Anybody read Esther lately?

There’s a good interview with Barry Webb on the Sola Panel, and you can get a free download of his notes on Esther for the ESV Study Bible.

There’s a lot of great stuff in the interview, but this selection might be a good jumping off point if people wanted to discuss things here:

What’s the book of Esther about?

It’s about the people of God, the Israelites, under threat, and, in one way I suppose, it’s about anti-Semitism. It’s the underbelly—the nasty reality—of anti-Semitism, and how God, who is never really obviously present in the book (there are a lot of suggestions that he is present but he is never directly spoken of as present)—how God moves through ordinary people and through the power plays of palace intrigue and the jealousies that people have for one another, and so on, to thwart an intent by this person called Haman to exterminate the Jewish people.

Now, the Persian empire covered the whole civilized world. So if Haman was successful, it would have meant the end of the family of Abraham, and so the end of the thread of salvation history that goes from Abraham to Christ. So you see the book of Esther is about God keeping his covenant people in existence until the final purpose of that is revealed in Christ, the Messiah.

In some ways, the book of Esther is also about courage in the face of adversity, because Mordecai and Esther both show enormous courage in the face of adversity. Esther in particular, I suppose, could have just ridden it out if she’d wanted to, but she chose to become involved in the fate of her people.

I think the message of anti-Semitism is one that the church needs to hear. The church has become embroiled in this at various periods in history, so there’s a warning here, but there is a lot more to Esther, of course.

Other thoughts? What is Esther doing in the Bible?

If Obadiah made it why shouldn’t Esther ;)

I had the great privilege of studying the OT with Barry. I preached a 4-part sermon series on Esther at our church back in the day, and if anyone is interested the full text of the talks is on the Hunter Bible Church website, here.
I might add that I bought the recently released DVD “One Night with the King” to see how it presented the story, and was very disappointed. Basically they smooth out the tricky bits, layer on “religion” in a way the book deliberately does not, and in short do a “Hollywood” on the whole thing. There may be a few clips that are useful to illustrate a sermon with, I suppose, so long as you don’t play any of the actual dialogue!

Neil Foster - 23 September 2008 12:25 PM

There may be a few clips that are useful to illustrate a sermon with, I suppose, so long as you don’t play any of the actual dialogue!

Or you could get some mime artists from the congregation to work something up.

Both Barry’s study notes and Neil’s sermon notes look very helpful. Thanks for letting us know about them.

I’d have to say Esther is one of my favourite books.

James B. Jordan sees Esther as the fulfilment of Ezekiel 38-39 (Gog and Magog).

It also contains the redemption of the family of Saul, who failed to kill King Agag the Amalekite. Mordecai, like Saul, is a son of Kish, and Haman is an Agagite. Instead of Saul’s sons dying, this time it is the sons of Haman.

Haman is kind of like Daniel’s ‘evil twin.’ Daniel steered the Babylonian empire in favour of the people of God. Haman steered it against God’s people.

Because of Mordecai’s failure - telling Esther to hide her identity - Haman ascends to the king’s right hand instead of Mordecai. Daniel interpreted the king’s nightmare, but Mordecai totally misinterprets the king’s request when the king can’t sleep!

I disagree that Esther has anything at all to do with anti-semitism. It is not about racial Jews but about God’s people. The whole story was replayed in the first century. God allows His people to be threatened in order to bring their enemies out in the open so they can be destroyed. The enemies are plundered and the riches taken to the new Temple.

In the book of Esther we have in type the wisdom of God that had Paul in awe as he wrote the letter to the Roman Christians. By sending the gospel to the Gentiles, the enemies of God were exposed. When the new bride was persecuted, the Jews were forced to endorse either the New Covenant people or their attackers. In this process, “all Israel” was saved (Romans 11:26). The old Jerusalem was purified and redeemed. Because of Mordecai’s disobedience in failing as a witness, Esther was able to obtain mercy (Romans 11:30-32).

Just as the Gentiles submitted to Mordecai at the end of the book, the Gentiles submitted to the gospel and joined the New Covenant church. The empire was plundered once again and the ‘riches’ taken to glorify a New Jerusalem.