Where is God in the book of Esther?

Short answer: Nowhere to be found...and active everywhere.

One of the conundrums of the book of Esther is that there is no reference to God, prayer, worship, the synagogue, or any other evidence of interaction with the faith that the exiles brought with them from Jerusalem (or lack thereof since they were exiled because of idolatry). In fact there is a Greek addition to Esther which makes up for this obvious lack. It adds a lot of material, most of it having to do with worship and devotion, presumably because later readers were appalled at the lack of reference to God and wanted to "fix" things.

This omission is so obvious and stands out so clearly, that one must ask the question, "what was the author thinking?" which is exactly the question that it would seem, the author wanted us to ask. In other words, the lack of reference to the faith is a literary device that the author used on purpose. I don't see how anyone could conclude anything else because the omission of reference to God is so glaring.

Why then? Karen Jobe, in her excellent commentary on the book of Esther is very helpful here. Her explanation is that the big question for exiles was: "Where are we at in terms of our faith here? We have been exiled because of idolatry, and now what is our relationship to God? Has he abandoned us? Is he still active? Does he love us?" This was the crucial question of the day for the exiles. While the answer seems obvious to us in hindsight, it would not have been so obvious to them at the time. Sure there was God's promise that the exiles would return, and indeed some had returned 50 years before, but what about those who had remained in Babylon? Were they out of the Lord's will and so abandoned by God, like the ten lost tribes of Israel?

Karen Jobes points out what we find from Esther: The great paradox of Esther is that God is omnipotently present even where God is most conspicuously absent.

This is what we find in Esther, and I think it is what the author of Esther wanted us to find.

Difficulties in Esther

So I've been plodding slowly into the book of Esther (through the introduction and into chapter one) and what stands out in introduction after introduction to the book are the difficulties that underly it. I suppose this is to be expected since it is different from most other Old Testament documents. Esther does not mention the word "God" anywhere in the book. There is no New Testament writer that quotes Esther. The attitudes and actions reflected from both Mordecai and Esther in the book are at times questionable. Why did Mordecai refuse to bow down to Haman, it's not like there was a biblical prohibition against bowing down to superiors? Why does he seem to manipulate Esther into the queenship? Why does Esther go along? And the wholesale killing of 75,000 opponents of Jews, how is that justified? Not to mention Esther asking the king if they can have one more day for more bloodshed?

We could go on, but you get the point. The difficulties are great and this is undoubtedly part of why there is this whole discussion of whether or not Esther belongs in the canon from both the Jewish side and the Christian side.

I do not plan to answer the difficulties just yet, only to lay them out as I see them. Part of the joy of undertaking difficulties like this is when one comes across a surprisingly satisfying answer to them.

Oh, and for what it's worth, Karen Jobe's commentary on Esther is fantastic!

Thinking About the Book of Esther

I began a study of the book of Esther yesterday. My choice was based on the fact that I just finished 1 Peter; I wanted to do an Old Testament study to get familiar with the Logos resources for OT study; I also wanted to do some work on narrative because it is quite different interpreting narrative then it is epistles.

My daughter came home from Sunday School having just completed a study of the book of Esther with the youth. She said that the person who taught it, did not think that Esther was a woman of good character and did not think the whole book should be in the canon of the Old Testament. This got me thinking. It wasn't long before I concluded that Esther would be a perfect fit for me. It was Old Testament; it was narrative; it was pretty short so my chances of finishing the study were good.

Perhaps the biggest issues in Esther are: Why doesn't it refer to God (one of only two books i the Bible like that, the other being the Song of Solomon? Isn't the whole episode at the end of the book wherein the Jews kill a bunch of opponents kind of an embarrassment? After all, they seem to celebrate and enjoy it. What was Esther up to and what can we conclude about her character? I'm sure more questions will arise as we step into the book.