Ruth and Esther — Unit 5

Heavenly Father, thank You for the chance to come and learn more about You and Your love for us in Your word. I pray that I would be invisible and that You would be visible. I pray that Your Holy Spirit would come into our presence and teach us what You would have us learn from Your Scripture this morning. We pray these things in Your Son's name and for His glory. Amen.

We're covering Esther, starting with the overview. As a reminder of why this matters, 2 Timothy 3:16–17: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” This is your class as much as mine; your observations, interpretations, and applications make for a lively discussion, and I learn as much from you as I hope you pick up from my study.

Authorship

We simply don't know who wrote the Book of Esther, but the writer was clearly familiar with Persian culture and may even have been a firsthand witness — everything is so detailed. The author is favorable to the Jews, so he could have been a Jew or at least someone in the court partial to Esther's circumstances, and he knew the layout of the palace well. Archaeologists have actually discovered the palace Darius built — Darius being Xerxes' relative who reigned before him — his winter palace at Susa, and the few descriptions of the palace in Esther match the layout. It was a citadel: the town of Susa surrounded it, while the palace itself sat up on a hill, separated by water. So “the citadel of Susa” refers to the king's palace. The literary devices in the book also point to a highly educated author.

Placement in the Bible

In our Bibles the book falls right after Ezra and Nehemiah, which makes sense if we follow the historical timeline of God calling the Israelites back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple after the Babylonian captivity; the war council concerning the Persians taking on the Greeks would have happened between Ezra chapter 6 and chapter 7. In the Hebrew Bible, however, Esther is one of five short books in the third section, the Writings — and the literary structure shows why that placement makes sense as well.

Literary Structure

Repetition, our first note, has been used in literature at least since the ancient Greek tragedies — and Esther takes place during Greece's Classical period, which lends credence to the idea of a literate, well-educated author. Repetition appears over twenty times in the book, fittingly through banquets: one purpose of the book was to establish the Feast of Purim, so banquets are woven throughout (at least three in the first chapter alone).

God isn't mentioned in this book, which is fascinating — and yet you see His handprint all over the story. More to the point, it is a story of reversal of destiny through sudden, unexpected, and timely events — namely, God's providence. In literary terms this reversal is called peripeteia, and it points to divine intervention and orchestration. The story is also full of wonderful ironies (the word irony derives from the Greek eiron, a comedic character): Haman builds gallows for Mordecai but is hanged on them; a decree goes out to annihilate the Jews on the thirteenth of Adar, and instead the Jews destroy Haman and his forces.

Finally, the significance of pairs — something new to me, and I loved it. Pairs run throughout the story (these are just a few): two lists of kings and servants in chapter 1; two gatherings of women (Vashti's banquet, then the virgins gathered a second time); two queens (one set aside, one received); Haman consults his wife Zeresh twice; two men plot against the king; Esther approaches the king twice; two fasts (at the news of the decree, and on Esther's behalf); Haman's face is covered twice; the king's anger subsides twice; and two days of Jewish defense. Ted made a good point: while the name of God is never used, all these pairs lined up together reveal an undercurrent, a movement — divine intervention. As Ted put it, the biggest miracle here is God using the mundane; maybe we don't see miracles because we don't look for them, but they are there, God using ordinary people and ordinary events to accomplish His work.

Genre

Genre is a sticky subject here. Some scholars call it historical fiction, because Esther doesn't appear in outside sources — though Xerxes was a real king, and the opening banquet was a real planning session for Persia's invasion of Greece, so that much is historical. I lean toward historical non-fiction: I think it's true, and it fits perfectly within the timeline of the Persian Empire. That said, Esther has similarities to wisdom literature (the pairs, the ironies, God present but unnamed), so I'd compare it to Song of Solomon in that respect — which is where the rabbinic literature places it. It can also be read as theological history, recounting God always working on behalf of the Israelites. There's genuine argument over where it belongs.

Historical Backdrop

The end of 2 Chronicles 36 sets the stage: the remnant who escaped the sword were carried into exile in Babylon and became servants until the kingdom of Persia came to power, so that the land enjoyed its sabbath rests until seventy years were completed, in fulfillment of Jeremiah's word; then the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus, king of Persia, to proclaim that the Lord had appointed him to build a temple in Jerusalem, and that any of God's people might go up. Esther occurs about fifty years after Cyrus's decree to rebuild the temple. Notably, Cyrus was Persian, not a Jew — which just goes to show God will use whom He will use; God stirred him to issue the decree, and it is reiterated in Ezra as well.

Jeremiah 29 underlies it too: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future...I will bring you back from captivity.” Ted made a good point on the seventy years: that span allowed the disobedient generation to die off, much like the wandering in the wilderness. Jeremiah 51:1–6 then records God's command to flee Babylon before its destruction — partly because Babylon would be annihilated by the Persians, and partly because the Israelites, living among foreign nations, kept adopting and being tainted by foreign culture. God still had not forsaken them, but He wanted them out and back in their homeland. (Similar warnings appear in Zechariah and Haggai, written in the time of Darius I.) As Ted observed, the strength of this church is that we are all foreigners here, yet we gather in fellowship in a foreign land and keep one another on the path with Christ.

Ezra 1:1–6 essentially repeats the end of 2 Chronicles: the Lord moved Cyrus to proclaim the rebuilding of the temple, and the family heads of Judah and Benjamin, the priests and Levites — everyone whose heart God had moved — prepared to go up, while their neighbors assisted them with silver, gold, goods, livestock, and freewill offerings. Someone asked about Cyrus's words, “the Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth” — squaring that with Satan offering Jesus the kingdoms of the earth in the wilderness. The answer: Cyrus is speaking temporally, of the physical realm he then ruled (and it's hyperbole — he didn't reach into all of Asia, though the empire came remarkably close). In my opinion, Cyrus's decree is a salvific act: as Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness, Cyrus believed God and issued the decree.

Note, too, that going back was framed as a freewill offering: God moved in the hearts of certain people to do the work of rebuilding. Just because God says it doesn't mean we obey — He gives us free will. The first wave back numbered roughly thirty to fifty thousand. Someone raised a practical question — how do you feed that many people returning in waves to a desolate region? — which may be part of why so many chose not to go. We don't fully know; the goods and livestock would have helped, and as Ruth reminds us, even tiny Bethlehem was a breadbasket. And isn't it fitting of God to ask something a little outside our comfort zone?

The Timeline

To keep the kings and prophets straight: Cyrus (reigned 538–530 BC) issued the decree, and temple construction began. It continued under Cambyses and Smerdis (530–522), then under Darius I (521–486), when there was a renewed call to finish the temple. Esther's story falls under Ahasuerus/Xerxes (486–465). Worship was finally restored and the walls of Jerusalem built under Artaxerxes, followed by Darius II. The books that pertain: Ezra 1–6 (Cyrus through Smerdis), Ezra 7–10 (later, under Artaxerxes), the prophets Haggai and Zechariah (around 520, under Darius), a portion of Esther, and Nehemiah (around 445, when the walls were rebuilt). Ted noted how fascinating it is that God chose to use a series of effectively godly Gentile kings to rebuild the temple — which is one of the central themes of the whole book.

The story itself runs from 482 to 473 BC: the military banquet in 483, the New Year's festival where Vashti is banished in 482, Esther made queen in 478 (after the failed Greek campaign — Xerxes in remorse, having lost Greece and dismissed Vashti in anger), Haman's decree in 474, and the reversal to Jewish victory in 473.

The Time of the Gentiles

Esther also sits within what is called the time of the Gentiles — the same as the church age — which began with the fall of Babylon and continues now. Luke 21:24, a quote from Christ Himself: “They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.” For a fuller description, see Daniel 2:4 through 7:28, where Daniel interprets Nebuchadnezzar's dreams amid a great deal of prophecy. What makes this relevant is that Esther is the only book of the Old Testament set during the time of the Gentiles — and it is the last history book in the Old Testament before the prophets.

Purposes of the Book

First, God can and will use whomever He wishes to bring about His kingdom purposes — here, Persian kings. He uses the willfully disobedient, those who mean well, and even those who wish ill; women and men; beasts of burden, kings, generals, presidents, members of Congress and Parliament, lowly shepherds, prostitutes, tax collectors, thieves, murderers, and swindlers (just look at the genealogy of Christ). The assurance is that His will does and always will prevail. Second, the book establishes the beginning of the Feast of Purim for the Jews. And third, most importantly, it reveals God's providence.

On providence: as Karen Jobes observes, Esther is the most true-to-life biblical example of God's providence precisely because God seems absent. Ted made a related point — “how often we feel God has removed His hand, only to look back ten years later and see a period of incredible growth.” Providence means outcomes born from foresight — namely, God's omniscience. J. Sidlow Baxter calls it “the mighty miracle whereby a sovereign God so manipulates all non-miraculous events as to bring about a predetermined outcome, all the more miraculous because there is no need for miracles.” As Tom Constable puts it in his notes, “our choices affect our destiny, but they do not frustrate God's plans.” Even though God is not named in the story, He is ever present, working in and through ordinary people making ordinary decisions, somehow within the context of the free will He gave us.

Themes

The major theme is God's providence, in which the outcome is the salvation of the nation of Israel. Notice this is not dissimilar to Ruth: in Ruth the major theme was repentance and restoration with an undercurrent of providence; in Esther we see the reverse — providence in the foreground, with restoration and salvation for Israel. A second theme is strong women whom God uses to bring about His plans. Women have always factored into God's kingdom purposes, contrary to the perception that the Bible and Christianity are oppressive to women — a perception that may owe much to how the very patriarchal Catholic Church has been seen.

On the difficult passages: in 1 Timothy, when Paul says women should remain silent, recall that a few chapters earlier he speaks of both women and men prophesying (they simply need an interpreter), so Paul is not contradicting himself. In that context he was dealing with infighting and “cattiness” in the church (likely Ephesus). The head-covering instruction is from Corinth: above the city, on the Acrocorinth, stood the temple of Aphrodite, whose temple prostitutes had shaved heads; as some of those women came to know Christ and entered the church, Paul was concerned that a shaved-headed woman — obviously identifiable as a former temple prostitute — would invite promiscuity among the men. It's a very specific, contextual instruction; you cannot take Scripture out of context. And throughout Scripture God uses women: Deborah and Huldah as prophets, Jael, Rahab the harlot, the woman at the well who told her whole town, Mary as the first witness of the resurrection and first evangelist, and Priscilla — who, with Aquila, took Apollos aside and corrected his teaching. So we have women in prophetic and teaching roles.

Messages

Live in obedience to God, and trust in the Lord — life goes a lot better when you do both. Stay in active prayer, attuned to His will. Listen to the wise counsel of others who follow God, as Esther listened to Mordecai. Though prayer is not mentioned, fasting is — and the two tend to go together. And in Esther's multiple banquets for the king and Haman, we see the importance of waiting for God's perfect timing: she doesn't make her request at the first banquet but waits. As Ted says, don't just do something — stand there. Romans 8:28: God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.

The Vastness of the Empire

The first verse mentions the 127 provinces of Persia, so it's worth seeing how vast this was: Libya, Egypt, and the northern part of Sudan; up into Macedonia (part of Greece now); Turkey; Jordan and that whole area; Israel; down through Iraq and Iran; and the region Scripture calls the northern part of India, which is now Pakistan, all the way to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. At the time of Esther, Persia was the largest empire to date — larger than Greece (Rome would end up slightly bigger), and mostly a land empire. (Babylon, by contrast, was small — in the area of modern Iraq.) You can see why Xerxes would have wanted to conquer Greece and expand even further; Greece was highly valued. But he failed. Ted noted the irony that God used the kings of Persia to rebuild His temple, even though one of the names of Satan is the Prince of Persia.

Closing Prayer

Heavenly Father, thank You for the time together, to come in fellowship and study Your word. Thank You for the hard work put into teaching us and for how much we have already learned today. We pray now that You give us Your wisdom and fill us with Your Holy Spirit, that we might fulfill Your purposes for us and through us. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.