I wrote about this last year, but I am writing about it again as I have more sources to share.

First, let us discuss the two relevant verses in the book of Esther. At 2:7, Esther is described as “bat dodo” to Mordechai, and at 2:15, Esther is described as the daughter of Avichayil who is “dod’ to Mordechai. As I will explain below, when used in the context of a family relationship, “dod” means “uncle” in Biblical Hebrew. So we have two verses that clearly indicate that the relationship was one of first cousins.

So how can there be a view that Esther and Mordechai were uncle and niece? (I have no reason to think there was a different Biblical text on these two verses.) The earliest source for the “uncle-niece” view is Josephus, writing at the end of the first-century: “Now among the many who were gathered together, there was found in Babylon a girl who had lost both parents and was being brought up in the home of her uncle, his name being ‘Mordecai.’” See his Antiquities, 11:198. (Josephus assumes Esther was taken from Babylon based on 2:5 which mentions an exile by Nevuchadnezzar. The destination was not stated in the verse.) The “uncle-niece” view is later found in the Latin translation of Tanach by the church father, Jerome (“the Vulgate”)—composed near Bethlehem, around 400 CE. It is found in his translation of 2:7 and of 2:15.

The “Vulgate” was a translation into Latin that Jerome made from the original Hebrew. Jerome was unique in that he was a church father who knew Hebrew. He claims that his translation was faithful to the Hebrew, but that is not always the case. At the Council of Trent in 1546, the Vulgate was declared to be the authentic Bible of the Catholic church. This explains the Catholic Encyclopedia, 5:556, which gives the relationship as “uncle (or cousin).”

Prior to Jerome, there was a translation known as the “Old Latin,” which was based on an older, now lost, Greek translation. The “uncle-niece” idea is found in some versions of this “Old Latin” translation. But according to the latest scholarship, it does not seem that it was in the original version, which dates to 330-350 CE. See “Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 2019,” 28 (4).

The “uncle-niece” view is not found in the Septuagint, which dates to around 100 BCE. Nor is it found in the other main early Greek translation of Esther (the “A-text”).

There are also Jewish sources in the period of the Geonim and Rishonim that adopt the “uncle-niece” view. These are collected in a one page article in Or Yisrael, volume 32. (The article finds some Acharonim who adopt this view as well.) Here are the earliest sources collected here:

• Rabbi Eleazar Kallir, 600 CE—in the Krovetz for Purim—uses the word “dod” in describing the relationship between Esther and Mordechai. See the Complete ArtScroll Siddur, page 794.
• Targum Rishon to Esther 7:6 has “achvei deabba.” (But in earlier verses in this same work, 2:7 and 2:15, the relationship is given as first cousin.) The date of this Targum has been estimated to be the sixth-eighth centuries. (See also Targum Sheni to 2:7, some editions.) —Ibn Ezra, in both his commentaries to Esther 8:1, uses the word “dodah.”
• Pseudo-Rambam—commentary to Esther 8:1—has “dodi, achi avi.” (This is a commentary erroneously attributed to Rambam.)

But with regard to Kallir, he was writing poetically, and was perhaps using “dod” loosely to mean “first cousin.” Or, perhaps, he only meant “beloved.” As to Ibn Ezra, probably he too, used “dodah” loosely. He probably only meant “first cousin” and was just trying to emphasize that they were not married.

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How can we explain what is found in Josephus and Jerome? Could they have been basing themselves on a midrash that is now lost? Such a midrash might have had a looser interpretation of the word דוד. Scholars sometimes suggest that an unusual statement by Josephus is based on a midrash that we do not have. (Josephus grew up among the first-century CE Sages in Jerusalem.)

The church father, Jerome, sometimes explicitly refers to Jewish traditions that we do not have. He was taught by Jews in Eretz Yisrael. (For some references to lost Jewish traditions in Jerome, see Jay Braverman, Jerome’s Commentary on Daniel, 1978.)

Let us now discuss the word דוד in Biblical Hebrew. It has two meanings; it often means “beloved.” But many times, it means “uncle.” (Even-Shoshan’s concordance, at page 258, counts nineteen such times. But some can be questioned, see below.)

Most likely, the “uncle” meaning is a later expansion from the “beloved” meaning—due to the role played by the uncle as provider and helper in the family. See “Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament,” volume 3, pages 148. Another factor may have been that uncle-niece marriage was common. (Similarly, in Aramaic, חביבא means both “beloved” and “uncle.” See Jastrow, page 418.)

Several times, when we can tell that the meaning is not “beloved,” there is still not enough data in the context to establish that “uncle” is the meaning. For example, the Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon mentions two occasions where “kinsman” has been suggested instead of “uncle:” Amos 6:10 and Chronicles I, 27:32. Soncino comments on the latter: “Possibly the word ‘dod’ is used loosely for a near relative.”

It is, at least, theoretically possible that the fact that Mordechai raised Esther as his daughter could have motivated an early midrash to turn Mordechai and Esther into uncle and niece, so the ages would fit better. The midrash could then have interpreted the two דוד words at 2:7 and 2:15 as “brother.” But these would be readings that would be far from plain sense, as there would be no reason for the verses to use the word דוד when אח could have been used.

A much simpler approach to explain Josephus is that, perhaps, he changed the relationship to make the story more believable to his gentile readers, i.e., he made Esther younger to explain the king’s attraction to her. (It is, perhaps, for the same reason that he left out that Mordechai was exiled by Nevuchadnezzar. This would make Mordechai old.) This approach was suggested by Louis Feldman in his studies in Josephus’ Rewritten Bible. (In his summaries of Tanach for gentile readers, Josephus took many liberties. See, e.g., what he did with the book of Yonah.) And we can explain Jerome by saying that he followed Josephus (despite the plain sense of the verses). There is evidence that Jerome thought highly of Josephus as a historian. This approach to Jerome’s interpretation is taken by Ari Zivitofsky.

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A few final thoughts:

• Zivotofsky points out that Rav Soloveitchik described the Mordechai-Esther relationship as uncle-niece in a shiur on tape from 1969. (Zivitofsky also points out that a common children’s song in Israel has Esther stating: “Yodim atem mi dodi? Mordechai HaYehudi.”)
• Megillah 13a records a view that Mordechai and Esther were married to one another. It is the view of Rabbi Meir (second-century CE). This view is found earlier in the Septuagint (first-century BCE). Perhaps the idea that they were married also motivated the uncle-niece interpretation, as uncle-niece marriage was viewed favorably. But again, it is very difficult to force the uncle-niece interpretation into the verses.

I would like to acknowledge the following sources: 1) two articles by Rabbi Zivotofsky: “Jewish Action,” Summer 2001, and in Hebrew online: “Al Mordechai VeEsther,” 2005, 2) Rabbi B. Barry Levy, thetorah.com, March 2016, and 3) Rabbi Joshua Waxman, parshablog, November 2006. Also, the Torat Hayim edition of Esther, with its note to Ibn Ezra 8:1. Finally, I would like to acknowledge Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein and Rabbi Ezra Frazer for their help.

Mitchell First can be reached at [email protected]. His uncle is Rabbi Benjamin Blech, a world-renowned speaker and author, who has been teaching at Yeshiva University for decades.