Charles Ellicott Commentary Esther 2:1

"After these things, when the wrath of king Ahasuerus was pacified, he remembered Vashti, and what she had done, and what was decreed against her." — Esther 2:1 (ASV)

After these things. —We have seen that the great feast at Susa was in the year 483 B.C., and that in the spring of 481 B.C. Xerxes set out for Greece. The proposal now initiated, then, is to be placed at some unspecified time between these limits. The marriage of Esther, however (Esther 2:16), did not occur until after the return from Greece. The king’s long absence explains the otherwise curious delay. Moreover, even in this interval, he was entangled in more than one illicit connection.