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The Hebrew version of Esther says Mordecai raised Esther as his own daughter. The Greek Septuagint translation says instead that he raised her to be his wife, matching a later Jewish tradition that the two were married.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Esther 2:7
Hebrew Bible
6 who had been taken into exile from Jerusalem with the captives who had been carried into exile with Jeconiah king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had taken into exile. 7 Now he was acting as the guardian of Hadassah (that is, Esther), the daughter of his uncle, for neither her father nor her mother was alive. This young woman was very attractive and had a beautiful figure. When her father and mother died, Mordecai had raised her as if she were his own daughter. 8 It so happened that when the king’s edict and his law became known many young women were taken to Susa the citadel to be placed under the authority of Hegai. Esther also was taken to the royal palace to be under the authority of Hegai, who was overseeing the women.
LXX Esther 2:7
Septuagint
5 Now there was a Judean in the city of Susa whose name was Mordecai, who was the son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, from the tribe of Benjamin. 6 He was a captive from Jerusalem, which Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had captured. 7 And he had a foster child, the daughter of Abihail, the brother of his father, and her name was Esther. Now when her parents died, he raised her for himself as a wife; and the maiden was beautiful.
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Notes and References
… Scholars have long been puzzled by a discrepancy between the Greek and Hebrew versions of Esther in their opening descriptions of the relationship between Mordecai and Esther. Whereas the Hebrew unequivocally states that Esther was as a daughter [bat] to him, the Greek indicates that Mordecai brought her up as a wife for himself [epaideusen autein eauto eis gunaika] and then comments on her beauty (2:7). The Hebrew version strikes many commentators as correct in light of the narrative context in which Esther goes on to marry Artaxerxes. Carey Moore, for example, suggests that the Greek translator misread the Hebrew consonants (bt), which are the same for “daughter” and for “house” (1977, 186), and hence substituted “wife” for “daughter” in complete disregard for the rest of the narrative. But if we allow the Greek to stand, we have a rather different subtext to the relationship between Mordecai and Esther, and of plans that had to be postponed, perhaps, but not necessarily dismantled. …
Reinhartz, Adele
"Women and Men in the Apocryphal Novels" in LiDonnici, Lynn; Lieber, Andrea (ed.) Heavenly Tablets: Interpretation, Identity and Tradition in Ancient Judaism
(pp. 239-240) Brill, 2007
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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