Survey of the Old Testament - Lesson 34

Dr. Miles Van Pelt

Survey of the Old Testament

ot501-34

Esther

I. Introduction (00:13):

Welcome to our lecture on the Book of Esther. The Book of Esther, as you know, is in the writings, the third section of the Hebrew Bible, which deals with covenant life and those covenant life books are divided into two. In the first half we have life in the land, in the second part we have life in exile. Our last lecture, we cover the book of Lamentations, which lamented like a funeral, the fall and death of Jerusalem. Now, we've had the exposition of what it looks like to live in a fallen and broken world and to suffer in that world, and now we're going to get two examples of how to live a life of faith in exile, or as aliens and strangers in this world. This world is not our home. These people, Esther and Daniel are going to show us, give us a glimpse of how to look that way.

So we have Esther, a female example, and Daniel, a male example, but of course the male and female stuff applies to both, but it's nice to have one of each. It's interesting, Esther and Daniel share a story. They're both taken into exile, they both rise to prominence, second in the kingdom, in some sense. They're both plotted against, they both overcome the plot and that ends up saving people. There's very interesting correspondences between these two. There's no accident that they're together in the Hebrew Bible arrangement. We're also going to see that Daniel shares some correspondences with Joseph later on.

Let's begin. Esther this way, and in the movie The Sound of Music, at the very beginning, the nuns sing this song, "How do you solve a problem like Maria?" For years, scholars have been asking this question, “how do you solve a problem like Esther?”

A. Structure (01:57):

There are some very tough things in the Book of Esther to overcome, but I think we can do it in our time together. You can see that Esther consists of 10 chapters, contain 167 verses and it's got four basic sections. I'm going to give you the structure and the plot and then we'll work through all the introductory issues. So first Esther and Mordecai are in Persia together. We have the fall of Vashti the Queen that is, Vashti was Xerxes's first queen. Xerxes asked her to come out and entertain the troops. She denied it and all of his officials said, "Hey, if you let her get away with this, then all the women in the homes rebel against their husbands", and so they have to do justice on her and get her out and dispose of her.

Then they say, "Well, we better find another queen for you", and they wrangle up some women. They put them into a harem, they train them for a year and Esther wins the day. We'll talk about that in a little bit. That's what happens in chapters one and two. In the next section, the section two, there is Haman's threat. Haman wants to destroy all of the Jews, and so that happens in chapter three. Mordecai hears of that, and he makes a plan. He helps them as Esther helped him by intervening. So we've got Esther and Mordecai in Persia. Thank you Lord, for putting those two people there. We've got the threat to all Jews. Then we've got the deliverance of the Jews. We've got Haman's downfall, Mordecai replaces Haman. The Jews are avenged. The invention of Purim, a new festival and Mordecai is exalted.

There is Shalom in exile. There are just three verses for chapter 10. You love chapters like that. So these 10 chapters, the basic plot is this in chapter one, Vashti is to pose because of her pride and arrogance. In chapter two, Esther is exalted because of her beauty, humility, and wisdom. So it's kind of a wisdom book to how to live skillfully. In chapter three, Haman was enraged by Mordecai due to his pride. In some sense, Mordecai becomes the second Vashti figure. So it's pride comes before the fall. We see that in both Vashti and Mordecai. There's patterns here. In chapter four, Mordecai was exalted because he spoke the truth to the king. Mordecai employs wisdom to counter the plan of Haman. Remember, actually Mordecai saved the life of the king by telling him about a plot on his life.

He was not there to be anti-Persia. He was looking for the flourishing of his kingdom there as well, living wisely in exile. In chapter five, Esther acts with wisdom to counter the plan of Haman. Haman rages, and takes counsel from his wife to make the gallows at 50 cubits high. You can see that's like 75 feet high. There's a really high gallows. In order to put on display their full shame. It's very interesting to going back and forth in here with Haman and his wife. In chapter six, Haman's pride inflames his jealousy over Mordecai. In chapter seven Haman's plot is unmasked by Esther, she goes in and tells the king and Haman's ironic death. He built the gallows upon which he hung. Then in chapters eight and nine Mordecai is exalted.

They institute a festival called Purim. We'll talk about that. The welfare of God's people is situated in exile. In some sense, God's people were about to be extinguished. They were going to have a universal decree to kill all Jewish people in all the land where they exist. God preserved the remnant of His people in eight and nine. That's kind of the outline and the basic plot. You can see you've got it moving. You've got three big sections right here with Esther and Mordecai and Persia, the threat to the Jews, and the deliverance of the Jews. This is the epilogue, the result or the outcome of that at three verses. There's no narrative progression there. It just says, this is the result of the first three sections. We've already talked about the location of the book in the Canon and how it relates to Daniel and the second half of the writings.

B. Canonicity (06:20):

How to get in the Canon? This is something very interesting because this book, more than most of the books in the Old Testament suffered under what we might call canonical criticism for a while, for a few reasons. It's important to know this because it'll help us think about the uniqueness of the book. Esther is never cited in the New Testament or anywhere else in the Old Testament. It's just there and gone. It's the only book not found among the Qumran Scrolls. They just found some scrolls last month. So maybe Esther will be in there, but it's the only book not found among the Qumran was. The name Esther occurs 55 times in its own book, but nowhere else in the Bible. Neither she nor anyone else in the book is mentioned anywhere else, like Mordecai and Haman. Considerable doubts concerning its canonicity have been expressed over the centuries, mainly concerning the nature of its inspired status or the reasons for its inclusion in the cannon.

Among the rabbis, this is interesting, these doubts primarily concerned, it's apparently secular nature, or it's adding to the law by instituting a new festival. So it is very secular. We don't have a lot of God talk. We don't have a lot of “doth saith the Lord” kind of business. I don't even think the name Yahweh appears in the book. So it's challenged Christians, because it's almost like Song of Songs. There's no mention of God here, except maybe that flame of Yahweh thing at the end. Why would this book be in the Canon? The fact that only the Mosaic legislation, do you have the festivals instituted. What gives her the right to institute this? Here, you have a woman instituting a festival for God's people that's still around today.

It's really cool. Among some Christians, doubt centered primarily on sub Christian values and its secularity. How could Esther let herself get caught up in that harmem, and sleep with that dirty old Persian king? That doesn't seem very Christian to me. We'll try to answer that.

For Mordecai statements law?

C. Historical Context (08:32):

Yeah. That's exactly right. Why would Mordecai intervene and save the kind of the life of a guy who was holding his people in exile? So Martin Luther has famously denounced this book saying "I am so great an enemy to the second book of the Maccabees, and to Esther, that I wish they had not come to us at all, for they have too many heathen unnaturalities". Of course that would be a translation from the German, but it's still fun. So neither the author nor the date of composition of Esther is specified in the book. According to the Talmud, the men of the great synagogue, that'd be like in Esther's day, composed the book. Josephus stated that Mordecai was the author. So maybe that's a possibility and he would have certainly had the capacity and the resources to do it. The earliest possible date for this book to have been written would have been probably sometime after the death of Xerxes, which would have been 464 BC. That's when we know he died, since his death seems to be presumed by the summary of his reign in chapter 10, verse two. The last possible date would seem to be a date prior to the rise of the Greek empire in the east. Since there no trace of Greek influence on the Hebrew book. Usually some of the later books will have some kind of influence in it. An earlier date, rather than a later date would better explain the authors familiarity with the surroundings.

There's a lot of detail about the court and who's in there in the names of the people. That means probably someone living close to that time or in that time. Historical context, the book of Esther gives us a unique glimpse into the life among the Jewish exiles who did not return from exile. So this is after Cyrus's decree and Esther and Mordecai could have gone back, but they decided to stay, interestingly enough. Long after many of their friends and family may have returned to Jerusalem in the years following Cyrus’s decree, we have close to 70 years later, they're still living there. The events of Esther take place in Persia, which is now modern day Iran. So you can think about that culture. Modern day Iran has a very traditional culture to resist, to change over the centuries. Probably a lot of the traditional culture still looks like it looked back then.

During the reign of Xerxes, which would be 486 to 465. So he reigned  20 years basically. They went back to exile out from 538. That's 40. It's about 60 or 70 years after that. The Persian empire, just so you know that what we're looking at, stretched across the entire ancient near east. Xerxes was an ambitious, ruthless, intolerant ruler and administrator over a vast empire. He was also a brilliant warrior and a jealous lover they say, according to Heraclitus. Heraclitus is an ancient Greek historian who lived from 484 to 424. He devotes fully one third of his history of the Persian wars to the years of the thirties work in it. The years of the landmark, his landmark, Greek invasion, stuff like that. Heraclitus loved this guy and we have a lot of information about him.

That would be an interesting pursuit, but Xerxes reign also marked the beginning of the end for the great Persian empire, which finally fell in 330, just under 100 years after his death to Greece under Alexander the Great. Xerxes was assassinated in his bed chamber in 465 BC. Of course, Esther, wasn't. The Queens and the concubines didn't always sleep with him. You just wonder, was Esther there? Where was Esther? What happened to Esther? I don't know what happened to Mordecai and Esther after this, just silent. I was looking for the appendix and Esther lived happily ever after she went to Israel or something like that. Maybe she got remarried to a good Jewish man? We don't get any of that. We just have silence. It is a strange thing what happened to her and what happened to Mordecai because they were major figures in the kingdom.

II. Theological Issues (12:27):

They're just gone. They are not mentioned in any of the annuals of the Persians. We've looked at some of the historical background issues. The basic plot and outline. What are some of the theological issues in the book? What are some of the main theological issues? The first one we're going to say is God's providence. Now generally I do not like to use a theme like providence to describe a book because every book exhibits God's providence. Every book exhibits God's sovereignty. Every book deals with God's love and justice. So I don't like this big theme, but this one book really does do that. I think we can justify by saying, God is kind of not there, but we see God's still protecting His people with a young woman and her uncle. In weakness, there is strength.

A. God’s Providence (13:21):

It's an interesting thing right there, God's providence. We can see that in Esther 4:14, where Mordecai says to Esther for, "If you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you've come to the kingdom for such a time of this". So Mordecai knows that even if Esther doesn't go to the king and put her life in harms way, that God will be able to take care of some other way. Mordecai knows that God will protect His people. Even though, he's not saying "I heard... The Lord told me, you need to go do this". You don't get any of that language here. Mordecai is not a prophet saying, Esther, “thus saith the Lord, you must go and

B. God’s Hiddenness (14:06):

I will protect you.” Esther would say, but I don't want to. I'm afraid then God said, I'll be with you. Then there's two signs to confirm it. She lays a fleece down as the fleece is dry. Then the fleece is wet and she says, I'm going. The second theme is related to this theme. The providence theme it's that God's, hiddenness, God's hiddenness. There is no direct intervention or interaction. Here's what Peter Lee says about this. I like what he has to say about God's hiddenness "I suggest that the author of Esther created an inspiring sense of presence of God by creating a literary theological vacuum. The effect of this vacuum is to remind the reader of the subtle activities of God who had not abandoned His people when they were in need of His grace the most". Remember there, it's like they're in Egypt and it's the death of the first born all over again.

But it's the death of all of them. They're enslaved and God just says "I'm going to just wipe you all out". That's the critical nature of this. Indeed, the salvation of the Jews in Esther was to neither to creative maneuverings of Mordecai, nor to the courage of Esther. These heroes of faith were truly steadfast in the resolve, but behind the scenes, the early stage was the divine hand of the Lord who orchestrated the totality of what is found in the book for his own glory and for the well-being of his people. So the hiddenness of God in this book creates this deafening silence, where you're just sitting there watching it. You don't know what's going to happen because you don't hear the God language going on. But in the back of your mind, you have got to know, God is still in control.

C. Life of Faith and Exile (15:39):

We have the providence of God. We have the hiddenness of God. Then we have the theme of the life of faith in exile. What's the life of faith in exile? The life of faith in exile is this, faithfulness unto death. The relationship between the people of God and the people of this world. How do you relate in that particular category, faithfulness unto death? This is what Daniel did too. With Daniel, his friends, they put their lives on the line to be faithful to the Lord, even if it would cost them their life. Think about the three guys, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the firey furnace. I don't know if our God’s going to deliver us, but we're not going to bow down to your god. They didn't have the guarantee and they didn't have the track record.

It's not very often that three guys are cast into the furnace. A fourth guy shows up and they all walk out. Does that make sense? It's not like they had other books like that to say it. They just knew, perishing is better than being unfaithful. We have that with Esther.  In Esther 4:16, Esther talking to Mordecai, "Go rather to all the Jews to be found in Susa and hold a fast on my behalf and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. And I'm a young woman. We'll also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish". Faithfulness unto death, Esther 4:16 is the key verse in the book for like the motto of faithfulness. I will do what is right though It costs me my life. If I perish, I perish.

III. Festival of Purim (17:23):

At the end of the book, they institute something called the Festival of Purim. It's good for us to know what that festival is and how it works because it's actually still in enforced today. Purim, this festival was inaugurated in the book of Esther. It's the only biblical festival not mentioned in the Pentateuch, which is amazing. Some rabbis say that elevates the book of Esther to Mosaic status. It was ordered by Mordecai that the events be celebrated by which the Jews were able to reverse the edict of the death penalty on them by killing their enemies instead. Do you know what happened? Xerxes couldn't reverse his decree, but what he did is he said, they said, Jews, you can defend yourselves.

They whooped him. It was all strategic maneuvering that had to go on. They celebrated that because it was a massive victory and it came to be called Mordecai's day, by the second century BC, instead of Purim, like Mordecai's day. The name for the festival Purim is the plural form of the word poor, which just means a lot like something you cast. It only occurs in this book here. It's not the normal word for a lot that we think of in Hebrew, Garol it's just poor, and "im" is plural in Hebrew. What's the plural of cherub? It would be cherubim? You know the "im" is plural. Therefore Purim just means lots. The lots that you cast, because the way they did it is they cast lots to determine how they're going to do this.

It's using the fact that they were going to cast lots to kill the Jews and then go on. Haman cast a lot to determine the best month for his edict of destruction to be enacted. That was a chapter three and nine. So this is an ironic reversal. The Jewish festival celebrates an overturning of the lots. In terms of the modern celebrations of Purim, Stephen Knoll, who describes it by saying,

“For the Jews it was a time to make light of what was essentially a serious theme. The preservation of the Jewish people from persecution, the feast proceeds passover by one month and points to the great events of the Exodus”. Think about over history, all the times when people were trying to wipe out the Jews. Even in our modern age. “The central act of Purim is the reading of the Megilat or scroll of Esther”. Megilat just means scroll. So they have to say that to sound good. Accompanied by ready, Rawkus mocking at the name of Haman, it has to be Rawkus at the name of Haman. Let's see. His sons, because they were part of it got killed with him and congregational recitation versus a redemption from the book here, 8:15 to 16 and 10:03. Parallel readings from passages about amalik, highlight the longstanding threat to the Jews in every generation.

“The feast is also accompanied by a carnival like atmosphere, puppet shows and commonplace drinking contests”. Everyone parties the same way that it's good, have another excuse for it. But they also have the burning of a Haman and the election of a Purim king. That's what it involves. It's a big festival. I could see this totally going on in Eastern Europe still. I don't see so much going on in the U.S. especially, it's not good to burn things outside anymore. Then there is the so-called Purim appendix in 9:20 to 32, which actually establishes the authoritative religious significance of the festival. Which is interesting because in these texts, the word in Hebrew "kum" is used twice and it's to establish things. Kum is often used with them establishing covenants. For example, in Genesis 6:18, and in Genesis nine, and we talked about in the awakening, the verbs are kumbe, kumar established a covenant.

It's kind of got this authoritative stamp to it a second during that, in that premium and appendix the appointed time for the festival set the 14th and the 15th days of the month, it's a Dar, but that's like February, March. So it's now a regular part of the Jewish calendar. Mordecai and Esther's letters establish the exact manner in which the festivals would be celebrated. Fourth, the festival is fixed in writing. That is, it became canonical in this way, the festival quiet and authoritative status akin to the law. There I'll read part of it too, so you have a good sense of it. This is just chapter nine about that. “Therefore, they call these days Purim after the term poor”. Now, you know what that means. “Therefore, because of all that was written in this letter, and of what they had faced in this matter, and of what had happened to them, the Jews firmly obligated themselves and their offspring and all who joined them that without fail, they would keep these two days according to what was written at the time appointed every year”.

It's an interesting statement too, because it was very hard for them to keep some of the other like passover and things. So this one, they have like a lot of excitement about that these days should be remembered and kept throughout every generation in every clan, province, and city. These days of Purim should never fall into disuse among the Jews, nor should be the commemoration of these days, cease among their descendants. Then king Esther, the daughter of Abigail and Mordecai the Jew, gave full written authority confirming the second letter about Purim, letters were sent to all of the Jews to 127 provinces of the kingdom of Xerxes in words of peace and truth that these days of Purim should be observed at their appointed seasons as Mordecai the Jew and queen Esther obligated them. As they had obligated themselves and their offspring with regard to their fasts and our lamenting, the command of Esther confirmed these practices, and it was recorded in writing.

I love that, the command of Esther, the queen. So very intriguing and how, in terms of how all that works. The institution of Purim by Esther and Mordecai forms the basis for the Talmudic elevation of Esther to the level of Torah. I had mentioned that earlier, and here's some of my notes now, since these are the only two portions of scripture that established and give instructions for biblical festivals, which is interesting because some people question the canonicity because it's so secular. But some people say anyone who has the authority in the economy of God's kingdom to establish a festival in writing is like Moses, so you can see it's either or for them. We'll just end with Esther. This is chapter 10, where we have Shalom in exile because this is really what we're looking for.

IV. Conclusion (23:59):

We have God's providence and we have God's hiddenness. What's interesting is as believers, we really experience that hiddenness in life. So it's very applicable to us when we look at Esther and we say, how did they navigate? How did Esther and Mordecai navigate this world with threats when they didn't have a direct word from God? They did it with wisdom each time. We talk about Esther's wisdom with the king, Mordecai's wisdom with the Kings. They navigated it with wisdom, which is applying God's truth to the right context. All of these books in the writings are essentially wisdom compositions, because there are how do you think I'm living out of the covenant. Esther and Mordecai didn't have any other resources, they use their wisdom to apply it to the right situation.

It worked, they were skilled in wisdom. So they're kind of wisdom people. Then Esther 10, one “King Xerxes impose tribute throughout the empire to the distant shores, and all of his acts of power it might together with the full account of the greatness of Mordecai, to which the king and raised him. Are they not written in the book of the annuals of the Kings of media and Persia”, but we can't find those. Of course, just because we can't find it people say, it's a fiction. Then it says this the very end, this is all chapter 10, verse three verses only. “Mordecai the Jew was second and rank to Kings Xerxes, preeminent among the Jews and held in the highest team by many fellow Jews, because he worked for the good of his people and spoke up for the welfare of all the Jews”.

Now that word for welfare, Shalom, because he worked for the good of his people, Tov like Genesis one. He spoke up for the Shalom of all the Jews. So that's what we're doing, trying to achieve Shalom in exile is a very hard thing to do. They it did it with wisdom. What does the wisdom teacher in the Song of songs do? She's a wall, her brush like towers. And I becoming as I was like one bringing forth Shalom. So wisdom is about bringing forth Shalom in this world right now that is very anti Shalom. A major theme that runs through these books here and wisdom is done. Let's just take the critics on then say, do you think when Jesus was on the road to emmaus with His disciples, that he's maybe skipped over this book accidentally, maybe because He didn't have a Qumran score or something like that. Maybe Jesus had a Qumran scroll. Well, I would say certainly not. If you think about this, they were trying to wipe out the Jewish seed. We have the crisis of the seed all the way from when Cain killed Abel. At the flood, that's the crisis of the seed. There's a crisis of the seed when you've gotten barren patriarchs is the crisis of the seed. Now again, the seed, the alley that runs through the whole Bible, the seeds always in crisis. God's always preserving it. In this book we have that Jesus is the seed that was preserved. He's the one true seed as with Esther. It comes in the form of ironic reversal.

Esther said in her life, I'm going to do the right thing. And if I perish, I perish, but Jesus, didn't say “if” He said, when I perish, I will preserve the seed. So we have that very kind of connection to that. Esther goes to the king and says, if I perish, but Jesus goes to the king. He is the king, but he goes to the king, His father, and says, when I perish, I perish, I will save the seed. There is gospel motives in that. Tim Keller loves to talk about this all the time. I've heard him in many contexts say, Jesus just didn't say “if” he said, “when” he was going to be for sure. We know how that is. That seed has been preserved. Now by faith, we are that seed. We're the seed that is preserved by Esther and Mordecai that day because of their wisdom. That wisdom. That's the book of Esther. Are there any questions about sovereignty, providence, or God's goodwill? I'm just kidding. Don't ask those.

Well, sometimes it seems like there's a paradox between living in Shalom and being willing to live in conflict.

Mm-hmm.

Because Mordecai was living in conflict with Haman.

Right.

He went about down.

Right.

And it's the wisdom to know when to do it and what to do, because he's willing to save the life of the king.

Right.

But he was unwilling to bow down to Haman.

Right. Yeah.

So it's a challenge to know the scripture and then be in tune with the Lord to know how it is that we should live at any given time.

Right. That's why it's great to have friends who can help you think wisely and counsel you. It's just not one brain, but many brains. I agree. That's true. He was willing to save the king who may have been oppressive. We know he was a hard man. It says something about he was hard and battling, he's a jealous lover. He had extreme emotional range. Heraclitus says just that. But he cared for the king. But he knew Haman's pride was not worth bowing down to. We know people like that who just want to be in charge. They want people to know you're in charge.