Studying the Book of Esther

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...