A LITTLE HARRIS-Y: Esther – God of Promises(The votes are in… A Little Harris-y wins! Sorry to those who are disappointed:))

I love The Book of Esther; I often consider it my favorite book of the Bible, but it has long been shrouded by controversy. In his theological commentary, Paul Redditt notes that Eastern churches rejected the book’s canonicity and that the reformers did not devote much attention to it. Likewise, Samuel Wells points out in his biblical commentary of the book that these types of views are often related to the fact that the book “contains no promise to the Church, makes no mention of the Gospel” and “does not once introduce the name of God or recognize [H]is providence.” In fact, according to Reddit, “Luther could say that he wished the book did not exist at all, because it contained pagan impropriety.” So why do I love it so much? I would have to write more than I am willing to (and more than you would be willing to read) if I were to say everything I wanted to about it, but some of my favorite things about the book are how God is able to keep all His promises even though they seem to contradict and work out salvation even when He seems hidden.

Some of God’s most famous promises are found in what people call the Abrahamic Covenant (see Gen. chapters 12, 15, 17, and 22). When God called Abraham, He promised He would bless his descendants with a great name, a land of abundance, and a high population (Gen. 12:1-3). God also promised Abraham and his descendants divine protection, swearing that whoever blessed them would be blessed and that whoever cursed them would be cursed (Gen. 12:3). Most importantly, God promised that His descendant(s) would end up blessing every people group on the planet (Gen. 12:3, 22:18).

Around 500 years later, God made another series of promises to Abraham’s descendants in what people call the Mosaic Covenant (Exod. 19-24, Lev. 26, Deut. 28). In the Mosaic Covenant, God promised Abraham’s descendants that IF they were faithful to obey the terms of His covenant, the ten commandments (see Duet. 4:13), that they would be His treasured possession, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exod. 19:4-6). God went on to relay the wonderful blessings Israel would experience if they were obedient and the terrible suffering they would face if they were disobedient  (Lev. 26, Deut. 28). God said that if Israel continued in their disobedience, that they would eventually be driven out of their homeland (Lev. 26:33, Deut. 28:64). Perhaps most severely, God said: “But I will surely hide My face [אַסְתִּ֤יר] in that day because of all the evil which they will do, for they will turn to other gods.” (Deut. 31:18; also see 31:17, 32:20, and Ezek. 39:29).

One thousand years after God laid out His terms to Moses, those two sets of promises came to a head in the Book of Esther. Israel was facing all the threatened curses as a desperate, homeless, and foreign minority group on the brink of distinction because of a ruthless edict written by the leader of the pagan kingdom of Persia, just as they deserved (Esth. 3:13). Yet instead of being exterminated the book relays that many people actually decided to become Jews in the days leading up to their potential harm! (See Esth. 8:21). The book revolves around a plot to exterminate every living Jew, yet, because of God’s loyalty to Abraham, there are more Jews at the end of the story than there were at the beginning! However, the book does not explicitly give God the credit for this. Why? Because God had promised that He would hide His face during the time of their punishment.In the middle of the whole story is a young orphan named Esther, whose name is derived from the Babylonian god Ishtar. Yet every Hebrew who read Esther could see the four consonants in her name, אסתר, which form the title of the book and be continually reminded of God’s promise to אַסְתִּ֤יר (Hide Himself) during their punishment. This would bring comfort as they remembered that God kept all of His promises, for He saved them just as He promised Abraham, but He did it from behind the scenes because of what He promised Moses. 

I love Esther; it strengthens my faith that God sovereignly works behind the scenes of history to keep His promises and orchestrate the salvation and multiplication of His people. When God seems distant, I can be confident that “He knows, He is there, and He is working” (Douglass). Most importantly, I can remember that in God’s protection of Esther and the Israelites, He spared the line of the Promised Messiah, who came 2,000 years ago to suffer separation from His Father and bless all the families of the earth with salvation from sin and death!

Bibliography:

Douglass, Rob. Psalm 139 – He Knows, He’s Here, He works. Blue Letter Bible Rob Douglass Media
NASB. The Bible. New American Standard Version. Lockman, 1995.
Redditt, Paul. L. “Esther.” Theological Interpretation of the Old Testament: A Book-by-Book Survey. Kevin Vanhoozer, Craig Bartholomew, and Daniel Treier, eds. Baker, 2008, pp. 142-47.
Wells, Samual and George Summer. Esther and Daniel. Brazos, 2013.
Wechsler, Michael G. Commentary on Esther.
Wechsler, Michael G. Shadow and Fulfillment In The Book of Esther. Bibiotheca Sacra 154 July- Septemer 1997.