Book of Esther

“And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

— Esther 4:14

Overview

The Book of Esther is a Hebrew historical narrative set in the Persian royal court at Susa, recounting how Esther, a Jewish queen, and her cousin Mordecai foiled a plot by the royal official Haman to destroy the Jewish people throughout the Persian empire.¹ It belongs among the Old Testament historical books, but its author, like the authors of most of those books, chose to let the events themselves carry the account rather than naming himself.² Ancient Jewish usage grouped Esther among the Hagiographa, the “Writings,” alongside Ruth, Ecclesiastes, and the other books read at Jewish festivals.³ Uniquely among the books of the Hebrew Bible, Esther never mentions the name of God directly, even while its author “manifestly designs to represent” the Jews’ deliverance “as effected by his providence.”¹

Timeline

Vashti deposed: Queen Vashti refuses King Ahasuerus’s summons at a royal feast. On his advisers’ advice, the king removes her as queen, fearing other wives will follow her example (Est. 1).
Esther made queen: Esther, a Jewish orphan raised by her cousin Mordecai, is brought into the king’s harem and chosen as the new queen. She hides that she is Jewish (Est. 2:1-18).
Mordecai uncovers a plot: Mordecai finds out that two officials plan to kill the king. He reports it through Esther, and the event is written into the royal records (Est. 2:19-23).
Haman’s plot against the Jews: Angry that Mordecai will not bow to him, Haman the Agagite gets an order, decided by lot, to destroy every Jew in the empire (Est. 3).
Esther agrees to intercede: Mordecai urges Esther to approach the king without being summoned, saying she may have come to power “for such a time as this.” Esther agrees, risking her life (Est. 4).
Esther’s banquets expose Haman: Esther hosts two banquets for the king and Haman. A sleepless night reminds the king of Mordecai’s forgotten good deed. At the second banquet, Esther exposes Haman’s plot (Est. 5-7).
Haman hanged, Mordecai exalted: Haman is hanged on the very gallows he built for Mordecai. Mordecai then receives Haman’s position and the king’s signet ring (Est. 7-8).
Purim instituted: A second royal order lets the Jews defend themselves, and they defeat their enemies. Mordecai and Esther then set up the yearly feast of Purim to remember their rescue (Est. 8-10).

Author and Date

The book’s author is unknown.¹ Jewish tradition, reported by Josephus and echoed in some later theological writing, credited Mordecai himself with the account, since he was a resident of the Persian court with the standing and literacy such a record would require; other writers, less confidently, proposed the priest Joachim instead.⁴ The narrative names Ahasuerus as king, whom Barrows identifies with the historical Xerxes I of Persia, on the strength of the description of his dominion “from India even unto Ethiopia, over a hundred and seven and twenty provinces” (Esth. 1:1) and of his passionate and capricious character, both of which match the profane historical portrait of Xerxes.¹ Xerxes’ reign began about 485 B.C., placing the events the book records within his reign and its composition sometime after.⁵

Historical and Literary Context

The book is set among the Jews who remained in the Persian empire after the return from exile under Cyrus, rather than among those who returned to Judea, and it reflects the realities of a Jewish community living under a foreign, autocratic government rather than under its own king or priesthood.¹ Barrows describes the court of Ahasuerus as a “true and faithful portraiture of the course of affairs at the court of a Persian despot, where the monarch knows no law but his own arbitrary will,” suddenly elevating favorites to power and as suddenly consigning them to execution.⁶ Against that backdrop of arbitrary human power, the narrative’s reticence about God’s own agency is deliberate: the author “prefers, as it would seem, to let the facts speak for themselves,” even as he presents the Jews’ deliverance as an answer to their fasting and prayer.¹

Structure

The book falls into three movements.¹

The feasts of the king (chs. 1-2). Queen Vashti is deposed for refusing the king’s summons, and Esther, a Jewish orphan raised by her cousin Mordecai, is chosen queen in her place.
The plot against the Jews and its reversal (chs. 3-7). Haman the Agagite, offended by Mordecai’s refusal to bow to him, secures an edict to destroy the Jews throughout the empire; Mordecai persuades Esther to intercede, and Esther’s banquets for the king and Haman culminate in Haman’s exposure and execution on the gallows he had built for Mordecai.
The deliverance of the Jews and the institution of Purim (chs. 8-10). A second royal edict permits the Jews to defend themselves; they prevail over their enemies, and Mordecai and Esther establish an annual commemoration of the deliverance.

Major Themes

God’s providence, working without visible intervention, governs the book’s events. The author never names God, yet arranges the narrative’s reversals, Esther’s rise to the throne before the crisis arose, the king’s sleepless night that leads him to honor Mordecai, Haman’s fall on the very gallows he built, so as to present the Jews’ deliverance as the result of God’s own governance rather than mere chance.¹

The book grounds the origin and continuing observance of Purim. Its closing chapters record Mordecai and Esther’s institution of an annual feast in commemoration of the reversal from sorrow to gladness, and Barrows judges that this was likely the immediate occasion for writing the book at all.¹ The feast is also referenced under the name “Mordecai’s day” in 2 Maccabees 15:36 and, according to Josephus, was observed by Jews throughout the ancient world.¹

Canonicity

Esther’s place in the canon has occasioned more discussion than that of most Old Testament books, chiefly because it is the one book in the Hebrew Bible that never names God.¹ Martin Luther, reasoning from his own soteriological convictions, voiced an unfavorable opinion of Esther alongside a handful of other books (Ezra, Nehemiah, James, Jude, Revelation), even while continuing to hold to the strict inspiration of Scripture generally.⁷ Even the question of the book’s authorship was, as Reformed writers acknowledged, more uncertain than for most historical books, with the Mordecai tradition itself called “doubtful” against a rival claim for the priest Joachim.⁴

Notwithstanding that history of discussion, the Second London Baptist Confession lists Esther among the canonical books of the Old Testament, “given by the inspiration of God, to be the rule of faith and life.”⁸ The confession excludes only the Apocrypha, including the Greek additions to Esther that supply the very references to God and prayer the Hebrew text withholds, from the canon on the ground that they are “not being of divine inspiration.”⁹

Related Doctrines

References

Elijah Porter Barrows, Companion to the Bible (New York: American Tract Society, 1867), 263. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹
Barrows, 262-263. ↩
Barrows, 169. ↩
Benedict Pictet, Christian Theology, trans. Frederick Reyroux (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1845), 31. ↩ ↩²
Barrows, 261. ↩
Barrows, 264. ↩
Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume, ed. John Bolt (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), chap. 5, “Holy Scripture.” ↩
The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1677/1689), chap. 1, “Of the Holy Scriptures,” para. 2. ↩
The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1677/1689), chap. 1, “Of the Holy Scriptures,” para. 3. ↩