Information about Esther

Esther (Hebrew: אֶסְתֵּר, Standard Ester Tiberian ʾEstēr), born Hadassah, was a woman in the Hebrew Bible, the queen of Ahasuerus (commonly identified with either Xerxes I, Xerxes II, Artaxerxes I or Artaxerxes II), and heroine of the Biblical Book of Esther which is named after her.

As a result of Esther's intervention and influence, Persian Jews lived in Persia (modern Iran) for 2400 years thereafter. Esther's husband Ahasuerus followed in the footsteps of his maternal grandfather, Cyrus the Great, in showing mercy to the Jews of Persia: Cyrus had decreed an end to the Babylonian captivity of the Jews upon his conquest of Babylon in 527 BC.

Meaning

According to the Book of Esther (2:7) she was a Persian Jewish woman originally named Hadassah. Both Esther and Mordechai's burial is in Hamedan, Iran. When she entered the royal harem she received the name Esther by which she was henceforth known. Hadassah means "myrtle" in Hebrew and the name Esther is most likely related to the Median word for myrtle, astra, and the Persian word setareh meaning star — the myrtle blossom resembles a twinkling star. The Targum provides another Midrashic explanation: that she was as beautiful as the Evening Star, which is astara in Greek.

Given the great historical link between Persian and Jewish history, modern day Persian Jews are referred to as "Esther's Children". Esther can also be understood to mean "hidden" in Hebrew, and her name is interpreted thus in Midrash, where it is said that Esther hid her nationality and lineage as Mordecai had advised. Because the methods and aims of God are believed to be similarly hidden, "The Book of Esther" in Hebrew can be understood as "The Book of Hiddenness," representing God's hiddenness in the story.

It is also possible that Esther is derived from Ishtar, Akkadian for the Evening Star. (Despite resembling Indo-European words for star, the Semitic "Ishtar" is unrelated, the root beginning with a pharyngeal ayin and the sh sound derived from an earlier th sound.) "Ishtar" was worshipped throughout the Middle East as a goddess. Some critics of the historicity of the Book of Esther seized on this as evidence to support a view that the story of Esther derived from a myth about Ishtar. However, in Hebrew the goddess was referred to by the Hebrew cognate of her name - Ashtoreth. "Esther" cannot be derived directly from the latter. The Book of Daniel provides accounts of Jews in exile being assigned names relating to Babylonian gods and "Mordecai" is understood to mean servant of Marduk, a Babylonian god. "Esther" may have been a Hebrew rendition of a form of "Ishtar" in which the "sh" sound had become an "s" sound. In the Talmud, Tractate Yoma (29a), Esther is compared to the "morning star", and is considered the subject of Psalm chapter 22 because its introduction is a "song for the morning star."

The story of Esther

Esther was the orphaned daughter of Abihail, a Benjamite, a descendent of those taken from Judah in the Babylonian captivity. She lived with her father's nephew, her cousin Mordecai, who held some office in the household of the Persian king at "Shushan in the palace" and was responsible for thwarting a plot by Bigthan and Teresh, two palace guards, to assassinate the king.

King Ahasuerus, often identified as King Xerxes, held a one hundred and eighty-day feast in Susa to display the vast wealth of his kingdom and the splendor and glory of his majesty. The King ordered his queen Vashti to join him and his guests, to show off her beauty. Vashti refused the humiliating order. Furious at her refusal to obey, the King asked his wise men and the seven princes of Persia and Media what he should do to her, according to the law; they advised the King to banish Vashti from his presence to make her an example for other disobedient wives. The King followed this advice, then began searching for a new queen. Beautiful young virgin women were gathered to the palace from every province. For 12 months each woman underwent beauty treatments in the harem, after which she would go to the King. When the woman's turn came, she was given anything she wanted to take with her from the harem to the king's palace; in the evening she would go there and in the morning return to another part of the harem, to become a concubine. She would not return to the King unless he was pleased with her and summoned her by name. King Xerxes chose Esther to be his wife and queen. Soon after this the king gave Haman the Agagite, his prime minister, power and authority. When Haman would ride his horse down the street all the people would bow to him except for Mordecai, who would bow to no-one but his God. This enraged Haman, and he plotted against the Jews, making a plan to kill and extirpate all Jews throughout the Persian empire. He gained the king's approval. He offered ten thousand silver talents to the king for approval of this plan but the king refused to take them.Esther 3:9-11 Mordecai tore his robes and put ash on his head on hearing this news. Esther sent clean clothes to him, but he refused them, explaining deliverance for the Jews would come from some other place (presumably God, as the Jews believe they are God's chosen people), but that Esther would be killed if she did not do what she could to stop this genocide - by talking to the King. Esther was not permitted to see the King unless he had asked for her, and if she did she could be put to death. Esther was terrified of this (she had not been called to the king in 30 days), so she and her maid-servants fasted and prayed earnestly for three days before she built up the courage to enter the king's presence. He held out his sceptre to her, showing that he accepted her visit. Esther requested a banquet with the king and Haman. During the banquet she requested another banquet with the King and Haman the following day.

After the banquet Haman ordered a gallows constructed, 75 feet high, on which to hang Mordecai. That night the king called Haman and asked, "What should be done for the man whom the king delights to honour?" Haman thought the king meant himself, so he said that the man should wear a royal robe and be lead on one of the king's horses through the city streets proclaiming before him, "This is what is done for the man the king delights to honour!" The king thought this was good, then asked Haman to lead Mordecai through the streets in this way, to honour him for previously telling the king of a plot against him. After doing this, Haman rushed home, full of grief. His wife told him, "you will surely come to ruin!" That night, over the banquet, Esther told the king of Haman's plan to massacre the Jews in the Persian Empire, and acknowledged her own Jewish ethnicity. The king was enraged and ordered Haman to be hanged on the gallows he had built for Mordecai. The king then appointed Mordecai as his prime minister, and gave the Jews the right to defend themselves against any enemy.

A peculiarity of Persian law that also occurs in the Book of Daniel is that royal edicts of this sort could not be reversed, even by the king--by siding with the Jews instead of their persecutors, however, the King presumably dissuaded any pogroms. The King also issued a second edict allowing the Jews to arm themselves, and this precipitated a series of reprisals by the Jews against their enemies. This fight began on the 13th of Adar, the date the Jews were originally slated to be exterminated. The Jews killed three hundred in Susa alone, killing seventy-five thousand (fifteen thousand in the Greek biblical account) in the rest of the empire.

Jews established an annual feast, the feast of Purim, in memory of their deliverance. According to traditional Jewish dating this took place about fifty-two years after the return.

Esther appears in the Bible as a woman of deep faith, courage and patriotism, ultimately willing to risk her life for her adoptive father, Mordecai, and the Jewish people. That she was raised up as an instrument in the hand of God to avert the destruction of the Jewish people, and to afford them protection and forward their wealth and peace in their captivity, is manifest from the Scripture account. It is notable, though, that God is not mentioned by name at any time in the Biblical Book of Esther but is inferred by reference to fasting.

There is also a hidden plot in the story about the fact that Esther was a descendent of Kish from the tribe of Benjamin and a relative of King Saul; and Haman the Agagite was the descendant of King Agag of the Amalekites, who were nearly wiped out by Saul (Saul's reluctancy to do so cost him the throne of Israel in the eyes of God). The plot involves Haman's quest for revenge and Esther's redemption of Saul's mistake, saving the Jews from the last of the Amalekites and certain extinction.

For a discussion of the historicity of Esther, see Book of Esther.

Modern retelling

In 1689, Jean Baptiste Racine wrote Esther, a tragedy, at the request of Louis XIV's wife, Françoise d'Aubigné, marquise de Maintenon.

In 1718, Handel wrote the oratorio Esther based on Racine's play.

The play entitled Esther (1960), written by Welsh dramatist Saunders Lewis, is a retelling of the story in Welsh.

A movie about the story, Esther and the King

One of the parts of Amos Gitai's Exile series, called Esther is an updated version of the story.

There is a fictional book by Rebecca Kohn called The Gilded Chamber that retells the story.

A 1978 miniseries entitled The Greatest Heroes of the Bible starred Victoria Principal as Esther, Robert Mandan as Xerxes, and Michael Ansara as Haman.

A 1999 TV movie that follows the biblical account very closely, Esther. Starred Louise Lombard in the title role.

In 2000, VeggieTales, a company that uses CGI vegetables to teach children lessons from the Bible in a comical way, released Esther... The Girl Who Became Queen.

In 2005, biblical novelist Ginger Garrett released, .

In 2006, Lightstone Studios, LLC released "Esther and the King," a live-action movie musical. It is part of the Liken Bible Series. See www.Likenit.com.

A 2006 movie about Esther and Ahasuerus, entitled One Night with the King, stars Tiffany Dupont and Luke Goss. It was based on the novel by Tommy Tenney and Mark Andrew Olsen.

In the anime Trinity Blood Esther is the main character, a nun with a star on her side. She is prophesized to be "the morning star" who will lead the people to peace.

Esther in Christianity

Esther is commemorated as a matriarch in the Calendar of Saints of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod on May 24.

Esther in Judaism

Esther in rabbinic literature

see Esther in rabbinic literature

See also

• Vashti
• Mordecai
• Book of Esther
• Ishtar, Marduk

Bibliography

• Beal, Timothy K. The Book of Hiding: Gender, Ethnicity, Annihilation, and Esther. NY: Routledge, 1997. Postmodern theoretical apparatus, e.g. Derrida, Levinas
• Berlin, Adele. “Esther” in JSB, 1623-1625
• Jon Levenson Esther, an excellent commentary
• Michael Fox Character and Ideology in the Book of Esther, 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmanns, 2001. 333 pp., excellent literary analysis
• Sasson, Jack M. “Esther” in Alter and Kermode, pp. 335-341, literary
• White, Sidnie Ann. “Esther: A Feminine Model for Jewish Diaspora” in Newsom

External links

• stempublishing.com: Writings on the Old Testament
• The Book of Esther, Article by Ronald L. Ecker
• Additions to Esther Published in Eerdman's Dictionary of the Bible (2000)