Exile & Return
Esther
The one book in the Bible that never mentions God — and He is on every page of it
Welcome to the wonderful book of Esther. Read it through once or twice at a single sitting, in as many translations as you have. It is a fast-paced, exciting story, and it is short enough to take in whole.
Then read it a third time watching for two things: a word, and an absence. They are what the book is built on.
The absence
The name of God does not appear in this book. Not once in ten chapters. No LORD, no God, no divine title of any kind. There is no prayer named as prayer, no sacrifice, no temple, no covenant, no mention of Jerusalem’s worship. That makes it unique among the books of the Bible.
And yet, as you read, you realise that although His name never appears, He is at work on every page.
The closest the book comes to naming Him is a sentence Mordecai says with deliberate vagueness:
Do not imagine that just because you are in the king’s palace you will be any safer than all the rest of the Jews. The fact is, even if you remain silent now, someone else will help and rescue the Jews, but you and your relatives will die. And who knows, you may have gained your royal position for a time like this.
Esther 4:13–14 · God’s Word
Someone else will help and rescue. He does not say who. He does not need to.
The word: favour
Now watch the word favour. It follows Esther through the whole story like a thread.
She is an unknown foreign girl, the descendant of captives, and she rises to become the most powerful woman in the empire. Count how many times she is given favour on the way up:
Everyone who saw Esther liked her… the king loved Esther more than all the other women and favored her over all the other virgins. So he put the royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti.
Esther 2:15–17 · God’s Word
God gave her that favour, causing everyone to look at her the way He did. And it happens again at the moment everything depends on it — when she walks in uninvited, which was a capital offence “On the third day Esther put on her royal robes… When the king saw Queen Esther standing in the entrance, she won his favor.” (Esther 5:1-2).
Notice the reason given. Not her argument, not her beauty, not her rank. She won his favor. That is the whole explanation the text offers.
As God favours us — pointing His grace finger at us — other people feel a strange, inexplicable desire to favour us too. That is what this book is showing you, one scene at a time.
Who wrote it, and when
We do not know the writer’s name. It was obviously a Jew who knew the reign of Ahasuerus and the palace at Susa in close detail.
The events cover about ten years, roughly 483–473 BC, during the reign of Ahasuerus — the Hebrew form of Xerxes I.
Vashti, and what it cost a queen to say no
The story opens with a queen removed for refusing to come when her husband called. It reads strangely until you know the setting: in that society a wife was the property of her husband and in total submission to him, expected to obey without question, and not permitted even to approach his room without an invitation. For the queen to refuse a direct order was suicidal.
Hold on to that, because it is what makes chapter four unbearable. Esther will have to do the very thing Vashti was destroyed for — approach the king unbidden. She knows exactly what happened to the last woman who made a fool of him.
The small thing that turns out not to be small
In chapter two Mordecai overhears a plot against the king’s life and reports it. It is written down and then, apparently, forgotten. Nothing is done for him. At the time it is a footnote.
Four chapters later it is the hinge of the entire book. “That night the king could not sleep. So he told a servant to bring the official daily records, and they were read to the king.” (Esther 6:1-3).
A king cannot sleep. He calls for the dullest reading material in the palace. The reader happens to open at the right year, and to reach the right paragraph, on the one night it could still make a difference.
Many of the small coincidences in our lives are really God’s favour being laid up for days to come.
Haman, and a very old war
Haman’s hatred is out of all proportion to its occasion. Mordecai will not bow, and Haman decides to destroy not just the man but his entire people. There is more going on here than wounded pride.
This study reads Haman as the last Amalekite, and here is the text it reads that from.
Haman is introduced as the Agagite (3:1). Agag was the Amalekite king whom Saul was commanded to destroy and spared — and who was executed by Samuel instead (I Samuel 15:32–33). Amalek had attacked Israel coming out of Egypt, and God’s verdict on them was permanent: “he will be at war against the Amalekites from one generation to the next” (Exodus 17:14–16).
Two further details look deliberate. Mordecai is introduced as “son of Kish, a Benjaminite” (2:5) — Kish was Saul’s father and Benjamin was Saul’s tribe. And three separate times the book records that the Jews took no plunder (9:10, 15, 16) — which is the precise thing Saul failed to do. Saul’s house and Agag’s house, facing each other one last time, and this time it is finished properly.
Many sincere readers take it differently. The book never says “Amalekite”; “Agagite” may be a Persian clan or place name with no connection at all, and the Greek version of Esther calls Haman a Macedonian instead. So this is a reading rather than a statement of the text. Weigh it yourself.
For such a time as this
Mordecai will not let Esther hide behind her position. His answer to her is the sentence the book is remembered for — who knows, you may have gained your royal position for a time like this. He forces her to face the fact that the favour she has been given was given for something. “Assemble all the Jews in Susa. Fast for me: Do not eat or drink at all for three entire days.” (Esther 4:15-16).
She calls a fast, which is a statement of helplessness. Even here God is not named — and yet it is obviously a fast unto God.
Fasting does not impress God. It is the biblical way we express our helplessness in ourselves, and our expectation of Him.
The net closes
What follows is a masterpiece of quiet reversal. Haman builds a gallows for Mordecai in the evening and spends the next morning leading Mordecai through the streets in the king’s own robes. He goes to a banquet expecting triumph and is exposed at the table. “The 75-foot pole Haman made for Mordecai… is still standing at Haman’s house.” The king responded, “Hang him on it!” (Esther 7:9-10).
All of this reads like political intrigue in a court two and a half millennia ago. And in all the politics, God is silently at work, bringing His purpose to pass.
Then a legal problem the king cannot solve: a decree sealed with the royal ring can never be revoked. The order to destroy the Jews cannot be withdrawn. So the king gives the ring to Mordecai and tells him to write something that will counteract it (8:7–8). The law stands, and a second law is set against it.
Purim, and a man who kept his head
The deliverance is made permanent in a festival that is still kept today “In that month their grief turned to joy and their mourning into a holiday.” (Esther 9:22).
And the book that has traced God’s favour from the first chapter ends on a note of continuing favour in the life of the man who trusted it: Mordecai “provided for the good of his people and spoke for the welfare of his fellow Jews” (10:3).
A running commentary on Romans 8:28
That is what this book is. Every detail under His control, every one of them being worked according to His purpose. “We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God—those whom he has called according to his plan.” (Romans 8:28).
Notice how God was at work in the most ordinary situations here — a sleepless night, a forgotten record, a girl who was liked. As He brought His purpose quietly to pass, He favoured His child. That should give you faith in the silent God.
Take the dare. Walk out and act on God when He is not making a great noise of His presence — knowing that you were born for such a day as this. You and I were born for this day. He is at work all around you today. Open your eyes, and dare to walk in step with Him even when no one else can see or hear.
Where to go from here
Read the book itself: all ten chapters in one sitting. About twenty-five minutes, and it is worth doing at a single stretch.
Read next: Nehemiah — the same empire, a generation later, and a man who prayed his way through fifty-two days of harassment.