Some five centuries before Christ, the biblical narrative travels
east, out of Israel to the kingdom of Persia-modern-day Iran. King
Ahasuerus, or Xerxes, ruled the Middle East and the Persian Gulf at
the apex of world domination. God's people, the Jews, were in
exile, yanked violently away from their homeland. There, in a
foreign land, one of the great stories of Jewish deliverance
unfolds, precipitated by a beautiful young woman named Esther. The
account that bears Esther's name is one of the more enigmatic books
of the Old Testament. Once part of the Kethubim or "miscellaneous
writings" of Judaism, it was one of the last books admitted into
the canon of Scripture, and only then with editorial adjustment.
Why the delay? First, a clear candidate for authorship has never
emerged. More importantly, God is not mentioned anywhere in the
entire volume. This is a unique characteristic of Esther when
compared to the other biblical writings. Nevertheless, this appears
to be the author's intent, whoever he or she may have been: invoked
or not invoked, God is present. The book of Esther is not a record
of historical facts as such. Rather, it is a magnificent narrative
that refuses to interpret life as being driven by coincidence or
happenstance. While the silence of God is all too normative for
life, this does not mean God is not nearby or actively at work
behind the scenes. In the otherwise unknown characters of Esther,
Haman, and Mordecai, we trace the movement of the divine hand as
God collaborates with God's risk-taking people to rescue them from
the hand of their enemies. At the conclusion of the book of Esther,
the reader is introduced to the Jewish festival of Purim. This was
a national celebration honoring the Jewish deliverance from
extermination. The word Purim means "chance" or "lot" the rolling
of the dice. Yet, this escape from destruction was not the
accomplishment of a lucky political wager. It was through the
providence of God and the courage of the Jewish queen Esther.
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