What Is the Main Theme of the Book of Esther?

Published Aug 8, 2023, 6:00 AM

Welcome back to season five of Enter the Bible, a podcast in which we share "Everything You Wanted to Know about the Bible...but were afraid to ask."

In episode 5 of season 5, Professor and Elva B. Lovell Chair of Old Testament at Luther Seminary, Kathryn Schifferdecker, joins guest co-host Cameron Howard and re-occurring host, Katie Langston. Ordained in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in 2001, Schifferdecker was associate pastor for five years at Trinity Lutheran Church, Arkdale, Wis., before coming to Luther.

Schifferdecker is a frequent contributor to Working Preacher, Word & World, and the author of Out of the Whirlwind: Creation Theology in the Book of Job (Harvard University Press, 2008). She is currently writing a commentary on the book of Esther.

Today our theologians will be answering the question, "What Is the Main Theme of the Book of Esther?"

Watch the video version on Youtube.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Enter the Bible podcast where you can get answers or at least reflections on everything you wanted to know about the Bible. But we're afraid to ask. I'm Katie Langston.

And I'm Cameron Howard.

And gasp. You might not have been expecting that as the co-host introduction, but that is because we have one of the OG hosts of the Enter the Bible podcast. If you go back to season one, Cameron was on here quite a lot, co-hosting today. Hello, welcome. Thank you so much for co-hosting with us, Cameron.

Thanks for having me. I really have to give credit though, to Kathryn. Kathryn is the OG OG host. She was hosting before I was and I took a turn.

Okay. I think I think I had forgotten that that bit of Enter the Bible lore, legend

That's right.

Right here. But Cameron is associate professor of Old Testament at Luther Seminary. And if you were hearing another voice in the background, indeed, it's Kathryn Schifferdecker , usually the co-host of this iteration of the podcast. But today she is our special guest. So welcome, Catherine. Thank you. Thank you. And thanks, Cameron, for hosting this co-hosting this.

Glad to be here.

And Kathryn, of course, is a professor of Old Testament here at Luther Seminary as well. So we're in this sort of, you know, extra special, unique arrangement here for the podcast because we have a question that came in that happens to be an area where Kathryn is an expert. And so we thought, okay, we'll ask Catherine the questions. And Cameron also knows more about these sorts of things than I do as they're both Old Testament folks. But this question came in from our website and if you would like to ask a question, you may do so at Enter the Bible Org. Click on the little button up there that says Ask a question and there's a form and you can fill it out. And we try to get to as many of these as we can. The question is pretty broad, but I think important, and that is what is the main theme of the book of Esther? Kathryn, you're working on a commentary on Esther right now, right?

Am I'm writing a commentary for a publishing publisher called Eerdmans, and it's way overdue. So I'm hoping to finish it this summer. But yes, I'm writing a commentary on the Book of Esther, so I guess I hesitate to call myself an expert on Esther, but let's just say I've spent a lot of time on it in the past few years. So for. Yeah. So hopefully, hopefully I have something interesting to contribute to this question. But Cameron has written on Esther as well, so we'll, we'll, we'll. We'll have a conversation here rather than a monologue. And obviously we usually have a conversation. So so the main theme of the Book of Esther, it's it's an interesting question. And you're right, Katie, that it's a broad question. And I think it probably comes out of the fact that Esther is a pretty atypical biblical book, right? I mean, it's it's well, first of all, it's one of the few biblical books named after a woman, right? Including Ruth Song of songs isn't named after a woman, but it has a strong female voice. But Esther is pretty unique because it never mentions God. God is famously never mentioned in the book of Esther. Neither are things like prayer or, you know, well, prayer or, you know, thanksgiving or or worship. None of that is mentioned in the book of Esther. So that's, I think, probably part of what that question comes out of, because it's it's hard to find a Sunday school lesson in Esther. There's a there's a couple of other kind of issues with the book. One is that it ends with pretty extreme violence. The the the Jewish heroes of the story instruct the other Jewish folks in the land of Persia to have vengeance on their enemies. So tens of thousands of people are killed. The enemies of the Jews in and at the end of the book and the and the third problem I don't want to say problem, but the third issue in the book of Esther is that the, the way it starts is with this kind of beauty contest, but put air quotes around beauty contest because there's some pretty, you know, suggestive sexual themes in in that contest as well. So for all of these reasons, I think the Book of Esther is kind of unique in in the Old Testament, I should add. I'm talking about the Hebrew version of the Book of Esther, because there's a Greek version as well. The Greek translation or the Greek version is in the Septuagint, which is of course, the Greek translation of the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible. And in the Septuagint version of Esther, there are prayers, those visions from, dreams from God. You know, it kind of makes up for that absence of the mention of God.

Someone looked at it and was like, Oh, this will never do.

That's right.

We've got to fix that.

That's right. That's right. I should say that the story of Esther is set in the time of ancient near Eastern Empire. Specifically in the in the time and the land of Persia. The time of the Persian Empire. The land of Persia, which is almost 2500 years ago. But when it's written is, you know, probably sometime after that, though, the the author seems to know some Persian customs, like the mail system in Persia is mentioned and other details about the Persian Empire. So there seems to be some first hand knowledge of of the of the history of it. I would not, though, classify Esther as a historical, as history. I would I would I would classify it as kind of a historical fiction in the sense that there are some interesting, as I said, some interesting details about the Persian Empire that seem to be historical or, you know, that that actually were part of the customs and the culture there. But there's no record of a queen named Esther, a Jewish queen in the Persian Empire. And there's also just a lot of kind of exaggeration or hyperbole in the book that seems to. Encourage a reading that is more of I don't want to say fiction or myth, but but not to be taken completely, literally. Well, it says one example and then I'll I'll stop talking for a minute.

It's almost satirical, though right?

What's that?

As I say, it's almost satire, right?

It is, Yeah. Yeah, it is. I mean, one example is that the stake or the gallows that the bad guy Haman builds for Mordecai, the good guy, is 75ft tall. Right. So and it can either some translations have it as gallows you know something to hang on some I would I would translate it as a stake that a long spear basically that's meant to impale Mordecai but but yeah 75ft tall, again just a meant to be kind of satire meant to evoke some humor. All right so I probably talked enough. What would you say Cameron, about? About the interesting aspects of Esther?

Well, yeah, first of all, that it's really funny. So just echoing the idea that it can be classified as satire, you know, we might call it macabre humor. There's certainly a lot of violence in it. Um, there's violence in that all of the virgins of Susa are brought into the King's palace to and it's basically like a sex contest. Whoever pleases the king overnight is the one who will be the queen. And so there's sexual violence. There's the threat against the Jews, first of the complete annihilation of the Jews. And so that then the response, the first response, and there are a couple that a couple of rounds of what the king says should be done in response. But it ends up first being that they should defend themselves. But there's this irony there that the king can't undo the thing that has already been, you know, he's supposed to be so powerful, and yet this edict that he sent out can't just be taken back or undone or canceled out. There's a way that the that the king, even though he is the king, is never quite able to do things right or read a situation well or he's always having to go to his advisers. Yeah. Um yeah. So there's a lot of, of exaggeration that pokes fun at the King's leadership and authority there.

And I think he's really kind of a buffoon, The king, right. He can't make up his own mind. He's kind of. He gets so mad that he, you know, can't decide what to do. And yeah, very easily influenced by people. Yeah. Sorry. Cameron Well.

I was thinking about the question, what is the main theme? And I think if you ask that about any biblical book, you'll get as many answers as you have respondents. What is the main theme? Um, so, so one of the themes, one of the main themes I think is. Is what it means to live faithfully under the reign of this foreign empire living in diaspora that is, as a Jew outside the land. How does one relate to this foreign power? And that is a powerful theme in many places in the Hebrew Bible for the post-exilic era. That is after the exile to Babylon, when Jews are begin to form communities outside of the land of Judah. How does one understand identity when you don't have a temple or are not there in the land that had been promised?

Yeah, I think that's exactly right. That's that's certainly one of the themes or one of the issues that the book addresses because, you know, the the Jewish people are outside the land. Well, certainly over the course of history, more than they are in the land. So how do you maintain your identity? How do you remain faithful when you're in a strange land? I think that's exactly right. Cameron I would I would probably add two more. And I think Cameron's right that, you know, the main theme depends on who's interpreting it, but, I would, I would say. One other theme is discipleship, which sounds a little strange to apply to a kind of satirical book like Esther, but I'll explain that in a second and think the second theme I would say is the faithfulness of God, which again, might be a weird thing to say since we've already established that God isn't mentioned in the book. But let me just say a bit about each of those discipleship in the sense of Esther's courage in doing what she's called to do by Mordecai. So just to remind our listeners, right, there's, Esther becomes Queen, Haman's.

The contest.

Wins the contest. We'll skip over those details.

Good for her.

Uh, so she's queen and then Mordecai. So Haman has a grudge against Mordecai because, and Mordecai is Esther's cousin, older cousin who raised her. Heman has a grudge against Mordecai because Mordecai won't bow down to him, won't show him, you know, the respect that that Haman thinks that he's due. And so Haman decides not to kill just Mordecai, but all of Mordecai people, right? The whole Jewish population of Persia. Word comes, you know, the king, the buffoonish king is persuaded to do that. And and Mordecai. Sorry I keep saying that. Haman, Haman sounds a lot like when he's when he's trying to persuade the king to do this deed, to issue this decree to destroy the Jews. Haman says there's a certain people scattered and separated among the peoples. In all the provinces of your kingdom there are laws are different from those of every other people, and they do not keep the king's laws so that it is not appropriate for the king to tolerate them. If it pleases the King, let a decree be issued for the destruction. Now, that sounds a whole lot like things that have been said about the Jews through the centuries since then. There's a certain people in your kingdom and they don't you know, they're not really Germans or they're not really Russians or that you know. And so you should they should be driven out or killed. And that's what the king agrees to happen to the Jews. Mordecai then comes to Esther, who sends a message to Esther and says, Look, you need to do something about this because your people are in danger. And at first Esther refuses or is very reluctant because she says, you know, the king hasn't called me into his presence. And if I go unbidden, then I could be killed. And probably the most famous line in the book of Esther is when Mordecai responds, you know, if if you refuse to do this, you know, you and your father's household will die. But help will come from another place, from another quarter to save the Jews. But who knows? It's and I'm paraphrasing here, who knows? Perhaps it was for just such a time as this that you became queen or that you came to royal power. Um, and so Mordecai really kind of tells Esther not to Christianize it too much, but to take up her cross, right? To to, to do what needs to be done in order to save her people even at risk of losing her life. And Esther's response is, okay, I'll do that. And, you know, but fast for me and I'll fast and prepare myself. And if I perish, then I perish. So just see, I mean, that theme of kind of courage and what I would call discipleship, not Christian discipleship, but but the kind of the kind of courage to sacrifice yourself for a larger cause in this case to save her people. So that's one theme I see in it and one why don't I stop there, and we'll I'll get back to my second theme, the faithfulness of God, in case you guys want to say anything about that. Yeah.

No, I mean, I think that's I think that that verse is the one is the one that people know. You know, like how many times if you ever hear a sermon on Esther, is it absolutely always going to be a sermon about that particular verse in particular? Um, you know, it does seem to be, you know, kind of I guess if there's like a takeaway that, you know, if you want to have a like, like you were saying, like the Sunday school lesson out of Esther, that would probably be it. Yeah.

I think there's like dozens at least of devotionals titled something like for such a time as this.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah yeah. I mean I think. I think because Jewish identity is so key to the Book of Esther, um, it is specifically her Jewish identity that she keeps hidden until she's able to reveal it. You know, it is. It is because they are Jews that Haman wants to send out this decree because, you know, Mordecai won't bow down to him. So there's, um, there's, there's that sort of first reading which we've already done and spoken to. But I think really to, to emphasize that Jewish identity is part of the Book of Esther. And so then as Christians reading it, I think we it's really important for us to name that first. But then, of course, we we are nothing other than who we are. That is we were we read Christologically as Christians. And so that for the book of Esther, that's a place where it really like I think confronts us maybe more than some other books of the Bible where, you know, the word Jews or the Jewish people appears in Esther, and that, just that term, that identifier doesn't appear in some of the earlier biblical books. And so I think it's a real opportunity to remember the particularity of the book of Esther, but then also to understand that that particularity is part of the testimony to, um, to God that we understand too as Christians. And so to hold those two things together.

Yeah, I think that's really important. And thanks for, thanks for bringing that up, Cameron. This this is a very Jewish book and, and we can't co-opt it, but we read it obviously through our own lenses. But yeah, in fact it's well, in the history of interpretation, the Book of Esther has come up. Often when in times of persecution. So there's this rabbi from Berlin in the 1930s who wrote something like, I don't have the quotation in front of me, but he said, you know, we we we read the book of Esther at the Festival of Purim, which is the festival established in the Book of Esther. And every time we said Haman, the people heard Hitler and the noise was deafening. The custom in when you read the book of Esther in the synagogue on Purim is every time the name Haman is read from the scroll, noisemakers are are are used, or people stomp their feet or yell in order to to wipe out the name of Haman. And so this this rabbi in 1930s Berlin said you know every time the Jewish people that heard the name Haman they thought Hitler and they they drowned out that name. But anyway, I wanted to just say one more. Well, to say something about the other theme that I see in the book of Esther, and that is the faithfulness of God, which again, is probably an odd thing to say, given that God isn't mentioned in the book of Esther, but the rabbis who, you know, the rabbis around Jesus' time and later they they saw God obliquely or hinted at, at least especially in that passage that I mentioned before, that I now have in front of me, when Mordecai says to Esther, do not think that in the King's palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silence at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place. But you and your father's family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this. Now, the rabbis said that phrase "another place" was a was a hint at that this was another name for God, another place that relief and deliverance would arise from the Jews from another place. And it's really interesting because, you know, why is why is Mordecai so sure that the Jews will be saved and why, in fact, are Haman's wife and friends so sure that he will fall before that Haman will be defeated by Mordecai. Since Mordecai is a Jew, that's a chapter two, later in the book. They they, the Haman's own wife and friends say if Mordecai is a Jew, you're sure to fall before him. So where does this assurance come from all of this? You know, this idea that that the Jews will be saved despite all appearances to the contrary? And where I would say from, you know, from some assurance that God has promised to be faithful to the Jews, that they will that they will remain in great nation. There's also a lot of coincidences in the story, and a lot of this is very humorous, as Cameron mentioned already. Right, Esther, out of all the women of the empire just happens to become queen. The king just happens to be unable to sleep on the night of the first banquet after Esther invites the king and and Haman to two banquets the night of the first banquet. The king just happens to have insomnia. The court records that are read to him just happen to be the ones that tell about Mordecai saving his life. Another bit of the story that we skipped over. Haman just happens to come to the King's Palace at just that point and the king says, you know who should? What should happen to the man whom the king wishes to honor? And Haman thinks, Oh, well, it must be me. And so he says, Well, put him on the king's horse, you know, put royal robes on him. And the king says, It's great. Good idea. Do that to Mordecai, the Jew, you know, and Haman That's the beginning of Heyman's downfall. Anyway, There's there's just so many coincidences God has never mentioned in the book. But Mordecai is sure that help will arise from another place and Haman's family is sure that he's doomed to fall before Mordecai the Jew. And there are all these coincidences that conspired to defeat Haman and save the Jews. One commentator who wrote on the book of Esther, my advisor, John Levinson, he put it this way. He said, It's like the old saying goes, A coincidence is a miracle in which God prefers to remain anonymous. So. So there's there's some hints, at least, of God's, you know, of God's action in the Book of Esther. But the main thing really is this: The main reason I talk about, you know, God's faithfulness here is that is that the Jews survive, right? That the Book of Esther reveals something about the faithfulness of God. God calls Israel, God's people into being way back in Genesis and Exodus. And somehow through the years that people have survived and has continued to worship God in spite of endless persecution upon persecution. But the Babylonians today are no more. The Persians are no more. The Romans are no more. The Nazis are no more. Please, God. Right. But the Jewish people have survived. And that sheer historical fact that the Jews survive and continue to worship God, that sheer historical fact is enough to make me at least ponder the miraculous faithfulness of God. So even though God isn't mentioned in the Book of Esther, even though. Even though you know that that theme may not be obvious to everyone who reads it on first reading, I think Esther contributes to that story of God's faithfulness to the Jews through the centuries because they're still here, right? Thanks be to God. So that's that's what yeah, that's what I would say about themes in the Book of Esther.

Wow, That's awesome.

Let me add one more thing. So and that's just that, unfortunately, I think and this goes back to something Cameron said.

Yeah.

About recognizing that this is about the Jews and that is that unfortunately those endless prosecutions of the Jews have often been, you know, the fault of the church in, you know, the the Nazis rose in Christian Europe or at least nominally Christian Europe. So I think as we read Esther and as we think about the, you know, the the the obstacles, the persecutions that the Jews have faced over this century, we also need to engage in some repentance for our for the church's role in that.

Anti-Semitism is sort of the oldest, you know, racial discrimination. It's the oldest conspiracy theory. It's always it just seems to it just always seems to go there. Yep.

Yep. And we've seen it recently, too. I mean, we've seen it in pop culture recently as well. Yeah. Yeah.

Cameron, your thoughts?

Um, well, it's so, so it's a it's a heavy book in that way, but it is also a really good story. Yes. And I think that's something that I would want to end with about the Book of Esther. Is that not to be, um, not to be afraid to read it like it's a really good story to laugh at the places that seem laughable, um, to, you know, feel, feel the ridiculousness of that king and the, the humor in the reversal of Haman being so set on, um, you know, having himself honored and making enemies of Mordecai, and then to have all of that go topsy turvy, um, and that, yeah, I really love where it says Mordecai says there in chapter four right before maybe you have come to royal dignity for such a time as this he says, Who knows? And it says it right there in the Hebrew "Who knows?" There's this wonderful sort of maybe like, this is all hard to comprehend and there's so much suffering and it's very difficult. And maybe one way to make sense of it is through this understanding of the providence of God that seems backgrounded there. And and I like I like that maybe because I think sometimes it's just so hard to make sense of a violent and terrible world. And and a maybe is a is a comfort to me.

Yeah. Thanks, Cameron. I just want to this is I mentioned Purim before, which is the festival established in the Book of Esther and which, which, which happens, it's according to the Jewish calendar. So it's usually February or early March. If you ever get an opportunity to go to a synagogue for Purim Festival, take it. It's like nothing you've ever seen. It's. It's raucous, it's joyful, it's funny. There's a play put on always. I've been to several Purim festivals at a synagogue here in the Twin Cities who has been kind enough to. My friend of my husband has been kind enough to to invite me. It's kind of a combination of Halloween and Mardi Gras because people dress up in all kinds of costumes. You'll see Darth Vader next to, you know, King Ahasuerus next to, you know, somebody from whatever, you know, a person in a banana outfit. It's just it's just so funny. And but there's this underlying serious note, right, that there's an old joke that all Jewish festivals can be summed up with this with this description. They tried to kill us. They failed. Let's eat. So that applies to Passover. It applies to Hanukkah. It certainly applies to Purim as well. So there's a real there's a joy there. But with that underlying serious note of. There's always a yeah, there's always a threat. I want to want to end by just describing a reading, a description of Purim and the book of Esther from one of my favorite authors, Eugene Peterson, who wrote or translated the book The Message. But he writes this in this wonderful little book called Fives Five Smooth Stones, where he takes Esther and Ruth and Song of Songs and other of the smaller books and writes about them. But he says this about Esther and Purim. He says in Purim, life together is celebrated as a joyous gift, snatched unbelievably from the gates of death and hell, a people who had faced the possibility of not being are emphatically alive. Community is not explained in historical terms. It is not analyzed in sociological terms. It is enjoyed in the language and rituals and food and laughter of a festival. The fact is that decimated and dispersed as the Jews were, they were not swallowed up in the ocean of pagan power and culture and religion. They survived by grace. The empire did not.

Who knows, man. Who knows?

Who knows? Yeah.

That was wonderful. Thank you so much, Kathryn, for being our guest and Cameron for being our guest co-host today. This has been another episode of the Enter the Bible podcast. And if you have enjoyed this episode or others, please rate and review our podcast on your favorite podcast app and be sure to share to share the podcast with a friend until next time.