The subject of this verse is ambiguous. Most interpreters understand the subject to be either Mordecai or Kish. If it refers to Mordecai, then he was over one hundred years old at the time of the story, since the first deportation from Jerusalem took place in 597 B.C. Good News Translation restructures this verse and makes it clear that Mordecai was the one who was deported. New Jerusalem Bible retains the relative pronoun who in verse 6, but since the word who extends into verse 7 as the person who was rearing Esther, the antecedent of who is clearly Mordecai. Reina-Valera revisada is the same as New Jerusalem Bible in construction; that is, Mordecai must be the antecedent of the pronoun who.
It is possible to understand the subject to be Kish, the great-grandfather of Mordecai (according to one interpretation of verse 2.5). New Jerusalem Bible reads “[Kish] had been exiled from Jerusalem…” (so also New Revised Standard Version).
The New International Version study Bible suggests a third possibility. The names “Jair,” “Shimei,” and “Kish” refer not to immediate ancestors of Mordecai, but rather to remote ancestors in the tribe of Benjamin. But since Mordecai himself would have been over one hundred years old, the New International Version note takes this as an elliptical construction in the sense “whose family had been carried into exile.” The note in Traduction œcuménique de la Bible similarly states that Mordecai is a descendent of a family deported at the time of Nebuchadnezzar. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch similarly says “Mordecai’s family.”
On both grammatical and exegetical grounds, it is most likely that the antecedent of the pronoun must be Mordecai and not Kish.
Captives: these are prisoners carried away by a victorious army. In Hebrew the words had been carried away and the captives have the same root. A rather literal translation of this verse reads “who had been exiled from Jerusalem in the exile that had been exiled with Jeconiah….” In some languages that construct verbs and nouns from the same word roots, it may be possible to describe the captives as “the carried-away-ones.” In other languages captives may be referred to as “war-prisoners” or even “war-slaves,” or by a paraphrased expression, “the people who were forcibly taken away.” According to 2 Kgs 24.14, ten thousand people were taken into exile by Nebuchadnezzar. The text here in Esther does not indicate whether many or few were taken as captives, but Biblia Dios Habla Hoy makes explicit that Nebuchadnezzar took “many” captives.
At the time of the Babylonian captivity, which began in 597 B.C., Jeconiah was king of Judah. The name of this king is spelled three different ways in the Old Testament: Coniah (Jer 22.24, 28; 37.1), Jeconiah (1 Chr 3.16), and Jehoiachin (2 Kgs 24.6-17; 2 Chr 36.8-9). Some common language translations use the name Jehoiachin in all places where this king is named, following the spelling of the historical books (so Good News Translation). Other translations that also use Jehoiachin, the better-known name from 2 Kings, indicate in a note that this is a variant of the name Jeconiah in the Hebrew (so New International Version). The translator should base decisions in cases like this on principles established for translation of the entire Old Testament.
Babylon: the region of Babylonia occupied the southern part of Mesopotamia in what is now the country of Iraq. Babylon was the capital city of the Babylonian empire. In the Hebrew Scriptures the name Babylon refers both to the city and to the region.
Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Noss, Philip A. A Handbook on Esther (The Hebrew Text). (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .