Esther 10:1–3, Addition F and the colophon
Two endings
The Hebrew ends at 10:3 with Mordecai "seeking the wealth of his people, and speaking peace." The Greek continues: "God hath done these things," the dream explained, and a colophon dating the Greek translation to "the fourth year of Ptolemy and Cleopatra."
Read Esther 10:1–3, Addition F and the colophon in every edition
Disputed addition: some witnesses include it, some do not
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.
✓ includes the disputed words · ✕ does not include them · ❝ quotes part of them · ⓘ reports on manuscripts · ▢ pages lost · – no copy survives
- Same line, through lost copies
- Translation
Every witness, in order
Composed c. 400–150 BC (debated)
Original Esther
No original survives. No copy of Esther has been identified among the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Translated c. 2nd–1st century BC
Old Greek Esther (library text: Giguet's French)
How the site knows this: Known here only through a translation.
(10:4) Et Mardochée dit: Tout cela vient de Dieu… (11:1) La quatrième année du règne de Ptolémée et de Cléopâtre, Dosithée, qui dit être prêtre et lévite…
Old Greek via Giguet's French (its own verse numbers); not checked against Hanhart's Göttingen edition.
c. AD 400
Jerome's Vulgate
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Clementine Vulgate (1592 edition).
(10:4) Dixitque Mardochæus: A Deo facta sunt ista.
Jerome marks what follows as found only in the Greek.
AD 1008
Masoretic Text (Leningrad Codex)
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: Westminster Leningrad Codex, a digital transcription of the Leningrad Codex.
דֹּרֵשׁ טוֹב לְעַמּוֹ וְדֹבֵר שָׁלוֹם לְכָל־זַרְעוֹ
seeking good for his people and speaking peace to all his seed
The last words of the Hebrew book.
1611
King James Apocrypha, "The rest of Esther"
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text.
(10:4) Then Mardocheus said, God hath done these things. (11:1) In the fourth year of the reign of Ptolemeus and Cleopatra, Dositheus, who said he was a priest and Levite… brought this epistle of Phurim
1611
King James Bible
How the site knows this: Read in the site's library text: King James Version (1769 text).
seeking the wealth of his people, and speaking peace to all his seed.
What changed, and why
The colophon claims Dositheus brought the Greek "letter of Purim" to Egypt, translated by Lysimachus son of Ptolemy of Jerusalem. Candidate dates: 114/113 BC (Ptolemy IX and Cleopatra III), 78/77 BC (Ptolemy XII and Cleopatra V), or 48 BC (Ptolemy XIII and Cleopatra VII). It is an ancient claim, not independently confirmed.
What the evidence shows
- The Greek colophon names a fourth year of Ptolemy and Cleopatra.
- The colophon dates to 114/113 BC.
Sources
Related lessons
- Mordecai's Greatness and the Ending →The Hebrew book ends in three verses: the king lays a tribute on the land and the islands; his deeds and Mordecai's greatness are written in the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia; Mordecai is second to the king, great among the Jews, "seeking the wealth of his people, and speaking peace to all his seed." The Greek continues: Mordecai interprets his dream, God is named, and a colophon says the letter of Purim was brought to Egypt in the fourth year of Ptolemy and Cleopatra.
- The Greek Additions A–F →Six blocks of text in the Greek Esther, labeled A to F: Mordecai's dream (A) and its interpretation (F); the texts of Haman's decree (B) and the counter-decree (E); Mordecai's and Esther's prayers (C); and Esther's dramatic approach to the king (D). They make God the actor in the story. Catholics and Orthodox read them as Scripture; Protestants place them in the Apocrypha. Jerome moved them to the end, creating the chapter numbers 10:4–16:24.
- How Esther Came to Us →Esther's story is set under Xerxes (5th century BC); its composition date is uncertain, probably late Persian or Hellenistic. No copy has been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, the only Hebrew Bible book so absent. The Hebrew text survives in medieval manuscripts and countless Purim scrolls; the Greek in two forms with six additions. Its place in Scripture was debated by both Jews and Christians.