Esther is great literature, but it is more: It is God’s revelation of historical events directed for a redemptive purpose, namely preserving the Jews to maintain the seed line for the coming Messiah. For some, Esther is good literature providing a good story; for Christians, it not only has literary value, but more importantly it is historical and God’s infallible Word.
The Book of Esther is an engaging piece of literature, with political intrigue, reversal of fortune, a wise counselor, irony, betrayal, heroism, and a despicable villain. If one pitched an Esther script to a movie studio, it might read:
“A stunningly beautiful woman becomes queen, and when her people are slated for genocide through the evil plan of a maniacal royal officer, she saves their lives by following the counsel of her perceptive cousin.”
It is a vivid story, and perhaps you can even imagine which current Hollywood icons could fill the roles of the four main characters. Esther’s book is so good that screen writers from the silent era into the twenty-first century have adapted it for the cinema at least a dozen times—with some that even stay fairly faithful to the Bible.
Esther is great literature, but it is more: It is God’s revelation of historical events directed for a redemptive purpose, namely preserving the Jews to maintain the seed line for the coming Messiah. For some, Esther is good literature providing a good story; for Christians, it not only has literary value, but more importantly it is historical and God’s infallible Word.
At the time of Esther, Ahasuerus ruled the Persian Empire, which included what are currently Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and the land running along the coast of the Mediterranean beyond Israel into Egypt’s seaboard and the Nile basin to Ethiopia. It was an impressive kingdom ruled by a king who has been described as tyrannical, capricious, and (as would be expected) egotistical. As Esther opens it recounts a half year of pomp, parade, and pride in the capital city of Susa as Ahasuerus threw the feast to end all feasts. Having downed too much wine while partying for a week, he wanted the queen in on the grand affair to parade her great beauty before the revelers. He sent an emissary to summon Queen Vashti, but she refused to submit to his bidding. She was having her own feast. Ahasuerus was furious! The queen’s rebuff humiliated him and denigrated the sovereign rule by men over their households. Such a thing must not be tolerated in Persia! Vashti was dethroned, then the king issued a two-part decree—all men are masters of their homes who must assert their authority, and secondly, because a new queen was needed the loveliest virgins of the empire were to be collected in the harem to be considered for Vashti’s vacant position. The young women were assembled and cosmetically enhanced using the finest oils and fragrances in preparation for viewing by Ahasuerus and trials in his bed chamber. The best one of these women would be the next queen.
A Jew named Mordecai was the great grandson of Kish the Benjaminite. Many Jews from the land of Judah and Benjamin were in Persia because they were deported to Babylon by King Nebuchadnezzar when he captured Jerusalem. Shortly after Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, in later years conquered Babylon, he allowed Jews captured by the Babylonians to return to their homelands. Some of the Jews, like Mordecai, chose not to return. Mordecai was the cousin of a beautiful woman named Esther whom he had taken in as if she were his daughter. Esther was taken by the king’s eunuchs and included with the other virgins gathered from the empire. The chief eunuch, Hegai, favored Esther and moved her to the head of the group candidating for queen. When her opportunity came to go before Ahasuerus “he loved Esther more than all the women, and she won grace and favor in his sight more than all the virgins so that he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen” (2:17). A great feast for all the officials and servants was given and Ahasuerus “granted a remission of taxes to the provinces and gave gifts with royal generosity” (2:18). Such a magnanimous gesture by the king surely endeared the new queen to the people.
Mordecai was an employee of Ahasuerus and whatever his precise job description may have been it included sufficient responsibility to sit at the king’s gate. The gate was the place of social and business gathering, a market for goods, gossiping, deal making, and beggars. While sitting there one day he overheard two eunuchs, Bigthan and Teresh, conspiring to assassinate Ahasuerus. It was a vital piece of information. Mordecai relayed the assassination plan to Esther and she post-haste informed the king. Esther told the king the information came from Mordecai. Investigation proved the authenticity of Mordecai’s evidence which resulted in the two eunuchs being hanged. At this point in Esther, the eunuchs’ conspiracy appears to be an example of court intrigue, but Mordecai’s overhearing the eunuchs would prove invaluable for the future of the Jews in Persia.
The villain in Esther was Haman the Agagite, son of Hammedatha. Reasons are not given but Ahasuerus promoted Haman over all his peers to a place of great prominence. The king issued an edict commanding all his servants at the gate to bow in Haman’s presence, but Mordecai would not comply. When asked why he did not follow the king’s edict, he told them he was a Jew. The antipathy between the two men may have its source in Israel’s history when Samuel executed king Agag when King Saul had spared his life contrary to God’s command. Haman was infuriated by Mordecai’s snub but was reluctant to seize him. Instead, Haman convinced Ahasuerus that “a certain people” within Persia, he did not say Jews, were law breakers that refused to follow the king’s edict to bow to Haman. He paid the king a very large sum so the Jews could be scheduled for destruction on the thirteenth of Adar. Haman distributed copies of the edict in all the languages of the empire with each authenticated as coming from the king by the mark of his ring. Could anything be done to avert the slaughter of the Jews?
