Shaashgaz is a name found in the King James Bible, appearing 1 time in the text.
Who This Was
Shaashgaz was a eunuch in the court of King Ahasuerus, the Persian king who ruled over a vast empire stretching from India to Ethiopia. He appears only once in Scripture, in the Book of Esther, and is identified there as “the king’s chamberlain, which kept the concubines.” His role placed him in charge of the second house of the women—the place where the king’s concubines resided after their night with the king. This was a position of considerable trust within the royal household, since the king’s private quarters and the women who passed through them were matters of intense political and personal sensitivity in a Persian court.
The single verse that names Shaashgaz, Esther 2:14, describes the protocol that governed the lives of these women. A young woman would go in to the king in the evening, and the next morning she would return to the custody of Shaashgaz. There she would remain, no longer among the candidates being considered for the crown, but among the concubines of the king. The verse notes that she would not come in to the king again “except the king delighted in her, and that she were called by name.” Shaashgaz thus stood at the threshold between a woman’s single night before the king and whatever future awaited her afterward.
Scripture records nothing else of Shaashgaz—no words, no actions beyond his charge over this house. He is a background figure, one of the many officials who kept the machinery of the Persian court running. Yet his brief appearance marks him as part of the providential setting in which Esther was raised up to become queen, and through which God preserved His people.
The Name
The name Shaashgaz is a Hebrew transliteration of a Persian name, and its meaning is not clearly recoverable. Unlike some biblical names whose meanings are well established through related roots or explicit wordplay in the text, Shaashgaz appears only here, and scholars have not reached agreement on what it originally signified. Some have proposed connections to Persian words for “servant” or “treasurer,” but these are conjectural. It is honest to say that the meaning of this name is uncertain; Scripture gives us the man’s office rather than the significance of his name.
A Closing Thought
Shaashgaz never speaks in Scripture. He simply does his duty, keeping the house where forgotten women waited. Yet his quiet faithfulness was part of the chain of events that brought Esther to the throne and preserved the Jews from destruction. Most of us will never be seen or remembered by name in the great stories of our time, but God weaves even the unnoticed into His purposes. Whatever post we are given—however hidden—can become a link in His good work, if we hold it faithfully.
At a Glance
- Gender: Male
- Testament: Old
- Mentions in the KJV: 1
Where It Appears in Scripture
- Esther 2:14 — In the evening she went, and on the morrow she returned into the second house of the women, to the custody of Shaashgaz, the king’s chamberlain, which kept the concubines: she came in unto the king no more, except the king delighted in her, and that she wer…