver, ivory, and amber;
no wonder then that their pavements were of very va-
luable and precious stones: and from hence it appears,
that the lithostrata, the word here used by the Sep-
tuagint, or tesserated pavements, were in use 4o0 years
before the times of Sylla, where the beginning of,hem
is placed by PIthy{a}; there was a lithostraton in the
second temple at Jerusalem, by us rendered the pave-
men,, John xix. 13. perhaps the same with the room
Gazith, so called from its being laid with hewn stone.
A risteas {b}, who lived in the times of Ptolemy Phila-
delphus, testifies that the whole floor of the temple
was a lithostraton,, or was paved with stone: it is
most likely therefore that these had their original
in the eastern country, and not in Greece, as Pliny{c}
supposed.
Ver. 7. They gave thent drink in vessels of gold, the
vessels being divers one from another, &c.] In the pat-
tern and workmanship of them, though of the same
metal, which diversity made the festival the more
grand; carthen cups, with the Persians, were reckoned
very mean ; when a king would disgrace a man, he
obliged him to use earthen cups a. The Targum re-
presents these vessels to be the golden vessels of,he
temple at Jerusalem Nebuchadnezzar carried away;
which could not be, since they had been delivered by
Cyrus to Zcrubbabel, Ezra i. 7--10. and royal wine in
abundance, according to the state of the king; such as
the king was able to givc, the best he had, and that in
great plenty; the wine the kings of Persia used to
drink, as Strabo {e} relates, was Chalybonian wine, or
wine of ttelbon, as it is called, Ezek. xxvii. 18. see the
note there; but by the wine of the kingdom, as it may
be rendered, is meant wine of the country; the wine
of Schiras is reckoned the best in Persia f.
Ver. 8. And the drinking was according to the law,
none did co?npd, &c.] According to the law Ahasuerus
gave to Iris officers next mentioned, which was not to
oblige any man to drink more than he chose; the Tar-
gum is, "according to the custom of his body ;" that
is, as a man is able to bear it, so they drank: some {*}
read it, the drinking according to the law, let none ex-
act; or require it to be, according to the custom then
in rise in Persia; for they were degenerated from their
former manners, and indulged to intemperance, as Xe-
nophon g suggests: the law formerly was, not to carry
large vessels into feasts; but now, says he, they drink
so much, that they themselves must he ca,Tied out,
because they can't go upright: and so it became a law


{n} Midrash Esther, fol. 94. 1.
{o} Apud Joseph. contr. Apion. l. 1. c. 22.
{p} Ctesias & Dinon in Athenaei Deipnosoph. l. 4.
{q} Attica, sive, l. 1. p. 48.
{r} Plin. Nat. Hist. l. 33. c. 11. Sueton. Vit. Caesar. c. 49.
{s} Universal History, vol. 5. p. 87.
{t} Apud Plin. l. 37. c. 5.
{u} Hierozoic. par. 2. l. 5. c. 8.
{w} T. Bab. Megillah, fol. 12. 1.
{x} De Dea Syria.
{y} Vit. Apollon. l. 2. c. 11.
{z} Aristot. de Mundo, c. 6. Apuleius de Mundo.
{a} Nat. Hist. l. 36. c. 25.
{b} De 70 Interpret. p. 32.
{c} Ut supra.
{d} Ctesias in Athenaei Deipnosoph. l. 11.
{e} Geograph. l. 15. p. 505.
{f} Universal History, vol. 5. p. 85.
{*} Vid. Drusium in loc.
{g} Cyropaedia, l. 8. c. 51.