Esther: God at work, unnamed

About the book

The book bears its heroine's name and does not name its author. Some have taken Mordecai to be its writer, since he "recorded these events" (Esther 9:20) and sent letters to the Jews; Jewish tradition says that the men of the Great Assembly, the council of teachers held to have kept the law from Ezra's time on, wrote it down Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra.

The story is set in Susa, the Persian capital, under King Xerxes I (486–465 BC), called Ahasuerus in older Bibles. The map under the Jesus tab places it in the era of return and rebuilding (c. 539–430 BC): after the temple was finished and before Ezra came, among the Jews who had stayed in Persia rather than go home. Many think it was written in the Persian period or soon after.

Jews and Christians have long read the book as an account of real events. Many scholars doubt its history, pointing out, for example, that the Greek historian Herodotus names Xerxes' queen as Amestris and that no other record mentions Vashti or Esther, or read it as a story told for the feast of Purim. Scholars who read it as history point to how well it knows the customs of the Persian court and the palace at Susa, and answer that Persian kings had several wives and that few records survive.

The Hebrew book never names God. The Greek Old Testament's Esther has further passages, among them Mordecai's dream and the prayers of Mordecai and Esther, in which God is named often; the Catholic Church, which calls such books and passages deuterocanonical, and the Orthodox churches of the East receive these as Scripture, while Protestant churches follow the Hebrew text and count them among the Apocrypha (The canon, in the doctrine course).

How it unfolds

Key passages

When Haman had lots cast to choose a day and won a decree to destroy every Jew in the empire, Mordecai sent word to Esther:

For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows if perhaps you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?

Esther 4:14

God is not named, but the words are full of faith: deliverance will come, and Esther is where she is for a reason. To go to the king unsummoned could mean death, yet after a fast she went:

After that, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish!

Esther 4:16

From there small things turn the story. One night the king could not sleep, had the royal records read to him, and learned that Mordecai had never been rewarded for saving his life. Matthew Henry remarks, "He who commanded a hundred and twenty-seven provinces, could not command one hour's sleep" Matthew Henry. Haman was hanged on the gallows he had built for Mordecai, and on the day their enemies had set for the Jews' destruction, "their plan was overturned" (Esther 9:1).

The feast that remembers it, Purim, takes its name from the lot Haman cast: "these days are called Purim, from the word Pur" (Esther 9:26). Mordecai bade the Jews keep the days when "their sorrow turned to joy and their mourning into a holiday" (Esther 9:22), with feasting and gifts to one another and to the poor. Jews still read the book aloud every year at Purim.

The book and Christ

God's name is missing, but not his hand. The Heidelberg Catechism of the Reformed churches confesses his providence:

The almighty and every where present power of God, whereby, as it were by his hand, he still upholds heaven and earth, with all creatures, and so governs them that … all things, come not by chance, but by his fatherly hand.

Heidelberg Catechism, Q27

Providence, in the doctrine course, teaches it.

Esther risked her life to plead for her people. Christ did more than risk his: he gave it, and for those who were still his enemies. "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).

Haman "sought to destroy all of Mordecai’s people, the Jews" (Esther 3:6). By this unnamed deliverance God kept the people from whom the promised Messiah would come.

Reading it

Ten short chapters: read them in one or two sittings, beginning with Esther 1. Instead of looking for God's name, watch for the ‘chance’ events and when they happen. The story falls between chapters 6 and 7 of Ezra (Ezra). With it the history books end; next comes the first of the poetic books, Job.

Practice