Shushan (Susa) - UPDV Updated Bible Version

Shushan, the citadel city of the Medo-Persian Empire, is the stage on which the deliverance recorded in Esther unfolds and the place from which Nehemiah first hears of Jerusalem's ruin. Almost every reference is keyed to its inner precinct — "Shushan the palace" — but the wider city is named at decisive turns, when the populace registers what is happening behind the throne.

The Royal Seat

Shushan first appears as the seat of the throne. It is in those days, "when the king Ahasuerus sat on the throne of his kingdom, which was in Shushan the palace" (Es 1:2), that the events of the book begin. From that throne the king summons his princes and slaves, "the power of Persia and Media, the nobles and princes of the provinces, being before him" (Es 1:3). The court that follows is held within the palace itself: "the king made a feast to all the people who were present in Shushan the palace, both great and small, seven days, in the court of the garden of the king's palace" (Es 1:5).

The palace is also a residential and administrative complex housing those near the king. "There was a certain Jew in Shushan the palace, whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, a Benjamite" (Es 2:5). And it is to this same precinct that the women of the empire are gathered: "when many maidens were gathered together to Shushan the palace, to the custody of Hegai, that Esther was taken into the king's house, to the custody of Hegai, keeper of the women" (Es 2:8).

Outside Esther, Shushan the palace appears once more as the place where Nehemiah is serving when news reaches him from Judah: "The words of Nehemiah the son of Hacaliah. Now it came to pass in the month Kislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Shushan the palace" (Ne 1:1). The same complex that hosts the Persian court hosts the Jewish cupbearer who will later petition for Jerusalem's walls.

Decrees Sent Out from Shushan

Shushan is the point from which the empire's writ goes out. Haman's decree is published there: "the decree was given out in Shushan the palace. And the king and Haman sat down to drink; but the city of Shushan was perplexed" (Es 3:15). The "city" — distinguished from "the palace" — registers the decree as a public shock even before its terms are fully understood.

A copy of that decree is what Mordecai presses into Esther's hands by way of Hathach: "Also he gave him the copy of the writing of the decree that was given out in Shushan to destroy them, to show it to Esther, and to declare it to her, and to charge her that she should go in to the king, to make supplication to him, and to make request before him, for her people" (Es 4:8).

The counter-decree later issues from the same place by the same machinery: "the posts that rode on swift steeds that were used in the king's service went out, being hurried and pressed on by the king's commandment; and the decree was given out in Shushan the palace" (Es 8:14).

The City Reacts

Twice Shushan as city — not merely as palace — is named in response to what has come from the throne. After Haman's decree, "the city of Shushan was perplexed" (Es 3:15). After Mordecai's elevation, the reaction is the inverse: "Mordecai went forth from the presence of the king in royal apparel of blue and white, and with a great crown of gold, and with a robe of fine linen and purple: and the city of Shushan shouted and was glad" (Es 8:15). The city is treated as a corporate witness whose mood swings with the fate of Mordecai and the Jews.

Esther's Petition Within the Palace

Within Shushan the palace, the petition that reverses the decree is made. Esther sends her instructions to Mordecai through her people in the same city: "Go, gather together all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast⁺ for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day: I also and my maidens will fast in like manner; and so I will go in to the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish" (Es 4:16). She enters the king's presence under the question Mordecai had set before her — "who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" (Es 4:14) — and asks the king and Haman to her banquet (Es 5:8).

When she finally names Haman in the king's hearing, she does so within the palace: "An adversary and an enemy, even this wicked Haman. Then Haman was afraid before the king and the queen" (Es 7:6). Her later plea, to undo what Haman's writ has set in motion, takes place at the king's feet within the same court: "Esther spoke yet again before the king, and fell down at his feet, and implored him with tears to put away the mischief of Haman the Agagite, and his plot that he had plotted against the Jews" (Es 8:3). The king extends the golden scepter; she stands and asks "let it be written to reverse the letters, the plot of Haman" (Es 8:5), pleading "for how can I endure to see the evil that will come to my people? Or how can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred?" (Es 8:6).

Jewish Self-Defense in Shushan

When the day fixed by Haman's decree arrives, Shushan becomes the site of an organized Jewish self-defense. The casualty count from within the citadel is reported up to the king himself: "On that day the number of those who were slain in Shushan the palace was brought before the king" (Es 9:11). At the king's grant the action continues a second day: "the Jews who were in Shushan gathered themselves together on the fourteenth day also of the month Adar, and slew three hundred men in Shushan; but on the spoil they didn't lay their hand" (Es 9:15). The notice that "on the spoil they didn't lay their hand" is repeated in the Shushan account, marking the action as defense rather than plunder.

Shushan and the Wider Empire

Shushan stands inside a larger imperial frame. The throne it houses is the throne of "Persia and Media" (Es 1:3, Es 1:18), the same dual kingdom whose rams Daniel sees: "The ram which you saw, that had the two horns, they are the kings of Media and Persia" (Da 8:20). Persia is the kingdom that succeeds Babylon over the exiles — "they were slaves to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia" (2Ch 36:20) — and whose first king, Cyrus, decrees the return: "Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of Yahweh by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, Yahweh stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom" (Ezr 1:1). Daniel's later visions are dated by the same dynasty (Da 10:1) and look ahead to "three kings in Persia; and the fourth will be far richer than all of them" before Greece breaks the realm (Da 11:2).