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Journey of a Passage

Esther 1:8

"The drinking was according to the law"

The Hebrew says the drinking was "according to the law (dat); none did compel." The Vulgate makes it "no one compelled the unwilling to drink." The library's Greek (Giguet) reads the opposite: "the meal was not according to the established law."

Manuscript variant: witnesses differ in wording

The family tree

Each row is a language or text tradition. Witnesses in the same row may share ancestry, revise one another, or have an uncertain relationship; the line under each box says which. A solid arrow appears only where direct copying or a documented revised edition is established. Order by date never implies copying. Scroll sideways on a phone.

✓ contains it · ✕ does not · ❝ quotes part of it · ⓘ reports on manuscripts · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives

  • Same line, through lost copies
  • Translation
Hebrew
  1. Original EstherComposed c. 400–150 BC (debated)
  2. Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)AD 1008Descends, through lost copies, from Original Esther
Greek
  1. Old Greek Esther (library text: Giguet's French)Translated c. 2nd–1st century BCTranslated from a Hebrew text of Esther, freely, with additions
Latin
  1. Jerome's Vulgatec. AD 400Translated from Hebrew texts of Jerome's day (additions from Greek, appended)
English
  1. King James Bible1611Translated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

Every witness, in order

  1. Composed c. 400–150 BC (debated)

    Original Esther

    – No copy survives

    No original survives. No copy of Esther has been identified among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

  2. Translated c. 2nd–1st century BC

    Old Greek Esther (library text: Giguet's French)

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from a Hebrew text of Esther, freely, with additions

    How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.

    Et le repas ne se fit pas selon la loi établie

    the meal was not held according to the established law

    Old Greek via Giguet's French (its own verse numbers); not checked against Hanhart's Göttingen edition.

  3. c. AD 400

    Jerome's Vulgate

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from Hebrew texts of Jerome's day (additions from Greek, appended)

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Clementine Vulgate (1592 edition).

    Nec erat qui nolentes cogeret ad bibendum

    nor was there anyone to force the unwilling to drink

  4. AD 1008

    Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)

    ✓ Contains this passageDescends, through lost copies, from Original Esther

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.

    וְהַשְּׁתִיָּה כַדָּת אֵין אֹנֵס

    and the drinking was according to the law: none compelling

    Dat, "law, decree," a Persian loanword.

  5. 1611

    King James Bible

    ✓ Contains this passageTranslated from printed Masoretic Hebrew

    How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).

    And the drinking was according to the law; none did compel

What changed, and why

The verse may mean that the usual custom (each guest drinks when the king drinks) was suspended, so guests drank as they wished; the Greek may express that as "not according to the law." Herodotus describes Persian drinking at counsel (1.133). The first use of dat in Esther introduces the book's theme of law.

What the evidence shows

  • Independently documentedThe Hebrew and the library's Greek read 1:8 in opposite ways. Via Giguet.

Sources

    Related lessons

    • Banquets, Royal Power and Vashti →Ahasuerus, who rules 127 provinces from India to Cush, displays his wealth for 180 days and then holds a seven-day banquet in Susa. Queen Vashti holds her own banquet for the women. On the seventh day the merry king orders seven eunuchs to bring Vashti in her royal crown to show her beauty. She refuses. His counselor Memucan turns her refusal into an empire-wide threat, and a decree removes her and declares every man master of his house.