Addition D · Esther before the king · Greek replacing 5:1–2 · unit 4
She passes through every door and stands before the enthroned, splendidly clothed king.
Rahlfs 5:1d · Swete, Esther 4.1b–11b · .txt · .json
καὶ εἰσελθοῦσα πάσας τὰς θύρας κατέστη ἐνώπιον τοῦ βασιλέως· καὶ αὐτὸς ἐκάθητο ἐπὶ τοῦ θρόνου τῆς βασιλείας αὐτοῦ, καὶ πᾶσαν στολὴν τῆς ἐπιφανείας αὐτοῦ ἐνεδεδύκει, ὅλος διὰ χρυσοῦ καὶ λίθων πολυτελῶν, καὶ ἦν φοβερὸς σφόδρα.
And passing through every door, she stood before the king; and he was sitting upon the throne of his kingdom, clothed in the full robe of his splendor, entirely in gold and precious stones, and he was very fearsome.draft English
What the rabbinic bench shows
1 verbatim · 2 motif · 2 flagged · 11 candidates examined and rejected.
- Medieval retranslation: the Additions re-entered Hebrew from Latin (Sefer Yosippon, c. 953; ben Makhir), so this is not ancient reception
- Lost intermediary: an earlier written aggadic source, no longer extant, stands between
- Aramaic: carried by a targum; how the targum came by it is open
Verbatim
she stands before him; the king on his royal throne in gold and precious stones (בלבוש זהב ואבן יקרה).
Show the witness text (179 words)
Motif — candidate parallels
Unverified at pair level: in a seeded sample of forty motif pairs, 58% failed the study's own test. Read each as a candidate.
The witness's extended ekphrasis of Solomon's jewelled, gold-and-gem throne (with terrifying mechanisms) matches the plus's distinctive image of the king 'entirely in gold and precious stones, and very fearsome' at the audience scene -- a specific shared elaboration MT lacks.
Show the witness text (605 words)
'She stood at the inner gate facing the king's house, and the king was sitting on his royal throne... facing the king's gate' is the specific structural framing matching Addition D's queen passing through every door to stand before the enthroned king.
Show the witness text (19 words)
Flagged for further study (2)
Esther 'passing through every door' matches the witness's specific elaboration of her physical passage through the palace, including the hall of images, en route to the king.
Show the witness text (31 words)
The king sitting on his throne 'looking straight opposite the gate of the house' is a specific staging detail matching the plus's account of Esther passing through every door to stand before the enthroned king; not in MT.
Show the witness text (174 words)
Hebrew retroversions
Machine-assisted reconstructions of a Hebrew the Greek might render, made under Tov's principles and used only as search queries. They are hypotheses, not evidence.
ותבא בכל הדלתות ותעמד לפני המלך והוא יושב על כסא מלכותו ולבוש כל בגדי הדרו כלו זהב ואבנים יקרות והוא נורא מאד
ותעבר את כל השערים ותתיצב לפני המלך והוא ישב על כסא מלכותו ולבוש את כל לבוש תפארתו מעשה זהב ואבני חפץ ומראהו נורא מאד