Esther
Psalm 124 (Year B September 25-October 1) is part of the pilgrim songs collection in the psalter. It invites reflection on the real enemies we face. Life can overtake us. At least, it can feel that way. We face enemies in life. Some of them are outside of us. We live in a world that is not always friendly. Society has certain enticing ways that are not in our best interests to pursue. Some of our enemies arise from within. We have desires and goals that, if fulfilled, would mean our self-destruction. In either case, we can feel like we are in prison. We know we need help, a safe place, and hope for the future. Hope is essential for a just and humane world. If hope dies, the killing begins. Hopelessness and brutality are two sides of the same coin.[1] The rubric “Let Israel say” in verse 1b, also in Psalm 118:2-4, 39, suggests it use was in a corporate setting involving sung or chanted responses. A choir would take one part and the pilgrims would take the other. The song Israel is to sing or declare is that without the presence of the Lord, Israel would have had no hope. The general and powerful images provided by the poet allow it to be applied to many situations. The poet compares the adversaries with proverbial sea monsters and the overflowing mountain streams. It connects the enemies with the primeval chaos. The people could not overcome them without divine aid. The imagery of water describing danger is frequent in the psalter. The faithful are to pray at a time of distress so that the rush of mighty waters shall not reach them (32:6). The poet experiences the waves going over him (42:7). The poet asks the Lord to save him, because the waters have come to his neck, and he sinks in the deep mire and the deep waters sweep over him (69:1-2). Israel would have been devastatingly overwhelmed had not the Lord been with them to bring victory. A snare is a noose-like wire or cord used to catch a bird or small game; a fowler is a game-bird hunter, and the Lord has allowed Israel to escape like that bird from the teeth of their enemy. The military help Israel receives is in the name of the Lord (Shem Yahweh), which has an intimate connection with the actual being of the Lord.[2] The term is significant enough to deserve some of our attention. The Lord promises to send an angel of the Lord in front of Moses to lead the Hebrews to the Promised Land, and the Shem YHWH will be in the angel (Exodus 23:20-21). The Shem YHWH comes from a distant place with anger and smoke to bring judgment (Isaiah 30:27). The Shem is what the Lord will cause people to remember in the tabernacle. The Shem will be in the tabernacle because the Lord will put it there (Deuteronomy 12:5). A descendant of David will build a house for the Shem (II Samuel 7:13). The poet concludes by affirming that the Lord made everything. The thought is common in the psalter. The Lord who made heaven and earth will bless them (115:15). His help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth (121:2). His help and hope are the Lord who made heaven and earth (146:6). Hope can see the dangers and challenges, and yet see the possibility contained in them. Such hope requires courage and faith. In that sense, our “faith” becomes a source of safety and hope. The dangers remain, but by faith, we know the one who is the foundation of our safety and hope. Truly, “Our help is in the name of the Lord (not a country in which we live, not a business for which we work, not a denomination in which we have found some sustenance), who made heaven and earth.”
The emphasis of the psalm upon Israel escaping its enemies connects with the danger to the Jews of the Persian diaspora.
Here is the only time Esther is used in the lectionary. I offer an introduction to the book.
An unknown author wrote Esther around 350 BC. It is contemporary with Daniel 1-6. but it is a story about events in 485-465 BC. It gives me an occasion to discuss goodness and courage among the people of God, regardless of the hostility of culture. I also discuss the dangers inherent in the reversal theology suggested by this book. Your investment of a pleasant hour reading the whole book of Esther will reward you. Not only is it an enjoyable read, with twists and turns (it is often likened to a brief historical novel), but you will receive insights for preaching an often-ignored slice of biblical life. Some portions of Esther are troubling, but more are fascinating. And God may be travelling incognito within its pages.
The book offers rationale for a Jewish festival, the only one Jews celebrate that is not mentioned in Torah. It supplies the origin story for the festival, authorizes its annual observation, and models how it is to be celebrated. Jews continue to celebrate Purim to this day. Esther is read aloud, accompanied by cheers and jeers, depending on which character is named. Haman’s name is blotted out by children and adults, many dressed in funny costumes. It is a carnival-like holiday, replete with mock reenactments of the story of Esther, partying and excessive drinking, and frivolity uncharacteristic of Jewish festivals. Esther and Mordecai continue to be honored for their wit, bravery, and skill at maneuvering their way around court intrigue and protocol, in a setting where women and Jews had little power. The Talmud (b. Meg. 7b) encourages one to get so drunk that one cannot distinguish between cursed by Haman and blessed by Mordecai. Diaspora Judaism survives against the odds. The sad reality is that Jews have observed the carnival-like festival when the anti-Semites of history have almost succeeded where Haman failed. There was no mighty deed of the Lord to save them from their enemy of anti-Semiticsm, but only their courage, wit, insight, and cunning. The play, Trial of God, by Elie Wiesel occurs on the eve of Purim after the Jews were almost wiped out of existence by a local persecution.
The Jewish Study Bible refers to it as pseudohistory. The book is full of boisterous merrymaking, a comic farce for a carnival-like festival. It sets the tone for the holiday as one of feasting and merrymaking (9:22), as well as sending food gifts to friends and presents to the poor.
In a sense, Esther is a "Cinderella" "reversal-of-fortune" story. A few such stories appear in the Bible -- reversal of fortune theology. David, for example. When the Bible introduces us to the future king of Israel, we find a kid tending sheep, playing the guitar (okay, lyre) and writing poetry. Through a series of events well-known to any preacher, Samuel anoints him as king. Shortly thereafter, he slays a giant, and his legend is secure in the history of Israel. Or Joseph. He is a favorite of his father but despised by his brothers. His brothers toss him into a well, and then sell him to a caravan of merchants. The wife of Pharaoh falsely accuses him of taking sexual liberties with the overseer's wife. Pharaoh throws him into prison. He has no future, no life. Then -- suddenly -- he is the pharaoh of Egypt! Daniel. Here is a young man who rises in favor with the king. Then, enemies accuse him of treason and toss him to the lions. However, they refuse to eat this godly man. God delivers Daniel and his accusers get what is coming to them.
Esther is the story of several ironic reversals. She becomes the paradigm of the diaspora Jew. She successfully became part of the power structure of Persian society. She showed how a Jew could attain some comfort in a foreign environment. In the end, the reversal will involve the oppressed becoming powerful, influential, and oppressive. The reversal occurs through human action motivated by ethnic solidarity and an underlying faith in divine providence. Esther was a powerless member of a powerless group. Yet, we read of the reversal of expected outcomes. The status various parties hold undergoes sudden change. The reversals are significant:
- Vashti the queen becomes Vashti the banished.
- Esther the humble orphan becomes a powerful queen.
- Haman, who swings high and mighty, becomes the person swinging mighty high ... by his neck!
- Mordecai, Haman's targeted victim, becomes the grand poo-bah in the empire instead of Haman.
- The diaspora Jews, whose destruction the royal edict sanctioned, become the victors over their enemies, thanks to a counter-edict. Their mourning turns to rejoicing.[3]
The story reads more like a historical novel. There are interesting novelistic twists. The author was more interested in plot and action, telling an interesting and lively story that would provide the basis for the festival of Purim. It is unique that the book does not mention God. The text does refer to prayer and fasting at a critical moment in the development of Esther's plan. Even if God is not mentioned, God is in the background. We might wonder if providence does not guide the story. Did God help matters along by making Esther so well liked? When Mordecai says that if Esther does not help, there will be assistance from "another quarter," one wonders if this does not refer to God.
Esther is a comedy. Midrash on the text intuited this by adding to the fun with their preposterous embellishments of the story and its characters, extending in ways no one can miss the farce or burlesque inherent in the book, with its bawdiness and slap-stick humor. The voyeurism of Chapter 1, its drunken nobles hoping ot ogle the queen, is made more explicit in a midrash that says that Vashti was bidden to appear wearing the royal diadem and nothing else. Chapter 2 has an inside view of the harem, where the girls apply their cosmetics for a year in preparation for a night in the bed of the king, the midrash also being highly suggestive. The lavishness of the Persian court and the ten drinking banquets in the story add to the aura of comedic excess. The misunderstandings between Ahasuerus and Haman in Chapters 6-7, the climax of the plot, produce belly laughs. These are the characteristics of low comedy.
The plot of the story is structured on improbabilities, exaggerations, misunderstandings, and reversals. Esther keeps her identity hidden, although her relationship to Mordecai the Jew was known. An insignificant minority kills 75,00 of its enemies. Haman erects a seven-story stake for impaling his enemy. The characters are caricatures. Ahasuerus is a buffoon, never quite sure what to do, completely at the mercy of his ministers and servants, giving away his power without a thought. Haman is an erratic egomaniac, with wile mood swings, concerned only for his how honor and the disgrace of his enemy. Even the heroes of the story, Mordecai and Esther, are one-dimensional and unrealistic.
All this being the case, attempts to read it as history are misguided. The setting of the Persian court is authentic, but the events are fictional. The historical accuracy of Esther vis-à-vis Persian court-life, customs and history is debated, with evidence pro and con. There was no Jewish queen of Persia and the empire was tolerant of its ethnic minorities, making it an unlikely place for an edict to eradicate the Jewish population. Rather, it draws upon conventional themes of ancient storytelling and from Greek sources from the Persian period. A rivalry between courtiers focuses on honor and shame. A woman who uses her charm to save her people, an ancient ethnic feud, hidden identities, and the triumph of the forces of good over the forces of evil, are all themes of ancient storytelling. The stories of the Persian court in Herodotus (484-425), the book of Esther features decadent royal luxury, concern for protocol and legalities, wine parties, and the renowned communication system. It is in tune with contemporary literary works about Persia. It also draws upon biblical traditions, most significantly those about Saul and Agag, king of the Amalekites, who are reincarnated in Mordecai and Haman. Like the story of Joseph and Daniel, it features Jewish courtiers in foreign courts. Thus, it is an amazing piece of biblical literature, with plot developments revealing reversals of fortune between Haman and Mordecai, and between those who would destroy Jews and the Jews themselves. The expressions “poetic justice“ and “being hoisted by one's own petard“ come to mind.
Persia (modern-day Iran) is mentioned in several later biblical texts; e.g., it is prominent in Ezra and Daniel. Emperor Cyrus the Great (500's B.C.) authorized Jewish exiles to go home and to rebuild the temple. Esther is in the third portion of the Hebrew Bible, the Writings (ketubim). It is only 10 chapters long. No explicit mention of God, torah (God's law/instruction) or Jewish religious beliefs and practices (except fasting) appear in the Hebrew. But Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches accept as canonical more than 100 additional originally Greek verses, which do mention God and Jewish religious traditions.
The story concerns court intrigue and ethnic prejudice during the reign of Xerxes I, who lived from 519-465 BC and reigned from 486-465. History knows him as Xerxes the Great. He is a monarch with absolute power and authority. Even today, Hollywood movies like 300 (2006) immortalize him. The primary task of Xerxes left by his father Darius was to conquer Greece, at which he failed in 480 BC. His other task was to complete the royal palace at Persepolis, at which he was successful.[4] The author shows awareness of the Persian court as well. There are many historical improbabilities, such as the events recorded here occurring at the same time the king, we know from non-biblical sources, is planning an attack upon Greece, and that Mordecai came to the capitol city in 597 BC and now it is, according to the book, 482 BC. This betrays a lack of historical knowledge by the author, caused by distance from the events described. Such historical questions open the possibility that the story has an association with other legends from the ancient Near East, such as A Thousand and One Nights, such as at 1:1-2:14. Herodotus, in IX, 108-113, refers to Queen Amestris rather than Vashtai. Further, one suspects that Purim has its origin in a pagan festival adopted by Jews along the way.
The story of Mordecai may well have some basis in history, while the story of Vashti has its basis in popular accounts of intrigue in the harem, and the story of Esther herself is a simple story about a young Jewess who saves her people from persecution. It adapted an earlier tale about Mordecai, Esther, and Haman and shaped it into an etiology of Purim, a holiday whose origin is lost in obscurity. The LXX version has six major additions and several significant differences throughout the story. That version is less comic and more melodramatic and reflects Hellenistic concerns of ritual observance and circumcision.
The community at Qumran may not have accepted the book as part of the canon, it being the only Old Testament book not represented. It does not explicitly mention God. Some rabbis did not accept the book as canonical, though the council of Jamnia accepted it in 90 AD. In the church, the west accepted it around the 300's, but the east rejected it. In antiquity, people often associated it with Tobit and Judith, a book with a similar theme.
One can understand these doubts, which may lead us down a path of ignoring it and setting it aside. So, we return now to the question: “Why include Esther in the biblical canon?” It is an exciting story, to be sure. It is Hollywood-worthy, and has made it to the silver screen, although not recently (Esther and the King [1960] starring Joan Collins as Esther and Richard Egan as Ahasuerus). But without a single reference to Yahweh or any mention of religious practices, why not move Esther to Jewish extra-canonical apocryphal literature where the story can take its place alongside similar narratives like Judith, for example, whose eponymous hero uses her beauty and coquettish personality to save Israel from destruction by decapitating the Assyrian General Holofernes?
First, from a contemporary perspective, many have argued that Esther is not an admirable role model. Esther competed in a beauty contest of sorts, sponsored by the king of Persia around 450 B.C. She won the Miss Persia title, married the Gentile king, and had sex with him. She did not live as a Jew, was a part of the king’s harem, and lived in a Persian court. This is not a girl Jewish mothers would ask their daughters to emulate. Yet, there she is in the Bible of both Jews and Christians.
Second, from the Jewish perspective, it does not mention Yahweh or God, Law or Covenant, but given the comic nature of the text bordering on the lewd, the reticence about using such devout language is understandable. It does not mention dietary restrictions, traditional modesty, and marriage of Jews among themselves (endogamous), angels or afterlife, or the virtues of love, kindness, mercy, and forgiveness. The Jewish interpretative tradition explained the text to avoid such problems, but the text remains troublesome regarding themes of the period, both with marriage, a focus of Ezra-Nehemiah, and with diet, which in Daniel was so important that he became a vegetarian. Instead, it emphasizes a vengeful, bloodthirsty, and chauvinistic spirit. The vengeance-taking offends certain readers, but in Esther's biblical context, it is seen as justly righting a wrong, turning the tables on oppressors. See Psalms 7:14-16; 9:15-17; 149:5-9; 124 (all). It has an absence of Jewish religious practices in Esther. One exception is the mention of fasting in 4:16, but the fasting here comes as a request from Esther before she appears before the king. It is more of a “wish me good luck” request than a reference to a Jewish religious practice. The omission of prayer contrasts with Daniel and the long prayers of Chronicles. In the LXX version of Esther, there is a long prayer that takes away this concern.
Third, from the Christian perspective, it is not connected to any Christian purpose, and indeed it is motivated by the desire to tell a story in which the Jews are able to carry out violence against Gentiles. The fact that no Christian festival associates itself with Purim is a significant factor in the questions about this book. No surviving Christian commentary exists until 836. Even casual references in the early church fathers are rare. Martin Luther said, "I am so hostile to this book (II Maccabees) and to Esther that I could wish they did not exist at all; for they Judaize too greatly and have much pagan impropriety."
The Old Testament has books that are outliers from the basic themes of a theological and spiritual view. If I were to build a radical theology, I would start with these books. The book of Job questions the view that suffering is a result of disobedience to God. Ecclesiastes questions the meaning of this life. Esther questions the salvation-historical view that God has acted in history to save a people who will be with God and who will witness to this God in this world. The characters in Esther are typical stereotypes found in Wisdom literature. The author did not emphasize the usual elements of Jewish piety, such as dietary laws, covenant, and the immanent God who is easily accessible in prayer and acts in Jewish history. In that sense, it is more like Ecclesiastes, Job, and Proverbs. There are parallels to the stories of the God-aided Joseph and Daniel, who both received remarkable honors and positions in foreign lands.
I begin with the name. Although the name Esther is exceedingly popular as a Jewish name, it is derived from the Persian. The rabbis of the Talmud (Chullin 139b), however, trace the name to Deuteronomy 31:18, where God says He will “surely hide His face” from the Jewish people: “Anochi hasterastir et panai.” In a play on words, the rabbis are saying that the book of Esther represents a time when God is not found, is “hidden,” when the Divine Presence seems to be obscured. Yet, in the end, the people are saved. The hidden quality of God can lead us to ponder God-forsakenness. In this case, Jews survive by their ingenuity and cunning rather than an act of God. In fact, Esther suggests that people of God must learn to live without the mighty deeds of God so much referred to in the J and E documents, the exodus story, the Deuteronomic History and in the psalms.
From the Jewish and Christian perspective, where is God within the narrative? The fact that the name of God is not mentioned in the narrative is a positive reason to exclude Esther from the Hebrew canon. That God is absent in Esther is unique to the Hebrew Bible and the Old and New Testaments of the Christian Bible. The name of God is not only absent, but so too is the presence of God. All the action in this drama is human action. There is no divine action or guidance to rescue any of the participants in this story.
Such ideas would be at home with theological movements like the “death of God.” It would be difficult to incorporate this book into a serious attempt to develop a theology of the Old Testament, to which von Rad is testimony. He has only a footnote reference to the book in his masterful two volume presentation of Old Testament theology.
Another reason for the inclusion of the book in the canon is that it provides a beginning for the historical experience of Judaism. The orientation of Jews toward defining themselves by the Torah, which led to the notion of Torah creating hedge between Jew and gentile and separating themselves from the peoples within which the Jews live. This book has no sympathy for such a notion of Torah. However, it anticipates the response of suspicion and hatred from the peoples in which they find themselves. This book anticipates the anti-Semitic response of the people among whom the Jews live, and the understanding Jews have that this hatred derives from misunderstanding who Jews are and what Judaism is.
Thus, one need not dismiss the book too quickly. The book has a positive message of good triumphing over evil, the threat of Jewish annihilation is averted, and the Jewish community is assured of continuity and prosperity. The book succeeds in putting a serious message in a comic form.
When Esther was written, Jews were not living in their homeland. They were dispersed and living in exile. So, on the serious side, Esther is a Diaspora story. Esther is in the Bible not because it is overtly religious as is Daniel, another Diaspora narrative. Esther is in the Bible because the title character and the story itself serve as reminders that Jews could live and survive in the diaspora and throughout decades, centuries and millennia without a Temple and a homeland. It is a story written about, by, and for Jews of the Diaspora. It promotes Jewish identity and solidarity and a strong connection with Jewish tradition. It does not mention the land of Israel or the Temple. It addresses the vulnerability of a minority to political forces and government edicts, their lack of autonomy, and their dependence on royal favor and on the shrewdness of their leaders. The anti-Semitism of Haman and his false claims is a prototype for the anti-Semitic agenda through history. Such false claims must have been familiar enough at the time of its writing to resonate with the original audience. This being true, the question for the exiled Jew becomes: How do I live as a Jew away from the Temple, my homeland, and my people? Esther offers insight, and this is why Esther is in the Bible. The purpose of Esther is to remind post-exilic Jews that one can prosper in a foreign land as an exile without giving up one’s identity as a Jew. In other words, if Esther can do it, so can you. Esther, by winning that beauty contest, and then by being smart and gutsy, saves her people and in doing so demonstrates to Jewish exiles that they, too, can not only survive but thrive if they play their cards right. The exiles also learn from Esther that they do not need to be conspicuously religious to survive in a foreign country. God is not mentioned. Religious practices are absent from the story. So Jewish identity is ethnic, not religious. Who Esther is makes her Jewish, rather than what she practices or believes. The message to the exiles who cannot worship in the Temple and therefore cannot be religious Jews is that they can certainly retain their ethnicity and avoid assimilation in the “melting pot of the ancient Near East.”
Esther reminds Christians that it is possible to live as a Christian in times that are completely unfavorable, even hostile to us as believers and followers of Jesus. Throughout history, even U.S. history, she has inspired countless, especially those seeking freedom. Consider the case of Sojourner Truth, whose very name underscores one of the lessons we glean from Esther. Sojourner Truth was an American abolitionist and women’s rights activist. Truth was born into slavery in Swartekill, N.Y., but escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826. After going to court to recover her son in 1828, she became the first black woman to win such a case against a white man (Wikipedia). At a Women’s Rights Convention in New York City in 1853, Sojourner Truth was one of the speakers. Although she was illiterate, she knew her Bible stories. She told the conferees: “Queen Esther come forth, for she was oppressed, and felt there was a great wrong and she said I will die, or I will bring my complaint before the king. Should the king of the United States (Presidents were Millard Fillmore and Franklin Pierce) be greater, or crueler, or harder?” Sojourner Truth and Esther are models for us to emulate regardless of our gender.
Esther 7:1-6, 9-10, 9:20-22 (Year B September 25-October 1) are part of the climax of the story and the statement of the basis for the Purim festival.
The function of Haman as chief antagonist in the melodrama is clear: His overweening pride, his fragile ego and his ruthless cunning represent the antithesis of the virtues of modesty, nobility, courage and dignity embodied in Mordecai and Esther. This chapter completes the reversal of fortunes of the wicked Haman and the virtuous Mordecai, both of whom were part of court intrigue, with Haman being a high official in the Persian court and Mordecai the Jew being of lower standing in the same court, concluding as the triumph of a Jew in a foreign court, becoming like the story of Joseph (Genesis 39-41) and Daniel (Daniel 1-6). It has taken ingenuity and strength of character of the protagonists of the story to survive personally and to save the Jewish people. In this chapter, a comic misunderstanding is the centerpiece. The rivalry between Mordecai and Haman will end, and the evil Haman will be dispatched. It will remain for the following chapter for the plot against the Jews to be successfully countered. The writer has depicted the king throughout the story as an impetuous and impulsive pawn of courtiers and advisers — a deliberate ironical twist on his name, which means “chief of kings.” Esther must have been relieved to hear the king's sweeping promise. Esther waits until the right moment to explain her boldness in approaching the king earlier. Vashti has already set the precedent in this story for a queen’s banquet (1:9), who gave a banquet for the women of Susa in tandem with the banquet given by the king for its male residents (1:5). While women and men could dine together in Persia, the literary device of separating their banquets advances the story with colorful detail and suspense while also linking its several pivotal episodes (recurring at 1:7-8; 2:18; 3:15; 5:5-8; 7:1-10; 9:22). Vashti’s refusal to leave her own all-women’s banquet to attend the king was what triggered the chain of events leading to Esther’s elevation and the endangering of the Jews. In the context of the story, women’s banquets pose a variety of threats. Banquets, no doubt in part because of the influence of alcohol on the judgment of the guests, frequently function as liminal occasions in traditional literature, offering an occasion when any number of unforeseen possibilities may occur. The ingesting of wine occasioned any number of disasters in biblical literature. We could refer to Canaan's cursing after Noah's drunkenness (Genesis 9), the incestuous union of Lot and his daughters (Genesis 19:32ff), Nabal's apoplectic attack (I Samuel 25:36-38), Absalom's revenge against Amnon (II Samuel 13:23-29). The dangers of strong drink were to be avoided altogether by some members of Israelite society (e.g., Nazirites, I Samuel 1:11). In such an unstable context, the final confrontation between Haman and Mordecai occurs and a second royal favorite will fall. Despite nervousness, Esther speaks with dignity and uses court etiquette. Esther displays real wisdom, goodness, and courage. She has no raw physical power. For all she knew, the revelation of her identity with the Jewish people could have meant her death. She has lived with two mutually incompatible social identities. On the one hand, she is the queen of Persia, the quintessential royal subject. On the other hand, she is a Jew, a member of a despised of a people set for annihilation by royal decree. Her revelation leads to a crisis in the cozy set of relationships between herself, the king, and Haman. She will need to give the king an out of a situation that he has created by trusting Haman. She named herself first, not out of self-interest, but because she astutely knew that saving her would be more important to the king, and the rest of her people could ride to safety on the tails of her royal gown. The king, besotted with both drink and Esther's beauty, comes off badly in the tale as an unenlightened ruler easily manipulated by courtiers and favorites.Esther’s plea for the Jews includes reminding the king that his subjects targeted for destruction — with whom she identifies herself without specifically naming the victims or herself as Jews — will be destroyed wantonly, i.e., not even for purposes of slavery, political exchange or corvée. Had the king sold them into foreign slavery, Esther argues, there might have been opportunity for compensation for the economic and political damage done the king, but with the destruction of the people — and for a bribe, no less — the loss is permanent and an insult to the king’s majesty. Thus, the mere "transferring" of resident exiles into slavery would not have merited the king's attention; destroying the king's property, however, is a gravely different matter. She is recasting the offer of money from Haman as a treasonous act against the king. An entire people could become enslaved only if another political entity conquered them. The implication is that Haman was taking over the loyal subjects of the king, an act of treason, trivial compared with the real danger. This framing is ironic since Haman had framed the Jews as traitors (3:8). Esther, in unmasking Haman, also unmasks herself. She shows oneness with her people, a trait of Jewish people down through the centuries.
The king vindicates Esther and hangs Haman. Esther is not necessarily cold to Haman. As long as one so cruel continued to live, the people were in danger. He was falling, but not defeated. After Haman is revealed to be the mastermind behind the plot and throws himself on the mercy of the queen. Haman cringes, the king rises, Haman stands, the king returns, and Haman falls. The king leaves in anger, while Haman stands, having been reclining on his couch, to plead for his life. Haman appeals to a Jewess for help, even though he issued a decree for them to be exterminated. He shows himself as either stupid or vain. Haman has prostrated himself before the queen, but, but in the mode of a comic farce, the king takes him as a seducer of his wife. The king charges Haman with attempting to ravish his wife in his palace, a political connotation of attempting to take kingship, the pretext to punish Haman, for his real wrong, plotting to kill the Jews, and the official endorsement of the king. The reference to Haman covering his face is unclear but emending it to ashamed or downcast might yields an appropriate contextual meaning.
Another touch of irony and reversal is that the stake prepared by Haman for Mordecai will conveniently be used for Mordecai will be used for Haman, switching from the dishonor of Mordecai to the dishonor of Haman.
9:20-22 discloses the reason for the book in explaining the origin of the feast of Purim and the different dates according to the location of the local Jewish community.
A world of caution is in order. One reason many people did not accept that Jesus was the Messiah was because he was not promoting the swap-places kind of reversal the Esther story illustrates. The danger of such a swap places reversal is that it becomes an example of the story of George Orwell in Animal Farm. The oppressed become the oppressor. Rather, Jesus' great reversal, founded on love, meant showing that the weakness demonstrated in such things as servanthood and compassion was real strength, and that the poverty shown by not holding too tightly onto possessions was the real wealth. As the apostle Paul (I Corinthians 1:27-29) explained it, God chose the foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose the weak to shame the strong.
Esther is an example of making a soft difference in the world. I do not mean weak. The people of God have a fundamental difference with the way the world orders itself. The difference does not involve threats or coercion. It does not involve thinking the people of God are better than the world or that they have redemption and the world does not. The world and the church are both fallen and redeemed. For the Christian, this redemption occurs through the cross. The people of God know this and seek to live their lives in the light of that knowledge. The question then becomes whether the people of God are vibrant, engaging, and enticing in their witness in the world. If the people of God are walking in the world of politics, they are walking in particularly dangerous territory. Repeatedly, the political world has co-opted the Christian faith for its ungodly purposes. Yet, even here, Esther teaches us, the people of God need to show their courage wisely, with goodness and wisdom.[5]
[1] Jürgen Moltmann
[2] The Theological Wordbook of the Bible (article 2405)
[3] Crawford, Sidnie White. “The Book of Esther -- Introduction.“ The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. III. (Nashville: Abingdon, 1999), 857. Sidnie Ann White, The Women's Bible Commentary, Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe, eds., Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1992, pp. 126-129.
[4] Regarding Xerxes I and the Battle of Thermopylae (as retold via the movie 300 [2006]): During a lull in the battle, Xerxes personally approaches Leonidas to persuade him to surrender, offering him wealth and power in exchange for his allegiance; Leonidas declines and mocks Xerxes for the inferior quality of his fanatical warriors. In response, Xerxes sends in his elite guard, the Immortals, later that night. Despite some Spartans being killed, they heroically defeat the Immortals (with slight help from the Arcadians). On the second day, Xerxes sends in new waves of armies from Asia and other Persian city-states, including war elephants, to crush the Spartans once and for all, but to no avail. Meanwhile, Ephialtes defects to Xerxes to whom he reveals the secret path in exchange for wealth, luxury and (especially) a uniform. The Arcadians retreat upon learning of Ephialtes' betrayal, but the Spartans stay. Leonidas orders an injured but reluctant Dilios to return to Sparta and tell them of what has happened, a "tale of victory." --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/300_(film). Retrieved April 21, 2015.
[5] Miroslave Volf, “Soft Difference.”
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