[Today’s English Version A.1-3; Revised Standard Version 11.2-4]

Today’s English Version restructures the order of the information about Mordecai in verses 2-4 by placing the time (“During the second year of Xerxes’ reign, on the first day of the month of Nisan”) after the information that tells who Mordecai is and how he came to live in Susa. The effect of this restructuring is to place Mordecai the person in focus instead of the time frame as is done in the original Greek. Today’s English Version‘s restructuring significantly changes the emphasis of the verse. In the Greek insert, verse A.1 (11.2) informs the reader that “he had a dream” and that the person who dreamed was Mordecai. After the description of Mordecai, 11.4 introduces the dream with the words And this [was] his dream.

Other translations such as New Jerusalem Bible and Nueva Biblia Española restructure less radically than Today’s English Version by placing the genealogical information about Mordecai at the end of 11.2 instead of in the middle of the verse. New Jerusalem Bible says “In the second year of the reign of the Great King, Ahasuerus, on the first day of Nisan, a dream came to Mordecai, son of Jair….”

Though the story in the Hebrew text begins in the third year of King Xerxes’ reign, the Greek begins one year earlier, In the second year of the reign of Artaxerxes the Great. Throughout the Greek text, both in the Additions found only in the Greek and in the verses that also occur in the Hebrew text, King Xerxes is called Artaxerxes. The Greek mistakenly identified the Ahasuerus of the Hebrew text with Artaxerxes I (464–424 B.C.), the son and successor of Xerxes I. Today’s English Version harmonizes the translation of the Greek name with its translation of the Hebrew name Ahasuerus (see 1.1 of the Hebrew text), but this approach is not recommended.

Artaxerxes the Great is a proper noun and epithet, but in some versions the modifier the Great is translated as an appositional descriptive phrase (so Bible en français courant, La Sainte Bible: La version Etablie par les moines de Maredsous, and Today’s English Version, “Xerxes the great king”). Chouraqui translates it as an adjectival modifier, “the great king Ahasuerus.” In some cultures there may be praise names or titles that are the equivalent of the Great for example, “Artaxerxes Great Lord” or “Artaxerxes Father Great One.”

Nisan: the Greek is literally “in the month of Nisan.” Nisan was the first month in the Hebrew calendar (see comments on 3.7). Nueva Biblia Española translates “on the first day of April,” but since the lunar month began with the new moon of mid-March to mid-April, this is not a good model to follow. A Jewish reader understood the first day of Nisan to be New Year’s Day.

The words whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had brought from Jerusalem leave implicit the relationship of Nebuchadnezzar to the city of Jerusalem. Today’s English Version makes this relationship explicit: “when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia captured Jerusalem.”

On translating the name Jeconiah see the comments on 2.6.

The information concerning Mordecai’s ancestry and exile are paralleled in 2.5-6. The names Jair, Shimei, and Kish have been turned into Greek names in the Septuagint: Jairus, Semeius, and Kisaeus (see Revised English Bible, Bible en français courant, and Traduction œcuménique de la Bible, which preserve the Greek forms). Most translations of the Greek text, however, transliterate these three names from the Septuagint in the same form as from the Hebrew text, to keep the identity clear. Unlike the ambiguity of the Hebrew text (2.6), the Greek is clear in stating that it was Mordecai who was taken into exile at the time of king Jeconiah.

The city of Susa is identified in Today’s English Version as “the Persian city of Susa.” See comments on 1.2.

A great man is a literal translation of the Greek. Today’s English Version makes the meaning clear in English: “an important official in the royal court.”

Had a dream is literally “he saw a dream.” In some languages one “sleeps a dream.” Mordecai’s dream is given in 11.5-11 (A.4-10), and the interpretation of the dream is given in 10.4-13 (Addition F.1-10), at the end of the Greek text of Esther.

Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Noss, Philip A. A Handbook on the Book of Esther — Deuterocanon: The Greek Text. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .