ESTHER: The Beauty and The Beast
TLC/SM Spring Study 1999
Background and Introduction
Esther
The name 'ester is apparently derived from the Persian word for star, stara. Esther's Hebrew name was Hadassah, meaning myrtle.
The Story Line
The first three chapters introduce the chief actors of a drama full of suspense and sudden reversals. The first to appear in the stage is the Persian king. The fate of the Jews, threatened with extinction, is subject to the whims of this all-powerful ruler, (chapter 1). Esther, who became his queen, is the heroine; her cousin and guardian, Mordecai, is the hero (Chapter 2). The villain is Xerxes' grand vizier, Haman. His plot is to destroy the Jews, even though sanctioned by the king (chapter 3), is foiled by courageous counter-measures. The tables are turned. Not Mordecai but Haman is executed. Not the Jews but their enemies are slain (chapters 4-9). In the closing scene an annual festival called the Purim feast is established to commemorate the happy turn of events.
Esther receives no mention outside of Scripture in any secular record so far discovered.
Theme
The book explains the origin of Purim (Assyrian puru, lots) By means of the beauty Esther, God preserves His people from the malice of the beast, Haman, who had plotted their destruction. The book serves the purpose of
showing how divine guidance overrules all things; even in a distant far country God's people are yet in His hands.
The great reversal present in Esther can be seen as one historical manifestation of the eschatological quality and ultimate goal of all of history which the prophets constantly proclaim. This is how God made both human wisdom and folly work together for his transcendent good, climaxing in Christ.
Main Theological Thrust
God's unfailing promise to be with and deliver His people, whatever the historical or empirical details. The gates of hell shall not prevail (Matthew 16:18). This is a documented example of Romans 8:28 being worked out in history and not just at the end. Since Esther is part of salvation history, Christians can and do claim it as part of our history.
This perspective replaces the concept of providence that some see in Esther. The reader cannot but notice the extraordinary number of "coincidences": Mordecai learned of plot; Haman plans Mordecai's execution as the king was planning Mordecai's exaltation; the king returns when Haman falls on couch; when the king has insomnia, he turns to the official court history. Are such events providential? Providence is not quite the right term. The concurrence of the events fits better within the framework of His covenantal promise to His elect people, and not within His general kindness to all people (which might be called providence).
If we proceed along providential line and not Christological lines, we end up searching the book for a moralism, laws, and inspiration for daily living. By that standard Esther will fall woefully short. This is an inspired record of God's interaction with His people in both judgment and grace toward His overarching salvific purposes. Genesis 12:2-3 is the key here.
The Hidden God?
Esther is unlike any other Old Testament writing; words for God do not appear in the text at all. In this scheme of things, people do not express their dependence on Him. There is no prayer for help when disaster threatens; there is no song of thanksgiving when deliverance comes; only action, as if everything depended upon human courage and resourcefulness. This feature of the book was felt so strongly at a later time that apocryphal additions to Esther were composed in which lengthy prayers are placed on the lips of Mordecai and Esther and the deliverance of the Jews is repeatedly attributed to God.
No overt mention of God, however, does not demand that God is absent. The lack of mention is most defensibly explained by the idiom in which the author chose to write. Esther is very similar to units such as the Joseph narratives, Ruth, David's court history, etc., where God acts in no overt way, but hidden "in, with, and under" the fumbles and foibles of mankind. At certain points in the Bible miracles seem to be clustered, but in the bulk of it God is working in with and under the history, through empirical events, including human decisions. We understand this through revelation, received in faith. Though God goes unmentioned except for a veiled reference in 4:14 - the word place is most likely a reverent circumlocution for the divine name, even as Matthew uses "heaven" - allusion to the faith is readily observable. For Fasting, a complement to verbalized prayer, plays a
large role in the book. Even at the Reformation the more moderate Reformers refused to condemn it in principle. Perhaps Lutherans need to consider what Luther says about preparation for the Holy Communion: "Fasting and bodily preparation are indeed fine outward training, but .. ."
"Jews" in Esther
In the book of Esther "Jew" is a contracted derivative of Judahite. Judahite has a connotation other than that of our modern definition of Jew which carries the concept of Judaism. Judahite is primarily a geographical designation. The religious self-designation of believers would have been Israelites, and not Jews. One can more accurately speak about Jews after 200 BC.
Authorship
Though the Jewish authorities record the tradition (as old as Josephus and repeated by Ibn Ezra) that Mordecai was the author, the writer remains unknown. Only general information can be gleaned from the book. He composed it sometime after the death of Xerxes (464 BC) because he refers to the king's biography, "written in the Book of the Chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia (10:2). He had access to records kept by Mordecai (9:20,32). At the same time he draws on his personal acquaintance with Persian life to put events into their proper setting. His incidental descriptions of the palace in Susa, the royal court, its protocol and customs, have been found to be so accurate as to suggest that he was a contemporary of the events he records.
Canon
In the English Bible, Esther is the last of the historical books; in the Hebrew order, it is the last of the five festival scrolls, so called because they are appointed for public reading on festival days. The feast of Purim, whose origin the book describes., comes at the end of the Jewish ecclesiastical year (toward the end of February or beginning of
March in the Western calendar). The New Testament does not cite the book, but nothing can be concluded
from silence. The church fathers refer to it rarely, but this may be due to the fact that Purim found no counter part in Christian calendars, and the book does not lend itself readily to typological exposition.
Outline
1. The Feasts of Xerxes (1:1-2:18)
a. Vashti deposed (1)b. Esther made queen (2:1-18)2. The Feasts of Esther (2:19-7:10)
a. Mordecai Uncovers a Plot (2:19-23)b. Haman's Plot (3)c. Mordecai Persuades Esther to Help (4)d. Esther's Request to the King: The First Banquet (5:1-8)e. A Sleepless Night (5:9-6:14)f. Haman Hanged: The Second Banquet (7)3. The Feasts of Purim (8-10)
a. The King's Edict in Behalf of the Jews (8)b. The Institution of Purim (9)c. The Promotion of Mordecai (10)The outline is from the Concordia Self-Study Bible. The notes are from the Concordia Self-Study Commentary (Concordia Publishing House), A Survey of the Old Testament, Gleason Archer (Moody), An Introduction to the Old Testament, Edward Young (Eerdmans), and The Word Becoming Flesh, Horace Hummel (Concordia Publishing House).
