Studying the Book of Esther

I love the opening verses of Esther, with its description of the lavish, luxurious and opulent spectacle that was the court of the Persian Emperor Ahasuerus. In ten short verses we read about an 180 day-long festival, which culminated in a 7-day long feast, where each official of the palace (from the least to the greatest) ate and drank according to his desire (v.8). Verses 6-7 paint about as vivid a picture of decadence as you can read anywhere in the Old Testament. With its "tapestries of white and purple and silver, marble columns, couches of gold, a pavement of porphyry, marble and precious stones," the courtyard of King Ahaseurus is as elegant and extravagant a setting as the ancient world could imagine. Reading the Bible in short little bites like this forces us to slow down and ponder. Esther and her Jewish kin haven't shown up on the scene yet, so all we know at this point is this: whatever else this book is about, it's going to deal with the challenge of bein...

King Ahasuerus orders the beautiful Queen Vashti into his presence, with the express purpose of showing her off to the nobles, as though she was just one more "thing" in the long list of treasures we read about in verses 1-10. Vashti refuses, presumably on her dignity as a human being, and the King gets furious. And here's where it gets especially interesting, because when he asks his counselors what to do about it, they start waving red flags all over the place: if Vashti gets away with this, they warn, all the women in the empire will think its okay to buck the system  and stand up for themselves, too. So they advise Ahasuerus to take Vashti's "royal position" away and give it to another, more worthy than her (read: more docile). And this is the point where the text grabbed me, because in the Hebrew it says, "give her 'rule' to a 'neighbour' better than her"; and the wording here is almost exactly the same as what Samuel said to S...

The Sunday School readings of the Book of Esther that I grew up with tend to sanitize Esther's story, talking about the search for Queen Vashti's replacement in terms of a "beauty contest" (so, for instance, in the Veggie Tales telling of this story, all Esther has to do is to compete in a talent show). But when you read it in short, 10-verse chunks like this, the very dark, very traumatic thing that's really happening here has time to hit you in the gut. "Let the king appoint commissioners to bring all the young virgins from every province of his realm into the harem in Susa" suggest his advisers, "And let the girl who 'pleases' the king best become the next queen." You don't have to read between the lines too much to get what's really going on here, and it ain't no fairy tale. For just a second this morning I tried to imagine some ruthless government "commissioner" coming to my door, and hauling off a daughter...

As I was reading about all the "beauty treatments" the candidates for Queen Vashti's replacement were subjected to--a six month oil of myrrh treatment followed by a six month perfume and cosmetics treatment--my mind kept thinking about the way our own culture objectifies and consumes human beings (and in particular, women) like that. Subjecting a helpless girl to a year-long beautification ordeal on the off chance that she might please the tastes of a decadent (seemingly insatiable) Emperor, who is himself the embodiment of a decadent (seemingly insatiable) culture, doesn't seem that  different from our own culture's obsession with female beauty and body-image. Think of the "use" of the female body in advertising media; think of the multi-billion-dollar-a-year cosmetics industry (or the thinness industry, or the plastic surgery industry); think of Hollywood's sexist cult of celebrity; think of the increasing pornographication of our culture and the ...

After a somewhat heavy reflection in our last study, today I’m thinking about random acts of kindness. In an almost throw-away line, The Book of Esther mentions how Mordecai found out about a conspiracy to kill King Ahasuerus and warned him through Queen Esther, an event which gets recorded in King's Record Book. It only gets this passing, three verse nod, but if we've read Esther before, we already know that this small, seemingly insignificant act of righteousness is going to yield a harvest of salvation down the road. Like a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon, it will create a typhoon of upset for the enemies of God's people, before the story's done. It's doubly remarkable, too, because Ahasuerus just finished abducting Mordecai's cousin and adopted daughter, forcing her into his harem. If anyone had reason to wish the King dead, it was Mordecai, and yet he acts to save him. It got me thinking about the random times I've "done the right t...

The plot is beginning to thicken for Esther and her kin, as Mordecai refuses to bow to Haman in the gate, and Haman, in turn, hatches a genocidal plot to destroy the Jewish people. On the one hand, this sounds a whole lot like Daniel, another book dealing with the challenges of being faithful to God in the midst of exile (remember Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, thrown into the furnace because they wouldn't bow to the king's image?). On the other hand, it's really telling, the justification Haman gives King Ahasuerus for destroying them: their customs and way of life are different from all the other people (3:8). This, ultimately, is the challenge for God's people: to remain "different" from the way the World does business, in the face of immense pressure to conform. They asked Mordecai why he wouldn't just bow to Haman and be done with it (3:3), and no answer is given; but I think 3:8 is the answer: he's determined to stay true to the Jewish way ...

From what I understand, in the Jewish tradition whenever the Book of Esther is read (once a year at the Feast of Purim), it's customary to boo, hiss and/or heckle whenever Haman's name get's mentioned. There's something very visceral in this that seems appropriate. The genocidal plan, as it’s described in verses 3:14-15, is about as absolute as it can get: an order sent to “every province in every language of every people-group” to “destroy, kill and annihilate them all, young and old, women and children, in a single day” (did we miss anything, Haman?) And then in verse 15, just to send a cold chill down the spine, like a chaser of whiskey after a long, deep swig of utter doom, it says that after the couriers left, “The King and Haman sat down to drink.” Having sealed the fate of God’s People, they sit down to clink their glasses together over some fine Merlot.  Reading in slow bites like this keeps you from jumping to the end of the story too soon. I was going to...

Esther is notorious for being the only book in the Bible (or one of only two books, depending on how you translate Song of Solomon 8:6) that doesn't ever explicitly mention God. Anywhere. Like Godot in Samuel Beckett's play, God is a hidden character in this drama (although, unlike Godot, there is no hint of absurdity in his hiddenness). Which is why 4:3 really struck me. When the Jewish people hear about King Ahasuerus' decree, it says, "there was great mourning among them, with fasting, and weeping and wailing, and many lay in sackcloth and ashes." What's notably absent in this long list is any explicit reference to prayer. I used to see this critically, and moralistically, a sort of indictment against the people: when things were at their worst, they forgot to pray. I suggested that reading to a friend a while back, and he said: "Well, what's fasting except praying with our whole body?" And that sort of re-framed things for me (Thanks, Oliver)...

Most interpreters read Esther 4:13-14 as the key to the whole entire book. In trying to convince her to act to save her people in the face of great personal risk, Mordecai makes two interlocking points: 1) that if Esther doesn't act, salvation will rise up from another place; and 2) it may be (who knows) but that Esther became Queen "for such a time as this." Although the Book of Esther seems to go out of its way to avoid mentioning God directly, Mordecai’s conviction here that there is an unseen hand moving events towards an unavoidable purpose, is about as close as it comes. There is great solace here, I think, in knowing that when God is most hidden in our lives—as hidden, even, as he is in the Book of Esther—that’s when he’s most active; and who knows but perhaps all of “those” events in my story happened “for such a time as this.” There is, of course, a harder, darker layer to this that isn’t always recognized, but must be, if we really want to get to the pastor...

The picture of Esther in 5:1, dressing herself in her royal robes and stepping terrified into the presence of the Persian Emperor really struck me today. From 4:11 we know that she’s standing there under the threat of death. Add to this the fact that she belongs to a condemned people. Add to this what happened to Vashti when she displeased the King, and the tension here should be palpable. The next verse will break the spell, of course: Ahasuerus extends the royal scepter to Esther, sparing her life and letting us exhale, but hopefully not before we’ve felt it, how awful a thing it would have been to stand there, a humble Jewish girl confronting the Powers and Principalities of this world with nothing but her beauty and a royal robe to defend her.  It got me thinking about how God’s saving plan works through our smallness, not our power. He toppled Goliath with a sling-stone flung by the youngest son; he will topple Haman through the courage of a faithful Jewish maid. And of c...

In Esther 5:14, after Mordecai once again snubs him, Haman sets about building the 50-foot gallows on which he intends to exact his revenge. There is a layer to this conflict between Mordecai and Haman that isn’t immediately apparent, but once you notice it, some very subtle themes in the Book of Esther start to stand out sharply. Mordecai is from the tribe of Benjamin, a descendant, in fact, of Kish, who was the father of King Saul (2:5). Haman is an Amalekite, a descendant of King Agag (3:1). This is more than just some random family history. Back in 1 Samuel 15, some 500 years or so before Esther, Saul had led Israel in battle against the Amalekites, and, though God told him to completely destroy Agag’s line, he instead took him hostage (presumably for the ransom or tribute he could exact from him), making the war about his own self-advancement as King, instead of serving the Lord. His “taking matters into his own hands” like this is one of the reasons the Lord rejected him as king;...

Esther 6:1 lies right at the literary centre of this story, and the narrative unfolds on either side of this verse in a chiasmic structure. Chiasm (meaning ‘X’ in Greek) was a very common story-telling device in Hebrew literature, where the story follows an A-B-C-D-C-B-A kind of pattern (or an ‘X’ shape, if you can visualize it). Let me illustrate:  A1. The King’s great Feast (1:1-12)  ..B1. Esther made Queen, with feasting (2:1-17)  ....C1. The King’s decree to destroy the Jews (3:1-15)  ......D1. The King offers Esther up to half his kingdom (5:3)  ........E1. Esther’s 1st banquet (5:5-8)  ..........F1. Haman plots to murder Mordecai (5:9-14) ............G. The King can’t sleep (6:12) ..........F2. Haman forced to honor Mordecai (6:4-14)  ........E2. Esther’s 2nd banquet (7:1-2)  ......D2. The King offers Esther up to half his kingdom (7:3)  ....C2. The King’s decree to save the Jews (8:1-14)  ..B2. Mordecai royally honored, with feast...

Esther 6:13 doesn't stand out as especially significant to modern readers like us, but it is, I think, or would have been, one of the key verses to the whole entire story, if you were one of the Jews in exile that this book was originally written for. Like a snowball at the top of a snow-laden peak, Haman has started to tumble, and his wisest friends tell him: “If this Mordecai before whom your downfall has started, is of Jewish descent (literally, of the “seed of the Jews”), you will not be able to stand against him—you will surely come to ruin.” I call this the key to the whole entire book, because this reference to the “seed of the Jews” ties Esther’s story right back to the story of Abraham, and the founding promise that God made to his people back in Genesis. In Genesis 12, God tells Abraham, the Father of the Jewish people, “I will make you into a great nation ... you will be a blessing ... and I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you ... and all the peo...

Haman at last meets his ironic doom, and the story takes great pains to show how completely his fortunes have reversed: Haman was prompted to annihilate the Jews because Mordecai refused to bow in reverence to him; in 7:7-8 he’s grovelling at the feet of Queen Esther, begging for his life. Haman built a 75-foot impaling pole for Mordecai; in 7:9 this plot to murder someone “who spoke up to help the King” becomes the decisive evidence, sealing his own fate. So far, so good. But there are some strange things going on in chapter 7 that I never noticed before. For instance, in 7:9, it’s a eunuch named Harbona who presents the evidence against Haman. This is interesting, because back in 1:10, Harbona was one of the eunuchs involved in the Queen Vashti scandal that led to Esther becoming Queen. Similarly, it says that after Haman was impaled, “then the king’s fury subsided.” This also harkens us back to the Vashti affair, because right after they’ve removed Vashti from the throne, it says al...

In 8:6, Esther asks a rhetorical question that sort of stopped me in my tracks. She’s beseeching the Emperor to reverse his edict to destroy the Jews, and she says, “How can I bear to see disaster fall on my people? How can I bear to see the destruction of my family?” It is, like I say, a rhetorical question, and the point is, she  can't  bear it. So heart-wrenching would that loss be, that she’s willing to risk everything--status and wealth, peace and comfort, life and death itself--in an effort to save them. And I say it stopped me in my tracks, because as I read it, it was sort of like God was asking me, “Do you share Esther’s heart for the harried and threatened People of God? ” There are some theological dots we need to connect here, before this question comes into focus, but once you do connect them, it should give us all pause, I think. This story is about the attempted annihilation of the Jewish People, of course (and lest we forget, the history books can confirm that ...

God’s deliverance of his people is breaking in to the story at last, with light, and joy and happiness and honor (8:16). Ahasuerus issues a new decree, one that empowers the Jews to defend themselves against their enemies, and, incidentally, perfectly reverses his decree back in 3:12-13, word for word, right down to the letter. But here’s the verse that fascinated me this morning. In 8:17 it says, “Many people of the land ‘became Jews’ because the fear of the Jews had fallen upon them.” What we’re seeing here is a relatively rare instance of Gentiles converting to Judaism, in the Old Testament. There are similar instances of Gentiles coming to recognize, acknowledge, even worship the God of Abraham, but this is the only place where it’s actually framed in terms of Gentiles becoming Jews—converting to and adopting the Jewish way of life. The Hebrew word that’s used there-- yâhad —is a verbal form of the noun yehûd , “Jew”; that is, it’s a verb that means “to become Jewish,” and ...

Three times in Esther 9 it points out that in defending themselves from their enemies, the Jews did not “lay their hands on the plunder” (9:10, 9:15, 9:15), even though back in 8:11, King Ahasuerus explicitly granted them the right to do so. This is one of those off-hand comments that doesn’t look like much, but actually has the weight of redemption behind it, when you scratch the surface. Because Haman, the one who hatched the original plot to destroy the Jews, was an Amalekite—a descendant, of King Agag, in fact, and three times in chapters 8-9, the story takes pains to remind us of his lineage (8:3, 8:10, 9:24). The reason Haman’s family tree matters so much here, is because Mordecai is a direct descendant of King Saul, Israel’s first and failed King (2:5). And here’s the point: in 1 Samuel 15, the reason Saul failed—specifically—and the reason God rejected him as King over Israel, is because he fought a battle against King Agag of the Amalekites, and, instead of completely des...

About 3 weeks from now (March 4), the Jewish community around the world will celebrate the Feast of Purim, the very feast that the Book of Esther culminates with, and whose origins it commemorates to this day. Some 2500 years later, they still set aside a holy day to do what Esther 9:22 says they did that first Purim so long ago: observe a day of feasting and joy, giving presents to each other and gifts to the poor. They will also, from what I understand, read the Book of Esther in its entirety, shaking rattles whenever Haman’s name is mentioned (and in some traditions, they’ll dress in colorful costumes, as a remembrance of the ‘disguised’ activity of God in this story). In this way the community actually relives today in the saga of God’s deliverance back then, remembering in a way that invites active participation in the on-going story. And I’m thinking about Holy Communion. Because just like the Book of Esther is the story of God’s unforeseen deliverance when all hope was los...

 W e're through the Book of Esther now. In the last three verses of Esther we see the final, complete reversal of the fortunes of God's People. Mordecai, who used to sit by the gate of the king's palace, is now second in command over the whole Empire, promoting the well-being of his people and speaking shalom to "all his seed" (10:3). On the one hand, it reminds me of the story of Joseph in Genesis, another displaced son of Abraham who went from imprisoned slave to second-only-to-Pharaoh over all Egypt, who looked back on  his  story and said to those who had harmed him: "You intended it for evil, but God intended it for good, to accomplish salvation for many lives." Interestingly, the wording of Esther 10:2 echoes the epigraph form that the Book of Kings always used to sum up the reign of each of Israel's monarchs: all the deeds of Mordecai, "are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the Kings...?" Essentially, Mordecai--King S...