• The original name of "ester" Esther, was "hadassa" Hadassah: "wayehi 'omen et-hadassa hi ester bat-dodo" (and he brought up Hadassah; that is, Esther, his uncle's daughter [Est 2:7]).
• The name is common today, but appears only once in the Bible.
• The name is a feminine form of the word "hadas" (myrtle).
• The word sometimes appears in the Bible as the myrtle plant, and is used by Jews on Succot (the Feast of Tabernacles): "tsu hahar wehavi'u 'ale-zayit wa'ale-'ets shemen wa'ale hadas wa'ale temarim wa'ale ets 'avot la'asot sukka kakatuv" (Go out to the mountain, and fetch olive branches, and branches of wild olive, and myrtle branches, and palm branches, and branches of thick trees, to make booths, as is written.).
• The word is known in the Arabic of Yemen "hadas", with the same meaning as in Hebrew.
• It is a very interesting fact that this word exists in Hebrew, but not in other Semitic languages, except in the Arabic of Yemen, in the southern Arabian peninsula; may we suggest that, because the plant is used in the Jewish worship on Succot, the word penetrated the Arabic language of Yemen, where there was once a Jewish Kingdom (5th century C.E.) and many people were proselytized to Judaism?
• In the Bible, the word or are unknown as personal names except in the megillat ester (the Scroll of Esther).

• The name of "ester" (Esther) was known as the goddess of fertility in practically the entire ancient world of the Fertile Crescent (Babylon, Akkadia, Mesopotamia, Assyria, Syria, Phoenicia and the Land of Israel).
• Its image - that of a nude standing on a lion - also appeared around 1300 B.C. in Egyptian culture, but the name was changed to Qodshu (originally a Semitic name).
• The name "Ishtar" is found among the eastern Semitic peoples of Babylon, Akkadia, Mesopotamia and Assyria, in the western Semitic cultures, of Syria, Phoenicia and Canaan, as "Ashtarte" or "Athtarat".
• The name was unknown in Hebrew until the time of the Book of .
• The whole story of the "took place" in Persia, a country influenced by eastern Semitic culture.

• The gods in Mesopotamia were differentiated by several levels; the three most elevated were: Anu, the lord of the heaven, Enlil, the lord of the air and Enki (later Ea), the lord of the earth. In the stage below, we find three gods connected with the stars: Shamash, the sun; compare Hebrew: "shemesh" (the sun); Sin the moon; and Ishtar, daughter of Sin, the planet Venus.
• Anu's wife was Amtu, but she was later replaced by Anu's favorite goddess, Ishtar, who was elevated from being star godess to the wife of the god of heaven, Anu.
• According to the Sumeric-Babylonian religion, all gods had human characters, so they loved, hated, even struggled in war with each other and had a human form as the following verse depicts:

  Wrapped is Ishtar by happiness and love,
  Full of strength and passion,
  Sweet are her lips and her mouth is lively,
  Her face is full of joy,
  She is radiant, and a veil wrapped around her head,
  Beautiful is her body, sparkling her eyes.

• In a chapter of the "Enuma Elish" (the Sumeric-Babylonian legend of the creation of the earth) a story is told about the visit of Ishtar to underworld, from were no one can return; of how she anounced her arrival to the goddess Ershigal. Ishtar had to pass through seven gates, and at every gate she had to leave a part of her clothing, untill she stood naked before the goddess Ershigal. The two goddesses looked at each other with hate in their eyes, and Ishtar attacked Ershigal. Ershigal summoned her minister, Namtar, to jail Ishtar in her palace and to let her suffer the sixty sicknesses;
  The sickness of the eyes,
  the sickness of the waist,
  the sicknes of the feet,
  the sickness of the head
  the sickness of the whole body.

  When Ishtar was in the underworld, all fertility on earth disappeared; all the other gods were worried about the possibility of destruction of the entire creation, so they compelled Ershigal to liberate Ishtar; Ishtar was sprinkled with the water of life and returned to the world through the seven gates, and at every gate she received part of her clothing back.

Seal impression on clay depicting the nude fertility goddess Ishtar on her cult-animal, the lion

• We find an interesting verse in the which may be an early testimony to the behaviour of "taqiyya" (fear) or "kitmaan" (to hide), found more frequently in later periods of Shi'ite Islam especially in Persia whereby, for the benefit of the community or to save your life, you are allowed to deny your real religion: "lo-higgida ester et-ammah we'et-moladettah ki mordakhai tsiwwa aleyha asher lo-taggid (Esther had not made known her people or her descent, for Mordecai had charged her that she should not tell). The change of her name from into may even be understood in this light.

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