[Today’s English Version E.24; Revised Standard Version 16.24]

Every city and country: the Greek may be translated city and country as Revised Standard Version and other translations have done. Today’s English Version, Bible en français courant, and New American Bible harmonize with the translation of the same Greek word in Septuagint 1.1 to say “province” and “city,” for it was over provinces that King Xerxes ruled (see 1.1-2 for comments on translation of “province”). For the sake of consistency, using the same word here and in Septuagint 1.1 seems best. According to Revised Standard Version every city and country without exception will be punished if they do not obey the king’s decree. The words without exception translate a single Greek word meaning “all together.” This idea may be expressed at the beginning of the sentence by saying “No city or country should think….” Other alternatives are “every city and country, not one will be left out” and “all cities and countries together on top of each other.”

Shall be destroyed in wrath: the king proclaims his threat without specifying who will carry out this punishment upon those who disobey his command. His words are stated in the passive voice. This may be changed to the active to say “I will order people [or, my army] to destroy every city and province,” or in some languages it may be necessary to use the indefinite third person plural pronoun “they,” or to say “people will destroy.” As Today’s English Version makes explicit, the “anger” is the king’s anger. A possible translation is “my army will show my anger [or, that I am angry] when they destroy….” New Jerusalem Bible combines the anger and the destruction by saying “will be mercilessly devastated.”

With spear and fire refer respectively to warfare (Today’s English Version “battle”) and the burning of cities to the ground. The author uses the literary device of metonymy to render his account vivid and dramatic. The impact of the imagery may be retained in some languages by saying “spear and fire will destroy every city and province.” In some cultures it will be necessary to specify what kind of spear is meant. In this context it is a weapon of war, not a ceremonial or ritual instrument. Translators who do not wish to use figurative language will need to restate, perhaps saying something like “soldiers will kill everyone with spears [or, weapons] and they will burn down the houses.”

Impassable for men: New Revised Standard Version correctly uses the term “human beings” instead of the word men, since the reference is not to males only. The word impassable means “untrodden,” that is, “not walked on.” Compare the idiomatic rendering in Revised English Bible, which preserves this imagery: “not only will no man set foot in it.” The destruction will be so complete that people will not have access to travel there.

Hateful for all time to beasts and birds: elsewhere in Old Testament prophecy cities are threatened with desolation, so that only animals and birds will live there (Jer 50.39; 51.37), but here the destruction will be so complete that not even wild animals and birds will pass through the ruins.

The scene evoked in these final lines stands in sharp contrast to the “quiet and peaceable” kingdom the king envisaged earlier (verse 8; also 13.2, 7 [B.2, 7]).

Those who translate the LXX in its normal order should turn to the text and discussion on page 207.

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 .