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Mordecai (; "Mordecai". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. also Mordechai; , IPA: ) is one of the main personalities in the Book of Esther in the Hebrew Bible. He is the cousin and guardian of Esther, who became queen of Persia under the reign of Ahasuerus (Xerxes I). Mordecai's loyalty and bravery are highlighted in the story as he helps Esther foil the plot of Haman, the king's vizier, to exterminate the Jews. His story is celebrated in the Jewish holiday of Purim, which commemorates his victory.
One theory frequently discussed in scholarship suggests that the Book of Esther serves as an etiology for Purim, with Mordecai and Esther representing the Babylonian gods Marduk and Ishtar in a historicized Babylonian myth or ritual. The identification of Mordecai with a Persian official named "Marduka" mentioned in an inscription from the reign of Xerxes I is debated, with some scholars rejecting the connection while others support it due to the commonality of name and office. Even if the Marduka who was mentioned in the inscription was not Mordecai himself it shows the name was in use during that period.
Haman the Agagite had been raised to the highest position at court. In spite of the king's decree that all should prostrate themselves before Haman, Mordecai refused to do so. Haman, stung by Mordecai's refusal, resolved to kill not only Mordecai but all Jewish exiles throughout the Persian empire, and won the king's permission to carry out his plan. Mordecai communicated Haman's scheme to Queen Esther, who used her favor with the king to reverse the scheme, leading the king to authorize Jews to kill their enemies, which they did.
During all this, the king had happened to learn of Mordecai's service in foiling the assassination plot and had asked Haman how a person who did a great service to the king should be honored. Haman answered, thinking the question was about him; and the king followed this advice, and honored Mordecai, and eventually made Mordecai his chief advisor. Haman was executed on gallows that he had set up for Mordecai. The feast of Purim celebrates these reversals of fortune.
There is general agreement that the story was created to justify the Jewish appropriation of an originally non-Jewish feast. The festival which the book explains is purim, which is explained as meaning "lot", from the Babylonian word puru. There are wide-ranging theories regarding the origin of Purim: one popular theory says festival has its origins in a historicized Babylonian myth or ritual in which Mordecai and Esther represent the Babylonian gods Marduk and Ishtar, others trace the ritual to the Nowruz, and scholars have surveyed other theories in their works. Some scholars have defended the story as real history, but others have said the attempt to find a historical kernel to the narrative "is likely to be futile".
The Talmud ( Menachot 64b and 65a) relates that his full name was " Mordechai Bilshan" (which occurs in Ezra 2:2 and Nehemiah 7:7, albeit likely as two separate names in sequence). Hoschander interpreted this as the Babylonian "Marduk-belshunu" (ππ«ππππ‘, DINGIRAMAR.UTU-EN- Ε‘u- nu, meaning "Marduk is their lord") "Mordecai" being thus a hypocorism.
In the King James Version of the deuterocanonical Greek additions to Esther, his name is spelled as " Mardocheus", which may better preserve the original vowels, though the Masoretic Text versions of the Persian names in the Bible are known to be the most reliable.
The Pentecostal minister Finis Dake interprets the Bible verses Esther 2:5β6 to mean that Mordecai himself was exiled by Nebuchadnezzar.Dake's Annotated Reference Bible Biblical scholar Michael D. Coogan discusses this as an inaccuracy regarding Mordecai's age. If "who had been carried into exile" refers to Mordecai, he would have had been more than 100 years old during the events described in the Book of Esther (assuming the biblical Ahasuerus is indeed Xerxes I). However, the verse may be read as referring not to Mordecai's exile to Babylon, but to his great-grandfather Kish's exile β a reading which many accept.Bromiley, Geoffrey W. (Ed.) (1982) International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Volume II, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. p. 159 (entry: Book of Esther)Wiersbe, Warren W. (2004) Bible Exposition Commentary: Old Testament History, David C Cook p. 712 Halley's Bible Handbook
This traditional genealogy implicates Kish as the name of an ancient ancestor and not simply Mordecai's great-grandfather, meaning that Esther 2:5β6 was interpreted as Mordecai being the one who was exiled to Babylon. The chronological inconsistencies of this assumption are detailed above.
Mordecai's genealogy in the second chapter of the Book of Esther is given as a descendant of a Benjaminite named Kish. As "Kish" was also the name of the father of King Saul, another Benjaminite, the Talmud accords Mordecai the status of a descendant of the first United Monarchy.
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