Abagtha

Abagtha (Hebrew: אבגתא, romanized: ’Ǎḇaḡṯā) was a court official (or a eunuch) of King Ahasuerus.

Her refusal led to her demise and the selection of Esther as the new queen of the Persian Empire.

According to Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, the name Abagtha seems to be the same as ‘Bigtha’ (Old Persian: Bagadāta, ‘god-given’, ‘whose law is divine’, or ‘gif of god’), but with a prefix, and its etymology may be ‘law received from god’.

This Hebrew word, translated eunuch, can mean a general court official, not only a castrated man.

[2] Since Abagtha and the other six officials are spoken of as attending to the king, not to royal women, it is possible that he was not a eunuch in the technical sense.