Mordecai or Mordechai is one of the main personalities in the Book of Esther

Book of Esther

The Book of Esther is a book in the Ketuvim , the third section of the Jewish Tanakh and is part of the Christian Old Testament. The Book of Esther or the Megillah is the basis for the Jewish celebration of Purim...

 in the Hebrew Bible

Hebrew Bible

The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...

. He was the son of Jair, of the tribe of Benjamin

Tribe of Benjamin

According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Benjamin בִּנְיָמִין was one of the Tribes of Israel.From after the conquest of the land by Joshua until the formation of the first Kingdom of Israel in c. 1050 BCE, the Tribe of Benjamin was a part of a loose confederation of Israelite tribes...

.

Biblical account

Mordecai resided in Susa

Susa

Susa was an ancient city of the Elamite, Persian and Parthian empires of Iran. It is located in the lower Zagros Mountains about east of the Tigris River, between the Karkheh and Dez Rivers....

 (Shushan), the metropolis

Metropolis

A metropolis is a very large city or urban area which is a significant economic, political and cultural center for a country or region, and an important hub for regional or international connections and communications...

 of Persia

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

 (now Iran). He adopted his cousin Hadassah (Esther

Esther

Esther , born Hadassah, is the eponymous heroine of the Biblical Book of Esther.According to the Bible, she was a Jewish queen of the Persian king Ahasuerus...

), an orphan child, whom he brought up as his own daughter. When "young virgins" were sought, she was brought into the presence of King Ahasuerus

Ahasuerus

Ahasuerus is a name used several times in the Hebrew Bible, as well as related legends and Apocrypha. This name is applied in the Hebrew Scriptures to three rulers...

 and was made queen in the place of the exiled queen Vashti

Vashti

Queen Vashti is the first wife of King Ahasuerus in the Book of Esther, a book included in the Hebrew Bible and read on the Jewish holiday of Purim. She is banished for her refusal to appear at the king's banquet, and Esther is chosen to succeed her as queen. In the Midrash, Vashti is described...

. Mordecai was referred to subsequently as one of those who "sat in the king's gate" to indicate his position of closeness to the king. While holding this office, he discovered a plot of the king's chamberlain

Chamberlain (office)

A chamberlain is an officer in charge of managing a household. In many countries there are ceremonial posts associated with the household of the sovereign....

's, eunuch

Eunuch

A eunuch is a person born male most commonly castrated, typically early enough in his life for this change to have major hormonal consequences...

s Bigthan and Teresh, to assassinate the king. Because of Mordecai's vigilance, the plot was foiled. His services to the king in this matter were duly recorded in the king's royal diary.

Haman the Agagite

Agagite

The term Agagite is used in the Book of Esther as a description of Haman. The term is understood to be an ethnonym although nothing is known with certainty about the people designated by the name...

 had been raised to the highest position at court. Mordecai refused to bow

Bowing (social)

Bowing is the act of lowering the torso and head as a social gesture in direction to another person or symbol. It is most prominent in Asian cultures but it is also typical of nobility and aristocracy in many countries and distinctively in Europe. Sometimes the gesture may be limited to lowering...

 down before him because it is a clear violation of Jewish law. Haman, stung by Mordecai's refusal, resolved to accomplish his death in a wholesale murder of the Jewish exiles throughout the Persian empire. Learning of Haman's scheme, Mordecai communicated with Queen Esther regarding it, and by her bold intervention the scheme was frustrated by distributing arms to the Jews of Susa and other Persian cities where they lived and clashed with Haman's militia, until the King rescinded the edict to murder the Empire's Jews. Mordecai was raised to a high rank, donned in the royal gray cloak, and Haman was executed on gallows

Gallows

A gallows is a frame, typically wooden, used for execution by hanging, or by means to torture before execution, as was used when being hanged, drawn and quartered...

 he had by anticipation erected for Mordecai. In memory of the deliverance thus wrought for them, the Jews to this day celebrate the feast of Purim

Purim

Purim is a Jewish holiday that commemorates the deliverance of the Jewish people in the ancient Persian Empire from destruction in the wake of a plot by Haman, a story recorded in the Biblical Book of Esther .Purim is celebrated annually according to the Hebrew calendar on the 14th...

 or "Lots" because of the lots that were drawn by Haman to decide whom he would first murder among the Jewish elders in Persia.

Name

The name "Mordechai" is of uncertain origin but is considered identical to the name Marduka or Marduku attested as the name of officials in the Persian court in thirty texts (the Persepolis Texts) from the period of Xerxes I and his father Darius, and may refer to up to four individuals, one of which might very well be the biblical Mordecai.

The name is commonly interpreted as a theophoric name referring to the god Marduk

Marduk

Marduk was the Babylonian name of a late-generation god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon, who, when Babylon became the political center of the Euphrates valley in the time of Hammurabi , started to...

 with the understanding that it means "[servant/follower/devotee] of Marduk

Marduk

Marduk was the Babylonian name of a late-generation god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon, who, when Babylon became the political center of the Euphrates valley in the time of Hammurabi , started to...

" in Aramaic. (The Book of Daniel

Book of Daniel

The Book of Daniel is a book in the Hebrew Bible. The book tells of how Daniel, and his Judean companions, were inducted into Babylon during Jewish exile, and how their positions elevated in the court of Nebuchadnezzar. The court tales span events that occur during the reigns of Nebuchadnezzar,...

 contains similar accounts of Jews living in exile in Babylonia being assigned names relating to Babylonian gods.) Some suggest that as Marduk was a war god, the expression "[servant] of Marduk" may simply denote a warrior - the popular translation of "warrior" is commonly found in naming dictionaries. Others note that Marduk was the creator in Babylonian mythology whence the term might have been understood by Jews to mean simply "[servant] of God".

The Talmud

Talmud

The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....

 (Menachot 64b and 65a) relates that his full name was "Mordechai Bilshan" (which occurs in Ezra 2:2 and Nehemiah 7:7). Hoschander interpreted this as the Babylonian marduk-bel-shunu meaning "Marduk is their lord", "Mordecai" being thus a hypocoristicon.

Another interpretation of the name is that that it is of Persian

Persian language

Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

 origin meaning "little boy". Other suggested meanings of "contrition" (Hebrew root m-r-d), "bitter" (Hebrew root m-r) or "bruising" (Hebrew root r-d-d) are listed in Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary of the late 19th century. There is also speculation that the name is derived from Aramaic mar dochi; mar being a title address for a gentleman and dochi, meaning "one who incurs merit" (cf. Hebrew zoche).

The Talmud provides a Midrash

Midrash

The Hebrew term Midrash is a homiletic method of biblical exegesis. The term also refers to the whole compilation of homiletic teachings on the Bible....

ic interpretation of the name Mordechai Bilshan as mara dachia ("pure myrrh") alluding to Exodus 30:23 and ba'al lashon ("master of languages") reminding us that as a member of the Great Assembly

Great Assembly

The Great Assembly or Anshei Knesset HaGedolah , also known as the Great Synagogue, was, according to Jewish tradition, an assembly of 120 scribes, sages, and prophets, in the period from the end of the Biblical prophets to the time of the development of Rabbinic Judaism, marking a transition from...

 he could speak (Or, at least, understand many) foreign languages.
In the King James Version of the deuterocanonical Greek additions to Esther, his name is spelled as Mardocheus.

Age

The Pentecostal minister Finis Dake interprets the Bible verses Esther 2:5–6 ("Mordecai son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, who had been carried into exile from Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, among those taken captive with Jeconiah king of Judah") to mean that Mordecai himself was exiled by Nebuchadnezzar.

Biblical scholar Michael D. Coogan discusses this as an inaccuracy regarding Mordecai's age. In the passage, either Mordecai or his great-grandfather Kish is identified as having been exiled from Jerusalem to Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar (in 597 BC). If this refers to Mordecai, he would have had to live over a century to have witnessed the events described in the Book of Esther (assuming the biblical Ahasuerus

Ahasuerus

Ahasuerus is a name used several times in the Hebrew Bible, as well as related legends and Apocrypha. This name is applied in the Hebrew Scriptures to three rulers...

 is indeed Xerxes I

Xerxes I of Persia

Xerxes I of Persia , Ḫšayāršā, ), also known as Xerxes the Great, was the fifth king of kings of the Achaemenid Empire.-Youth and rise to power:...

). However, the verse may be read as referring not to Mordecai's exile to Babylon, but to his great-grandfather Kish's exile—a reading which many accept.

Prophet status

The Talmud

Talmud

The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....

 lists Mordecai and Esther

Esther

Esther , born Hadassah, is the eponymous heroine of the Biblical Book of Esther.According to the Bible, she was a Jewish queen of the Persian king Ahasuerus...

 as prophet

Prophet

In religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...

s. The Talmud says Mordecai prophesied in the second year of Darius.

Mordecai's genealogy in the second chapter of the Book of Esther is given as a descendant of Kish of the Tribe of Benjamin

Tribe of Benjamin

According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Benjamin בִּנְיָמִין was one of the Tribes of Israel.From after the conquest of the land by Joshua until the formation of the first Kingdom of Israel in c. 1050 BCE, the Tribe of Benjamin was a part of a loose confederation of Israelite tribes...

. Kish was also the name of the father of King Saul

Saul

-People:Saul is a given/first name in English, the Anglicized form of the Hebrew name Shaul from the Hebrew Bible:* Saul , including people with this given namein the Bible:* Saul , a king of Edom...

, and the Talmud accords Mordecai the status of a descendant of the first King of Israel

United Monarchy

According to Biblical tradition, the united Kingdom of Israel was a kingdom that existed in the Land of Israel, a period referred to by scholars as the United Monarchy. Biblical historians date the kingdom from c. 1020 BCE to c...

.

The Targum Sheni

Targum

Taekwondo is a Korean martial art and the national sport of South Korea. In Korean, tae means "to strike or break with foot"; kwon means "to strike or break with fist"; and do means "way", "method", or "path"...

 gives his genealogy in more detail, as follows: "Mordecai, son of Ya'ir, son of Shim'i, son of Shmida, son of Baana, son of Eila, son of Micah, son of Mephibosheth

Mephibosheth

Mephibosheth was the name of two men of the family of Saul, who is stated in the books of Samuel of the Hebrew Bible to have been the first king of ancient Israel:...

, son of Jonathan

Jonathan (Samuel)

Jonathan is a heroic figure in 1 Samuel in the Hebrew Bible. He was the son of King Saul and close friend of King David...

, son of Saul, son of Kish

Kish (Bible)

Kish was the father of the first king of the Israelites, Saul. -Life:Kish was a Benjamite of the family of the Matrites , and there is some question over whether he is the brother or son of Ner . The question may be resolved by reading both Ner and Kish as sons of Abiel.-Residence:It appears that...

, son of Aviel, son of Tzror, son of Bechorath, son of Aphiah, son of Sh'charim, son of Uziah, son of Sheshak, son of Michael, son of Elyael, son of Amihud, son of Shephatya, son of Psuel, son of Pison, son of Malikh, son of Jerubaal, son of Yerucham, son of Chananya, son of Zavdi, son of Elpo'al, son of Shimri, son of Zecharya, son of Merimoth, son of Hushim, son of Sh'chora, son of 'Azza, son of Gera, son of Benjamin

Benjamin

Benjamin was the last-born of Jacob's twelve sons, and the second and last son of Rachel in Jewish, Christian and Islamic tradition. He was the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Benjamin. In the Biblical account, unlike Rachel's first son, Joseph, Benjamin was born in Canaan. He died in Egypt on...

, son of Jacob

Jacob

Jacob "heel" or "leg-puller"), also later known as Israel , as described in the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, the New Testament and the Qur'an was the third patriarch of the Hebrew people with whom God made a covenant, and ancestor of the tribes of Israel, which were named after his descendants.In the...

 the firstborn, whose name is called Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

."

External links

• Jewish Encyclopedia: Mordecai in Esther and in Rabbinical literature