Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Esther · About this commentary
Esther Made Queen
Esther 2:12-18
12 Each young woman’s turn came to go in to King Ahasuerus after her purification for twelve months (for so were the days of their purification accomplished, six months with oil of myrrh, and six months with sweet fragrances and with preparations for beautifying women). · WEB
A year of preparation for one evening, and the one thing Esther is recorded as doing is asking for less than she was offered.
The regimen is stated with the book's usual precision: twelve months of purification, six with oil of myrrh and six with perfumes and cosmetics. A year for a single audience.
Verse 14 describes what happened afterward, and it is the bleakest sentence in the chapter. She returned to a second house, to a different keeper, and came in to the king no more, unless the king delighted in her, and she was called by name. The book states the arrangement without editorial and lets the reader see what it cost the women who were not called.
Against that background verse 15 records Esther's one action, and it is a subtraction. When her turn came she required nothing but what Hegai advised. Every other woman could take whatever she wished from the house; Esther asked for the keeper's judgment instead of her own advantage.
The book does not say why, and it does not need to. The result is stated twice in two verses: she obtained favor in the sight of all those who looked at her, and then the king loved Esther more than all the women.
The crown is set on her head in the tenth month of the seventh year Esther 2:16, which places her in the palace four years before Haman casts his lot Esther 3:7. That gap is easy to read past and it is the book's method: the provision is in place long before the danger appears, and nobody in the story can see that yet.
And the chapter's turn is marked, as every turn in this book is marked, with a banquet.
settled What this mark means