Shaashgaz

Shaashgaz is named once in the text, as one of the chamberlains in the Persian court of Ahasuerus. His office is described in connection with the procedure that brought Esther before the king.

Keeper of the Concubines

The notice fixes both his role and his place in the harem's daily round. After a young woman's night with the king, "on the next day she returned into the second house of the women, to the custody of Shaashgaz, the king's chamberlain, who kept the concubines: she came in to the king no more, except the king delighted in her, and she was called by name" (Es 2:14). The verse names him as the eunuch in charge of the second house — the quarters of the concubines — and shows the boundary his oversight marked: once a woman passed into his custody, she did not return to the king unless summoned.