1:5a

At the end of this time: That is, at the end of the six months.

1:5b

garden court: This means an area outside where there were grass, trees and flowers, and possibly paved areas. It does not mean a place where food is grown. It was probably surrounded by hedges or walls. The Berean Standard Bible states this explicitly by saying garden court.

Here are some other ways to translate this phrase:

enclosed garden (New International Version)
-or-
courtyard (New Century Version)

the royal palace: The Hebrew word which the Berean Standard Bible translates palace probably refers to a small building apart from the main palace buildings. It was a roof set on columns to shelter people from the sun, but allowing the breezes to pass through.

the king held a seven-day feast: It isn’t clear whether this refers to another banquet or the same banquet as the one mentioned in 1:3. In those days, banquets could last as long as six months. However, it is more logical in the context to understand it to mean a separate banquet which was held at the end of the six months. Contemporary English Version and New Century Version have stated that meaning explicitly by adding “another.”

1:5c

in the citadel of Susa: See note on 1:2.

from the least to the greatest: This was a way of including everyone. least probably refers to the poorest and greatest to the richest in this context.

© 2000 by SIL International®
Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0.
All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.