Bible Commentary - Esther Introduction

And so we begin the book of Esther.  :)

Esther is the very last book of the OT historical section.  After this we begin the Wisdom Literature (Job through the Song of Songs).

I think at a high level, Esther shares many characteristics with the book of Ruth.  The most obvious is the central female protagonist, but it’s more than that.  Both Esther and Ruth are like period pieces drawn from their respective historical epochs.  They are written in the historical context of a specific era, but the events in each book do not particularly tie in with the rest of the bible.

Judged purely based on shared references, neither Ruth nor any events from the book of Ruth are mentioned anywhere else in the OT[1].  In a similar way, neither Esther nor any events from the book of Esther are mentioned anywhere else in the bible.  What this means is that if Ruth and Esther were both removed entirely from the bible, there would be no “gaps”, in the sense of later books assuming their audience’s familiarity with either Ruth or Esther.

Rather than “advancing” the history of Israel, I view both Ruth and Esther as narrative interludes, whose essential focus is not to tell us about what happened to Israel as a nation, but rather to teach us about the lives of individual people during their respective periods.  Other books in the OT focus on individuals, but only when those individuals are leaders of the nation who have the power to effect change at the national level.  For instance, the book of Joshua has much to say about the person of Joshua, but these are all events of national importance because Joshua is the national leader.  Same thing with Ezra and Nehemiah, who are both also national leaders.

Ruth and Esther are different because Ruth is a commoner (and a foreigner at that) and while Esther becomes queen, she is queen of Persia and not a community leader of Israel itself.

Both Ruth and Esther focus on individuals, but their intent is illustrative: in the case of both books, their authors are trying to show us what society was like at the time.  In the case of Ruth, we see Ruth and her family struggling to survive through the turbulent, lawless Judges period.  In the case of Esther, we see Esther and her uncle strive to maintain their cultural and religious identity while living in the midst of a hostile, foreign oppressor.

Focusing particularly on Esther, the historical context is virtually identical to Ezra and Nehemiah.  The Jewish people have been exiled from their homeland and they face a serious identity crisis.  The Tabernacle of Moses (and later, the temple) was central to the Jewish faith.  It was central to the sacrificial system and to the three mandated festivals.  All of this was part of the Law of Moses.  When the temple was destroyed and the people exiled, it meant that following the Law in the way it was originally intended becomes literally impossible.  Hence the identity crisis: what does it mean to be Jewish if it is impossible to obey the Law as it was originally meant?

As a secondary factor, but also tremendously important, the Jews were taken out of their homeland where they existed as a local majority, and moved to a foreign land where they exist as a local minority.  That is, before the exile an average Judean man could expect 9 out of every 10 of his neighbors to be the same ethnicity and religion as himself.  Now it’s the opposite; perhaps only 1 out of every 10 of his neighbors will be the same ethnicity as himself.  There are numerous implications.

First, it redefines in their conception what a “neighbor” is.  In the past, “neighbor” and “brother” could be used almost interchangeably.  Although I don’t want to be overly optimistic and say that the Israelites always lived at peace with each other, I do think there was a reasonable expectation that the people in a given town or community would protect and help each other.  The Law commands generosity towards one’s neighbor in part due to this expectation.  Foreigners were also supposed to be treated well because, as a minority in the Jewish homeland without social protection, they were more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.  Now it is the Jews who are living as foreigners, and they are vulnerable to the exact same exploitation and abuse that the Israelites had been ordered to eschew.

Second, in addition to the abuses and exploitation the Jews might receive, there is a significantly increased risk of cultural dilution via intermarriage and economic pressure.  Nehemiah 13:23-24 writes briefly about this challenge, but in the context of the Jewish exiles in Jerusalem.  It would have been a significantly greater risk in Persia where the Jewish exiles were a minority and surrounded by foreign people.  It is likely that a significant fraction of Jews in exile learned a foreign language (like Persian), married a foreign spouse, worshiped foreign gods, and while they and their descendants lived on, they ceased to maintain a Jewish identity, and therefore ceased to exist as a separate people.

In my opinion, the most important challenge faced by Esther and all the people of her generation is how to maintain their Jewish identity while surviving in the midst of a hostile, foreign power.  Even though the story never says it directly, I think this is the most important question of Esther’s generation and I think much can be learned by studying Esther with this perspective.

I believe that Esther’s “answer” to this question is similar to lessons we have drawn from Nehemiah: in a sentence, the Jewish people should engage with the hostile society, they should seek to cultivate influence and to excel in whatever role they attain, but that they should never forget their origin and people and maintain their “Jewishness” in every situation.  It is a pragmatic attitude, seeking to accrue power and wealth, but then using that power to benefit the Jewish community.  We saw this with Nehemiah, who was cupbearer to the king but then plied his influence to become governor of Judea and build the wall of Jerusalem.  I also see an analogy to Joseph the son of Jacob.  He was sold by his brothers into slavery, but then excelled in every position he got and was eventually promoted to second in command beside Pharaoh.  After garnering influence and power, Joseph used his position to provide food and land for his parents and brothers, bringing deliverance to the community of Israel during the famine.  Esther is much the same story.

Wrapped around this existential challenge, the book of Esther is a beautiful example of ancient Mideast storytelling.  The primary theme of Esther is reversal of fortune.  It is woven throughout the book in more places than I could mention here.  Esther contains a fairly standard narrative arc, with the first half of the book building up the tension in each chapter until it reaches the climax, deliverance is won and the book concludes happily for all the good guys.  The final conclusion of Esther is to explain why the Jews celebrate a festival called Purim, which is an annual festival celebrating the deliverance of the Jews that Esther won by her virtue and bravery.

The book of Esther has the usual cast of actors, with a protagonist, antagonist and various supporting characters.  I will discuss the characters as we see them emerge in the story.

My readers should also note the central role played by feasts.  There are seven feasts in the book of Esther and they are used to structure the narrative into distinct sections.

One of the most unique characteristics of Esther is that throughout the entire book it does not contain the word “LORD” or “God”.  Esther was one of the last books added to the biblical canon and this is one of the reasons why.  One theory I had heard was that Esther was written without references to God as a survival mechanism of sorts, because the Persian authorities might have destroyed a book that was openly dedicated to a god outside their religious system.  I don’t know if that is true but it seems plausible.

Lastly, I would be remiss if I did not mention the additions of Greek Esther.  Greek Esther is a document that may be unfamiliar to many Protestants, but possibly familiar to Catholic and Orthodox Christians.  Greek Esther is basically a Greek translation of the book of Esther, which formed part of the Septuagint, the ~1st century BCE Greek translation of the Hebrew old testament.  Amongst other differences, the Septuagint contained several additions to the book of Esther that are not included in the traditional Hebrew version of the same book.  These Greek additions are most likely an expansion on the Hebrew “original” text and the work of a later author, though it is difficult to estimate the date of both the Hebrew original as well as the later Greek additions.  I don’t plan to comment on the Greek additions themselves, but since the additions to Esther themselves date to at least the 3rd century BCE, I think they provide an invaluable perspective on how ancient Jews may have interpreted and viewed the book of Esther.

One of the most interesting differences between Greek Esther and the “traditional” Hebrew Esther is that Greek Esther includes numerous references to God and to prayer.  The omission of references to God is obvious to ancient Jews just as much as it’s obvious to us, and my guess is that Greek Esther was one attempt to “fix” this “problem”.  That is, I hypothesize that Greek Esther added a bunch of references to God as an attempt to correct what its author/translator viewed as a deficiency of Hebrew Esther.  There are other possible theories but without having more evidence it is difficult to reconstruct the history and relationship between these two documents.

In conclusion, while I expect to be writing at length about the cultural context and themes of the book, I don’t want my readers to forget that Esther is a story about challenges, danger, and triumph over adversity.  Even if it means reading the book twice, I think Esther is a dramatic thriller that should be enjoyed first and then analyzed second.  While I am going to mostly focus on the literary analysis, I would be doing my readers a disservice to suggest that careful analysis is the most important thing we can do with Esther.  It truly is a masterpiece and I sincerely hope that my readers enjoy it.

And with that, let’s move on to the first chapter of Esther!


[1]She is mentioned in the genealogy of Matthew in the New Testament but nowhere else.