The Book of Esther is the only book of the Hebrew Bible that describes life in the Jewish Diaspora, or dispersion.
Although the book is relatively little known among Christians, it is known by Jews because it is the basis of the joyous Jewish holiday called Purim, which celebrates the reprieve of the Jews from an imminent pogrom in the land of Persia.
The story takes place in Susa, the king’s winter residence during the reign of Xerxes (Ahasuerus in Hebrew, Chshayarsha in Old Persian), who ruled from 485 to 465 B.C.E.a A curious blend of fact and fiction, it is a kind of pseudohistoric novella, set against a background of life at the Achaemenian court that is in many ways remarkably accurate—in ways we are just beginning to understand. The story itself, however, is fiction, so in the end we must ask what lay behind it? Why was it written? What function did it serve?
The Book of Esther begins with a lavish banquet where Xerxes orders his queen, Vashti, to appear and display her beauty for his guests. She refuses, so the king deposes her and begins the search for a new queen. Mordecai, a Jew who sits at the king’s gate, brings his niece Esther (Hadassah in Hebrew) as a candidate. Like the other women, Esther undergoes a year’s beauty treatment before going in to the king. Concealing her Jewish identity, Esther is chosen queen.
Later, Mordecai learns of a plot against the king 026by two of his bodyguards. Mordecai reports this to the king through his niece Esther. The king is saved and Mordecai’s good deed is duly noted in the king’s record book.
In the next episode, Haman, an Agagite who serves as the king’s prime minister, becomes furious with Mordecai because Mordecai will not bow down to him. Haman persuades the king to permit a pogrom against the Jews. The king issues an edict permitting Jews to be killed on the 13th day of the month of Adar, a date chosen by lot (pur in Hebrew and Old Assyrian; hence, the name of the Jewish holiday Purim, meaning lots).
Unable to sleep one night, the king has the court records read to him and is reminded of Mordecai’s unrewarded assistance in disclosing the bodyguards’ plot to kill him. Xerxes asks Haman what should be done for a man he wishes to honor. Haman, thinking the king has him in mind, tells the king that the honored man should be dressed in the king’s robes and paraded through the city, riding on a royal steed led by a high official. The king then tells Haman to his surprise and chagrin to parade Mordecai in this way.
In the meantime, Esther appears unsummoned before the king, thereby risking death. Ultimately she tells the king that she, along with her equally innocent people, is about to be killed as a result of Haman’s planned pogrom of the Jews. Xerxes orders Haman to be hanged—on the very gallows he had prepared for Mordecai. Although, once issued, the king is unable to revoke the decree allowing the Jews to be killed on the 13th of Adar, he issues another decree allowing the Jews to defend themselves and even encourages others to help them. In the event, 75,000 enemies of the Jews are killed throughout the empire, 510 in Susa alone. Among them are Haman and his sons. Modecai is appointed prime minister in his stead, and effectively serves both his people and his king.
Esther is distinctive among biblical books not 027only because it alone describes Jewish life in the Diaspora, but also because it is the only book of the Hebrew Bible that does not mention the name of God—neither God’s personal name Yahweh, nor the more general word for God, Elohim.b
Obviously the book is late, as biblical books go. It cannot have been written before the reign of Xerxes. Based on linguistic considerations—the language contains many similarities with later Hebrew literature, for example, the Mishnah (codified about 200 C.E.)—most scholars date the book to the Hellenistic period, sometime in the third or second centuries B.C.E. However, recent advances in the study of Old Persian language and history convince me that the story is in fact considerably earlier, dating to sometime in the Achaemenid, or Persian, period, which ended with the Greek conquest by Alexander the Great in 331 B.C.E.
The narrative contains a number of Old Persian terms that must have gone out of use in the Hellenistic period. For example, parthemim is the Hebrew word for aristocrats (fratama in Old Persian); achashdarpan is the word for satrap or Provincial governor; biÆtaµn—a word of ancient West Semitic origin—is the word for garden house or pavilion. These words were no longer used in the Hellenistic period; they are not found in the Hebrew texts of that time. The book must have been written sometime between the reign of Xerxes and shortly after the conquest by Alexander the Great, say between 465 and 325 B.C.E.
Some elements of the story, however, are clearly fictitious. The Greek historians Herodotus (fifth century B.C.E.) and Ctesias (fourth century B.C.E.) both report the name of Xerxes’ great queen as Amestris, not Vashti or Esther. From historical sources, we do not know of a Jewish queen of Persia named Esther. Moreover, the queen in the Achaemenid empire could only be a princess of the ruling dynasty or a daughter of a family of the highest aristocracy of the kingdom. It has been suggested that the name Esther derives from the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar, but I believe it is 028more likely that it is connected with the Old Persian word stara (star).1
Susa was not the Persian capital. But it was one of the empire’s administrative capitals2 and it had been the capital of the ancient kingdom of Elam.
Could Mordecai have been a real person? Some scholars have attempted to show that he was.3 Both Ezra 2:2 and Nehemiah 7:7 list Mordecai as one of the returnees from the Babylonian Exile. The name Mordecai is clearly of Babylonian origin. The chief god of the Babylonians was Marduk, and the name of this god was a component in hundreds of Babylonian personal names, such as Marduk-shapik-zeri and Marduk-apal-iddinna. The hypocoristic form (a shortened form, or nickname) is Marduka, vocalized in Hebrew as Mordecai. During Xerxes’ reign there was at least one Marduka who was a scribe and who visited Susa.4 Jews in the Diaspora commonly took non-Jewish names. In the Babylonian Diaspora during the Persian period, parents sometimes had non-Jewish names and their sons Jewish ones and vice versa.5
The highest dignitaries of the empire were Persians and sometimes Medes. On the other hand, officials below this rank—both at the court and in the provinces—as well as military leaders, included Greeks, Jews, Egyptians, Anatolians of various nationalities, Babylonians, Elamites and others. So, in principle, there was no reason why a Jew could not hold a high court office. Before Nehemiah was sent by the Persian king to serve as the governor of the province of Judah in 445 B.C.E., he held the title of cupbearer to the king (Nehemiah 2:1; 1:11 in Hebrew). The Judean prince Zerubbabel, who was deployed by the Persian king to the governor’s office in Judah in 521/520 B.C.E. had served as 029one of the king’s pages (1 Esdras 4:13–46).
Just as it is most unlikely that Mordecai could have served as the king’s prime minister, the same is true of Mordecai’s adversary Haman, for he was an Agagite. Yet there does seem to be a historic core: Haman’s wife was named Zeresh, which seems to be a theophoric name derived from the Elamite goddess Zarisha. This is especially significant because Susa, as the historic capital of the ancient kingdom of Elam, had a large Elamite population.
Numerous details in the story reflect a thorough knowledge of the administration and the way of life at the Achaemenian royal court.
A new understanding of the king’s gate will help us appreciate the position Mordecai held at court. The biblical text frequently portrays Mordecai as “sitting at the king’s gate” (Esther 2:19, 21; 5:13; 6:10). This has given some the impression that Mordecai was a kind of unemployed hanger-on who frequented the palace entrance. In fact, the king’s gate was not simply an architectural unit at the entrance to the royal compound. It was the center of auxiliary buildings belonging to the palace and included all the offices of management, both of palace administration and supplies.6 “To sit” here means, as it does in modern Hebrew, to be stationed, to have an office at a particular place. The plot of the two bodyguards to kill the king became known to Mordecai in his official capacity at the king’s gate. From this we can conclude that Mordecai was perhaps the head of the king’s palace secret service. (This is supported by the notice in Esther 4:1 that Mordecai knew everything that was going on at the court.)
With this information we can perhaps better understand why Mordecai refused to bow down to Haman. Mordecai reported the plot to kill the king through Esther, and the whole affair was recorded in the king’s presence (Esther 2:21–23). It would be reasonable to assume that Mordecai received the title orosanges (The Benefactor of the King) 030as described in Herodotus.7 A Benefactor of the King had the privilege not to prostrate himself before anybody except the king himself. That is why Mordecai did not prostrate himself before Haman.
The Book of Esther opens with a lavish royal banquet before which Vashti, Xerxes’ queen, is commanded to appear. For no less than 180 days before the banquet, Xerxes had displayed the wealth of his kingdom (Esther 1:4). The banquet itself lasted seven days (Esther 1:5) and took place in the third year of the king’s reign (Esther 1:3). This too may have a historic core. The feast was probably to celebrate Xerxes’ accession to the throne. Yet it occurred in the third regnal year—because, as we know from historical sources, he had first to suppress rebellions in Egypt and Babylonia.8
After Vashti’s refusal, we are told of the “seven princes,” or aristocrats, who were the king’s closest advisers (Esther 1:14). The king’s seven counselors are also mentioned in Ezra 7:14, and Greek sources give us historical information about this council of the seven.9
We also learn that the various royal edicts mentioned in the story are sent to every province of the kingdom and in the language of each of its people (Esther 3:12, 8:19). We know from papyri and inscriptions written in Persian, Akkadian, Lydian, Lycian Greek and, especially, Aramaic, that they included official material of the royal authorities.10
The decree allowing the Jews to be killed could not be revoked once it was sealed with the royal seal (Esther 8:8); the best the king could do was to issue another order allowing the Jews to defend themselves.11 We know of the same thing from Greek sources.
The last chapter in the Book of Esther, chapter 10, contains only three verses. Esther 10:1 tells us that Xerxes imposed tribute “on the land and on the islands of the sea.” The latter can only refer to the islands of the Aegean. But these islands were lost by Xerxes in the battles of Salamis in 480 and Plataia and Mykale in 479. So the author attempted to realistically buttress the setting of the story in the third year of Xerxes’ reign—482 B.C.E.
But we know of no persecution of Jews during Xerxes’ reign. We do, however, know of a historic event in about 340 B.C.E. that might help to explain the real background for this fictional story set against a very realistic historical background.
During the reign of the Persian king Artaxerxes III (358–336 B.C.E.), the Phoenician cities revolted against Persian rule. In Greek sources it is called the revolt of Tennes, the name of the king of the Phoenician city of Sidon who led the revolt. The evidence indicates that Judea also participated in this revolt. This we are told by late Roman and early Christian authors.12 Destruction levels from the Persian period, prior to the conquest of Alexander the Great, are found at numerous sites in Judea,13 indicating that Persian armies were active in suppressing rebellion in Judea. At about this same time, the Jewish population of Jericho was deported.14 It is quite possible that this unsuccessful rebellion led to persecution of Jews throughout the Persian empire. It may well have been in this context, not long after 340 B.C.E., that the story of Esther was composed. To console themselves, the Jews invented a story set in an earlier Persian reign that told of a persecution that they had gloriously overcome.
The Book of Esther is the only book of the Hebrew Bible that describes life in the Jewish Diaspora, or dispersion. Although the book is relatively little known among Christians, it is known by Jews because it is the basis of the joyous Jewish holiday called Purim, which celebrates the reprieve of the Jews from an imminent pogrom in the land of Persia. The story takes place in Susa, the king’s winter residence during the reign of Xerxes (Ahasuerus in Hebrew, Chshayarsha in Old Persian), who ruled from 485 to 465 B.C.E.a A curious blend of fact and […]
You have already read your free article for this month. Please join the BAS Library or become an All Access member of BAS to gain full access to this article and so much more.
B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) and C.E. (Common Era), used by this author, are the designations corresponding to B.C. and A.D. often used in scholarly literature.
2.
A late-second-century B.C.E. translation of the book into Greek adds a number of passages and includes the name of God. Those passages have been incorporated into Catholic versions of the Bible. In Protestant versions of the Bible, they are included in the Apocrypha.
Endnotes
1.
A. S. Yahuda, “The Meaning of the Name Esther, ” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1946, pp. 174–178.
2.
J. Perrot, “Shoshan Ha-birah,” Eretz-Israel 20 (1989), pp. 155–160.
3.
A. Ungnad, “Keilinschriftliche Beiträge zum Buch Esra und Esther,” Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (ZAW) 58 (1940/1941), pp. 240–244; “Keilinschriftliche Beiträge zum Buch Esra und Esther,” ZAW 59 (1942/1943), p. 219.
4.
Attested in a mid-fifth century B.C.E. text. Aû ceûrtain Mar-du-ka, who was a se-pi-rzu (Hebrew sofer), “scribe (on parchment or papyrus),” visited (maµt) Su-sa-nu “the (land) Susa.” The personal name Marduka by itself appears in a large number of texts. See Ungnad, “Keilinschriftliche Beiträge” ZAW 58, pp. 242–243.
5.
R. Zadok, The Jews in Babylonia during the Chaldean and Achaemenian Periods (Haifa: Haifa Univ. Press, 1979) (in Hebrew).
6.
This was convincingly demonstrated in a 1964 article by the German Semitist H. Wehr, “Das Tor des Königs in Buche Esther und verwandte Ausdrücke,” Der Islam 39 (1964), pp. 247–260. Almost all modern authors dealing with the Book of Esther have ignored this article, possibly because Wehr was primarily an Arabic scholar and the article appeared in a journal devoted principally to Islam. Wehr bases his conclusions on data from Herodotus and Xenophon, as well as on Assyrian and Babylonian royal inscriptions and even medieval Oriental sources.
7.
Herodotus, History 3.138, 140; 5.11; 8.88; 9.109. See also Wiesehofer, “Die Freund und Wohltäter des Grosskönigs,” Studia Iranica 9 (1980), pp. 257–279.
8.
On the rebellion in Egypt in 486/5 B.C.E., see Herodotus, History 8.7, and also the Cambridge Ancient History (CAH), 2nd ed., (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1988), vol. 4, pp. 72–73; on the rebellion of Shamash-Eriba in Babylonia in 484 B.C.E., see CAH, pp. 73–75.
9.
Herodotus 3.69–79 tells us about a plot of the seven highest Persian aristocrats against a magician who usurped the throne in 522 B.C.E. This plot brought to power Darius I, the father of Xerxes. Another variant of these same events is given in Herodotus 3.83–88. On the broad rights of the seven, see Herodotus 3.118.
10.
We list here only examples; many more could be cited: (a) Old Persian official inscriptions: R.G. Kent, Old Persian Grammar, Texts, Lexicon (New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society, 1953). The famous Behistun inscription of King Darius I (522–486 B.C.E.) is written in Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian. An Aramaic copy is also known (Jonas C. Greenfield and Bezalel Porten, The Bistun Inscription of Darius the Great: Aramaic Version [London, 1982]); (b) concerning the Lydian-Aramean Inscription: G. Elderkin, “The Lydian Bilingual Inscription,” American Journal of Archaeology 29 (1925), pp. 87–89; (c) the Aramaic, Greek and Lycian official trilingual inscription from the year 358 B.C.E.: H. Metzger et al., Foumilles de Xanthos VI, La stele trilingue de Letoon (Paris, 1979); (d) a great number of official inscriptions on behalf of the Persian authorities are collected in A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions, vol. 1, To the End of the Fifth Century B.C., ed. M.N. Tod, vol. 2, From 403 to 323 B.C. (Oxford: Oxford Univer. Press, 1946–1948); (e) the most recent large edition of official Aramaic texts of the Persian period: Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt, vol. 1, Letters, ed. Portner and A. Yardeni, vol. 2, Contracts (Jerusalem: Aqademon, 1986–1989).
11.
O. Bucci, “L’attivita del sovrano achemenide e gli Archivi reali persiani,” Revue Internationale des Droits de l’Antiquite 25 (1978), pp. 11–93, esp. pp. 17–20.
12.
The sources are cited in D. Barag, “The Effects of the Tennes Rebellion on Palestine,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 183 (1966), pp. 6–12; Ephraim Stern, Material Culture of the Land of the Bible in the Persian Period, 538–332, B.C. (Warminster, UK: Aris and Phillips; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1983), p. 255.
13.
Barag, “The Effects of the Tennes Rebellion,” pp. 6–12; Stern, Material Culture, p. 255.
14.
The source for this is Solinus, a Latin chronicler of the third century, in Collectanea rerum memoriabilium 35.4 (edition Mommsen).
