The Targum Sheni (“second Aramaic translation”) on the book of Esther differs from other targumim in that it is better described as an “extensive midrashic paraphrase” than as a translation. In composing the work, the author drew on much preexisting midrash on the book of Esther and reworked it into his running narrative expansion of the work in Aramaic. Largely because of the difficulty in establishing the work’s relative chronological relationship to other midrashic works on the book of Esther, Targum Sheni is especially difficult to date, and scholars have provided dates of composition ranging from the fourth to the 11th centuries, with a date somewhere in the middle being the most likely.