The spirit of the book of Esther is anything but attractive. It is
never quoted or referred to by Jesus or His apostles, and it is a
satisfaction to think that in very early times, and even among Jewish
scholars, its right to a place in the canon was hotly contested. Its
aggressive fanaticism and fierce hatred of all that lay outside of
Judaism were felt by the finer spirits to be false to the more
generous instincts that lay at the heart of the Hebrew religion; but
by virtue of its very intensity and exclusiveness it as all the more
welcome to average representatives of later Judaism, among whom it
enjoyed an altogether unique popularity, attested by its three Targums
and two distinct Greek recensions[1]--indeed, one rabbi places it on
an equality with the law, and therefore above the prophets and the
"writings."
[Footnote 1: It is probable also that the two decrees, one commanding
the celebration for two days, ix. 20-28, the other enjoining fasting
and lamentations, ix. 29-32, are later additions, designed to incorporate
the practice of a later time.]
The story is well told. The queen of Xerxes, king of Persia, is
deposed for contumacy, and her crown is set upon the head of Esther,
a lovely Jewish maiden. Presently the whole Jewish race is
imperilled by an act of Mordecai, the foster-father of Esther, who
refuses to do obeisance to Haman, a powerful and favourite courtier.
Haman's plans for the destruction of the Jews are frustrated by
Esther, acting on a suggestion of Mordecai. The courtier himself
falls from power, and is finally hanged on the gallows he had
prepared for Mordecai, while Mordecai "the Jew" is exalted to the
place next the king, and the Jews, whom the initial decree had
doomed to extermination, turn the tables by slaying over 75,000 of
their enemies throughout the empire, including the ten sons of
Haman. In memory of the deliverance, the Purim festival is
celebrated on the 14th and 15th of the month Adar.
The popularity of the book was due, no doubt, most of all to the
power with which it expresses some of the most characteristic, if
almost most odious, traits of Judaism; but also in a measure to its
attractive literary qualities. The setting is brilliant, and the
development of the incident is often skilful and dramatic, The
elevation of Mordecai, due to the simple accident of the king's
having passed a sleepless night, the unexpected accusation of Haman
by Esther, the swift and complete reversal of the situation by which
Haman is hanged upon his own gallows and Mordecai receives the royal
ring--the general sequence of incidents is conceived and elaborated
with considerable dramatic power.
The large number of proper names, the occasional reference to
chronicles, ii. 23, vi. 1, and the precise mention of dates, combine
to raise the presumption that the book is real history; but a glance
at the facts is sufficient to dispel this presumption. The story falls
within the reign of Xerxes--about 483 B.C., but the hero Mordecai is
represented as being one of the exiles deported with Jehoiachin in
597 B.C. This is a manifest impossibility. Equally impossible is it
that a Jewish maiden can have become the queen of Persia, in the face
of the express statement of Herodotus (iii. 84) that the king was
bound to choose his consort from one of seven noble Persian families.
These impossibilities are matched by numerous improbabilities. It is
improbable, e.g., that Mordecai could have had such free intercourse
with the harem, ii. 11, unless he had been a eunuch, or in the palace,
ii. 19, unless he had been a royal official. It is improbable that
Xerxes would have announced the date of the massacre months beforehand,
improbable that he would later have sanctioned so indiscriminate a
slaughter of his non-Jewish subjects, and most improbable of all that
the Jews, who were in the minority, should have slain 75,000 of their
enemies, who cannot be supposed to have been defenceless. It is much
more likely that this wholesale butchery took place chiefly in the
author's imagination, though doubtless the wish was father to the
thought. Clearly he wrote long after the events he claims to be
describing, and the sense of historical perspective is obscured where
it is not lost. The Persian empire is a thing of the relatively distant
past, i. 1, 13, and though the author is acquainted with Persian
customs and official titles, it is significant that the customs have
sometimes to be explained. The book is, in fact, not a history, but
a historical novel in miniature.
Its date is hard to fix, but it must be very late, probably the
latest in the Old Testament. In spite of its obvious attempt to
reproduce the classic Hebrew style, the book contains Aramaisms,
late Hebrew words and constructions, and the language alone stamps
it as late. Still more decisive, however, is its sentiment. Its
intensely national pride, its cruel and fanatical exclusiveness, can
be best explained as the result of a fierce persecution followed by
a brilliant triumph; and this condition is exactly met by the period
which succeeded the Maccabean wars (135 B.C. or later). The book,
with its Persian setting, may indeed have been written earlier in
Persia; but it more probably represents a phase of the fierce
Palestinian Judaism of the last half of the second century B.C. It
has been suggested with much probability that Haman is modelled on
Antiochus Epiphanes; between their murderous designs against the
Jews there is certainly a strong resemblance, iii. 9, 1 Macc. i. 41,
iii. 34-36.
The object of the book appears to have been twofold: to explain the
origin of the Purim festival, and to glorify the Jewish people. The
real explanation of the festival is shrouded in mystery. The book
traces it to the triumph of the Jews over their enemies and connects
it with _Pur_, ix. 26, supposed to mean "lot"; but no such
Persian word has yet been discovered. Doubtless, however, the book
is correct in assigning the origin of the festival to Persia. A
festival with a somewhat dissimilar name--Farwardigân--was held in
Persia in spring to commemorate the dead, and there may be just a
hint of this in the fasting with which the festival was preceded,
ix. 31, cf. 1 Sam. xxxi. 13, 2 Sam. i. 12. The Babylonians had also
held a new year festival in spring, at which the gods, under the
presidency of Marduk, were supposed to draw the lots for the coming
year: this may have been the ultimate origin of the "lot," which is
repeatedly emphasized in the book of Esther, iii. 7, ix. 24, 26. In
other words, the Jews adopted a Persian festival, which had already
incorporated older Babylonian elements; for there can be little
doubt that the ultimate ground-work of the book is Babylonian
mythology. Esther is so similar to Istar, and Mordecai to Marduk,
that their identity is hardly questionable; and in the overthrow of
Haman by Mordecai it is hard not to see the reproduction of the
overthrow of Hamman, the ancient god of the Elamites, the enemies of
the Babylonians, by Marduk, god of the Babylonians. This supposition
leaves certain elements unexplained--Vashti, e.g., is without
Babylonian analogy, but it is too probable an explanation to be
ignored; and it goes to illustrate the profound and lasting
influence of Babylonia upon Israel. The similarity of the name
Esther to Am_estr_is, who was Xerxes' queen (Hdt. vii. 114, ix.
112) may account for the story being set in the reign of Xerxes.
A collateral purpose of the book is the glorification of the Jews.
In the dramatic contest between Haman the Agagite and Mordecai the
Jew, the latter is victor. He refuses to bow before Haman, and
Providence justifies his refusal; for the Jews are born to dominion,
and all who oppose or oppress them must fall. Everywhere their
superiority is apparent: Esther the Jewess is fairer than Vashti,
and Mordecai, like Joseph in the old days, takes his place beside
the king.
What we regretfully miss in the book is a truly religious note. It
is national to the core; but, for once in the Old Testament,
nationality is not wedded to a worthy conception of God. Too much
stress need not be laid on the absence of His name--this may have
been due to the somewhat secular character of the festival with its
giving and receiving of presents--and the presence of God, as the
guardian of the fortunes of Israel, is presupposed throughout the
whole story, notably in Mordecai's confident hope that enlargement
and deliverance would arise to the Jews from one place, if not from
another, iv. 14. But the religion of the book--for religion it is
entitled to be called--is absolutely destitute of ethical elements.
It is with a shudder that we read of Esther's request for a second
butchery, ix. 13; and all the romantic glamour of the story cannot
blind us to its religious emptiness and moral depravity. In a
generation which had smarted under the persecution of Antiochus and
shed its blood in defence of its liberty and ancestral traditions,
such bitter fanaticism is not unintelligible. But the popularity of
the book shows how little the prophetic elements in Israel's
religion had touched the people's heart, and how stubborn a
resistance was sure to be offered to the generous and emancipating
word of Jesus.