Event VII
ESTHER AND THE
KING OF PERSIA
by Charles Quigley
In our discussion so far concerning the favorable interaction of Jews and Gentiles in Biblical history, we have examined numerous different occasions which have involved a variety of different people. Kings and commoners have been involved — as well as prophets, who tend to be remote and separated from the common people, except at times of prophecy and Godly pronouncement.
In this final example in this series, we take up a somewhat different sort of interaction, that of a Jewish woman (and her cousin) and the King of Persia, during a time when the Jews were held captive in Babylon. It is a story of persecution, in fact, about the first recorded Gentile who sought to persecute and destroy the Jewish people. The story reads almost like a melodrama, and for a narrative taken out of an important period of Jewish history, has several unusual aspects to it.
How can such a tale of endangerment, tragedy and destruction fit within our guideline of a positive interaction between Jews and Gentiles? We believe the answer lies not in the tale of innocence vindicated which is recorded in the Bible, but instead appears in a postscript to our discussion. Read on, and enjoy this remarkable tale.
Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, "Do not imagine that you in the king's palace can escape any more than all the Jews.
"For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place and you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?" (Esther 4:13-14)
THERE ARE numerous aspects of this tale that make it remarkable, in this somewhat bleak period of Jewish history, during the captivity in Babylon of the southern kingdom of Judah. How bleak is demonstrated in the words of the psalmist in Psalm 137, which begins with the words:
By the rivers of Babylon, There we sat down and wept,
When we remembered Zion.
Upon the willows in the midst of it We hung our harps.
For there our captors demanded of us songs, And our tormentors mirth, saying,
"Sing us one of the songs of Zion."
How can we sing the LORD'S song In a foreign land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem, May my right hand forget her skill.
May my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, If I do not remember you,
If I do not exalt Jerusalem Above my chief joy. (Psalm 137:1-6)
But one remarkable aspect of this narrative about the Jewish woman Hadassah is that God, the creator and ruler of all the universe, is never named once. (This is to be contrasted with the narrative about the Gentile woman Ruth, of whom we have already spoken, in which several names of God are used profusely in the book.)
Nevertheless, our introductory Bible verses show God’s working in history, without need of ever naming Him. For example, the phrase, "If you remain silent…, relief and deliverance will arise," indicates an overriding plan of God which nevertheless will be accomplished regardless of the weakness of any individual. And the final sentence which begins, "And who knows whether…" implies a force at work which is beyond the works of man.
LET US BEGIN by taking a short digression to examine the sweep of history up to this time. Several points in this discussion will have importance in what follows.
GOD had called His people out of Egypt, releasing them from 430 years of captivity there, promising them a land of milk and honey in Canaan. Following their return to Canaan led by Moses and later Joshua, the sons of Israel, despite God’s command, succeeded only to drive out some but not all the idolatrous people of the region. So God provided that these remaining peoples would be a thorn in the side of Israel, continually attacking and pillaging whenever Israel fell away from God’s ways.
Finally, Israel sought relief by asking for a king to rule them, like the nations around them, not satisfied with God’s rule. God granted their wish, first giving them a weak and wayward king, Saul of the tribe of Benjamin. But Saul would continue to fail, and at one point when commanded by God to destroy the Amalekites and all their people and possessions(1), Saul instead spared King Agag (please note this name) and the best of the sheep, answering Samuel’s reprimand with a lame excuse.
So God rejected Saul and caused Samuel to anoint David of Judah as king, a man after God’s own heart. Following Saul’s death, David united the twelve tribes of Israel under a unified kingship, ruled from Jerusalem. That unified kingship continued under David’s son Solomon, who built the Temple in Jerusalem at God’s command. But Solomon sinned before the Lord in the sin of idolatry, and following Solomon’s death the kingdom became divided once again. The northern kingdom (Israel) followed Jeroboam in 931 BC, who worshiped false idols of golden calves which he erected in Dan in the north and in Bethel. The northern kingdom’s idolatry continued, until the northern kingdom was destroyed by Assyria at God’s command in 722 BC. (We will see the significance of these dates shortly.)
Following the split, the southern kingdom (Judah) followed a succession of idolatrous and righteous kings, until God caused Judah to be punished but not utterly destroyed, recalling God’s promise to David of an everlasting throne and kingdom. Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and carried away Judah into exile in two waves in 609 and 587 BC. But God instructed the Jews to settle there in Babylon, own property and have families, because they would thrive there and would once again return in 70 years.(2,3)
The Book of Esther begins in the third year of King Xerxes of Persia, or 483 BC. But the decree of Cyrus the Mede(4), which marked the end of the 70 year period of exile, was issued in 538 BC.(5,6,7) And the Lord also commanded that the Jews, all of them, were to depart from Babylon and return to Israel, but some remained. The narrative of Esther, then, tells of those Jews who disobeyed the Lord and remained in Babylon (by that time) some 55 years after the end of the 70-year exile. Thus, Esther occurs after Daniel by many years.
THE KING described in Esther, named Ahasueras in the Bible, is Xerxes the son of Darius the Mede, who issued the decree. Extra-biblical history tells us that approximately two years following the great party which opens the narrative, Xerxes embarked on a major and risky attempt at the conquest of Greece to the west, one which would require great hardships of all the people. Consequently, this great party — lasting six months plus one week, would you believe! — appears to have been a means to prepare the people for the major sacrifices to come.
The Biblical narrative of Esther is the story of God’s miraculous deliverance of His people from destruction. The characters of the Biblical narrative include a gentile king of generally poor character — partying to excess, guilty of issuing a call to his queen to 'display her beauty’ before a crowd, being subject to bribery, carelessness in signing a decree written in his name without even reading it. Also, there are two innocents — the young Jewish woman Hadassah and her cousin Mordecai, a mensch or good man who bows to no one but to God, and who is even prepared to alert the gentile king of a plot against his life. Finally, there is a villain, the gentile prince Haman — proud, vain, deceitful, full of anger and vengeance — and his friends.
Recall that Esther occurs somewhat after Daniel. Consequently, the religion in Babylon and Persia had already moved to the point that the king is considered as a god, to be worshiped as God, and that decrees written in the king’s name were immutable, unchangeable, like God’s word.
WHILE THE JEWS in Babylon/Persia up to this time were allowed to live in relative peace, owning property and having families, this tolerance was not without its terrible price, well illustrated in the narrative — that of assimilation.
We have spoken of the young Jewish woman Hadassah. But the name of this narrative is the Book of Esther! When the king’s former wife had been put away because she had refused his command to be made a public spectacle before his guests, Hadassah consented to take part in the beauty contest to select the next queen. But Hadassah at her cousin’s wise counsel chose to hide her Jewish identity, instead taking on the gentile name of Esther.(8)
The Jewish people who hold to Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox traditions within Judaism quite rightly are adamantly opposed to assimilation — the process of absorption of a culturally distinct group into the prevailing culture. Much has been written opposing this process in the secular literature, but we prefer what God’s Word says on this subject. In the last of the five books of Moses, Moses himself observes,
"See, I have taught you statutes and judgments just as the LORD my God commanded me, that you should do thus in the land where you are entering to possess it.
"So keep and do them, for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, 'Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people'" (Deut.4:5-6).
God has handed down statues and judgments by Moses’ hand to be wisdom and understanding of the Jewish people in the sight of the surrounding peoples. This is one way (not the only way) that the Jewish people would be a light to the nations (the gentiles). The light that would shine through them would be apparent to all those around them.
But there is a strong desire to 'get along’ in the secular community (a desire which continues to this day), not to 'make a wave,’ and to hide their identity, blending with the crowd, to avoid possible persecution. But by so doing, by blending with the crowd, Jewish people who assimilate no longer display the wisdom and understanding that God has given them. To the people around them, their light is now hidden under a basket. And there is another risk that goes along with the first, that extended detachment from the Godly traditions could ultimately lead to forgetfulness of those traditions and the blessing which goes with them, the knowledge of God, creator and ruler of the universe!
Mordecai, Hadassah’s cousin, displayed in his actions his strong belief in God. And we assume that Hadassah, whose parents have died and who was brought up by her cousin Mordecai, had also learned this knowledge and faith in God.
For a Jewish person, one with a strong belief in God and a knowledge of their Jewish traditions and heritage, the process of assimilation — which Hadassah/Esther accepted as the price to be paid in order to become queen of Persia — was a terrible price indeed to pay!
WHATEVER WE HAVE SAID concerning the character flaws of the king, we certainly acknowledge that he rewarded loyalty, though somewhat late. The Jewish mensch Mordecai had reported to the king the plot against his life. But it was only long after that the king recalled his oversight in not giving proper reward and recognition of this noble deed. Nevertheless, the king finally does so in a public display that the people could not possibly misunderstand — wearing a robe of the king, riding the king’s own horse, being led by a very high official of the king.
As the evil plot of the wicked Haman moved inexorably toward the final day of execution, the king, once he was alerted to the dastardly plot which had been laid by Haman, did not delay to order Haman’s execution.
And though the king’s power was limited, being unable to change his own decrees — But wait a minute! Isn’t the King of Persia considered to be God? Can’t he do anything he pleases? — nevertheless, the king found a way around his own limitations. Xerxes appointed Mordecai as his 'second in command’ and empowered him to write a decree allowing the Jews to defend themselves. Though the first decree could not be changed or annulled, the second decree overcame the first!
An outcome was the establishment of the Feast of Purim, which occurs each year roughly one month before Passover. It is a time of great celebration in the Jewish community.
IT IS WORTHWHILE to observe the following relationships behind what has just transpired in the narrative. Two important facts we have carefully omitted up to now:
1) Mordecai, the Jewish mensch whom the gentile prince Haman sought to destroy, along with all his people, was a Benjamite, a descendant of Saul, the first king of Israel; and
2) Haman was an Agagite, descendant of King Agag of the Amalekites, whose life King Saul had spared.
Thus Saul failed to heed the command of God and instead spared the life of Agag. But in gratitude, Haman descendant of Agag sought to reward Mordecai descendant of Saul by plotting to slay Mordecai and all his people. However, it is clear from this narrative that God had other plans!
FINALLY, WE RETURN to the question we posed in the beginning of this discussion. After all is said and done, the narrative of Esther is a tale of endangerment and tragedy and destruction aimed against the Jewish people in a somewhat bleak period of Jewish history. How can such a tale fit within our guideline for this series of a positive interaction between Jews and Gentiles? We suggest the answer lies in what occurred after the end of this narrative, in an extra-Biblical postscript.
Esther occurs chronologically near the end of the Hebrew Scriptures. Nothing further is known from the Biblical narrative about the fate of the Jews who chose to remain behind in Babylon and Persia. Merrill(9) writes that, "ironically though Judah remained the geographical focus of the covenant race, Babylon became its historical and intellectual home." This continued for centuries after, for as Merrill writes, "Babylon was the center of a thriving religious community that had generated its own Jewish tradition separate from Jerusalem and Alexandria, Egypt" (the third major center of inter-testamental Jewish learning). Babylon was the source of the Babylonian Talmud, and a Babylonian Masoretic school produced its own families of biblical texts and manuscripts, well into the 6th century AD.
ALSO, WHILE OUR DISCUSSION throughout has been limited to events occurring in Old Testament Biblical history, one other occasion of a positive interaction between Jews and Gentiles is worthy of some attention. We have already noted Xerxes’ appointment of Mordecai to a high office, and though there is no mention of other accomplishments of Mordecai in extra-biblical texts, we can be certain the favorable results of that appointment were numerous.
We draw attention to another remarkable interaction between a Jew and Gentile which occurred during the Middle Ages — that of Moses Maimonides, called the Great Ramban, the great Jewish philosopher and theologian, who served for a time as physician to Saladin, the Arab conqueror of the Crusaders — this some 500 years after the great split between the faiths of Islam and Judaism. Maimonides’ commentaries on the Mishnah and the Talmud (Oral Law), and his Thirteen Principles, are a centerpiece of religious thought in Judaism today. In this case also, there is no record of the positive results of that personal interaction, though they were no doubt many.
1 1 Samuel 15
2 The prophecy of the seventy years in Babylon appears in Jeremiah 25:8-11.
3 The prophet Daniel understood the prophecy of seventy years, and prayed to God for His forgiveness. (See Daniel 9.)
4 2 Chronicles 36:22-23
5 The first return of the Jews, led by Sheshbazzar, a prince of Judah, occurred shortly after.
6 The second group of Jewish returnees was led by Ezra the Scribe in 458 BC. (See Book of Ezra.)
7 Nehemiah the governor returned later, in 445 BC. (See Book of Nehemiah.)
8 Please note the terrible association of this name. Esther relates to the name Estarte, the pagan god queen of heaven, a fertility god associated with Ba'al, whose religion was first introduced to the northern kingdom under King Ahab and Queen Jezebel.
9 Merrill, E. H., Kingdom of Priests, pp. 481-2.
