Queen Esther.. The virtuous woman

INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF ESTHER

Bible Text: Esther 1-10

Memory Verse: Philippians 1:27

Only let your conversation be as it becometh the
gospel of Christ ⛪

The Book of Esther, while it is among the short books in the historical portion of the Old Testament, has features which are of a peculiar interest . The book starts with a feast called by King Ahasuerus for all princes and noble of the 127 provinces which make up the Persian Empire, the largest empire of the world then. The king intended to show the riches of the kingdom and the excellency of his dominion, with a view to convincing all of the viability of his intended invasion of Greece . The feast ended with the deposition of Vashti, the Queen, because she refused the instruction of her drunken husband to make a beauty parade of her to guests at the feast . A few years later, arrangement was made to find a replacement for Vashti by making the king choose the most attractive virgin among those who have been selected from all the provinces of the empire. At the end of the exercise, Esther was chosen and crowned Queen and she became the heroine of the Book .Esther, a Jewess, though her nationality was then unknown to the people, rose from a humble status to become a queen, and by the use of the position she obtained, rescued her nation from wholesale destruction devised against them by Haman, the favourite courtier (or Counselor) of king Ahasuerus (Xerxes, b.c. 485–465).The feast of Purim was inaugurated as a feast of thanksgiving to celebrate the victory of the Jews against their enemies as a result of the royal decree that empowered the Jews to defend themselves against their enemies who had, earlier on, been permitted to kill all the Jews in the whole kingdom of Persia. A major objection to the rightful place of the book in the Holy Scriptures is the fact that God is not at all mentioned in the book. A close study, however, would reveal that though the name of God is not mentioned in the book, the hand of God was clearly all over the place. The deposition of Vashti, the Queen, paving the way for the choice of Esther to replace her is clearly the work God. Similarly, the timely remembrance of Mordecai’s loyal deed in saving the king’s life which led to his elevation a day before he would have been hanged as was being secretly planned by Haman cannot be mere accidents. Again, the death of Haman and the overthrow of his plan to exterminate all the Jews in the Persian Empire were not by chance. They were all the result of the unseen hand of God which was at work . Another objection to the Book of Esther being included in the Holy Scriptures is the fact that the book is not referred to in any book of the New Testament. To counter this, it is clear that the Book does not contradict secular history, whereas it is in perfect harmony with the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah. The three books deal with the history of the Jews after dispersion. Esther concerns the Jews in exile while the other two books record the events in the life of the Jews who returned to their homeland when King Darius, the predecessor of Ahasuerus, permitted Jews who wished to go back to their country to do so .It needs be said that although Esther comes after Nehemiah as arranged in the Bible, the events in the book come some thirty years before those of Nehemiah .The Persian Empire was one of the great empires of the world. The monarch ruled from India to Ethiopia. It is a vast responsibility to reign over such an empire .There is a general consensus that Ahasuerus is the Artaxerces of history, who reigned from 485 - 465 BC. It has also been recognized that Ahasuerus is a royal title such as the Pharaoh of Egypt, the Alafin of Oyo, the Orangun of Ila, the Shehu of Borno and the Sultan of Sokoto. The compiler of the Book of Esther is not known and we need not resort to speculation when God chose to hide His instrument. A similar case is that of the Book of Hebrews.