An heroic woman saves the Jews from a terrible danger

This heroic woman's name was originally Edissa, 2:7, in the Vulgate and the Hebrew text. She was of the tribe of Benjamin, and her uncle, Mardochai, had been carried off by Nabuchodonosor into Babylon at the time that Jechonias had been taken into captivity, 2:5-6, cf. 4 Kings 24:10-16, 598 B.C. According to the story, the scene is laid in the Persian court of Ahasuerus, i.e. Xerxes I, 485-465 B.C., so that had Mardochai been only one year old when carried into captivity, he would have been 113 years old at the time of Xerxes accession. Vashti, the Queen of Xerxes, had refused to present herself at a royal banquet, and was in consequence dismissed from her position. Esther is chosen to fill it, and is thus enabled to ward off from the Jews a terrible danger which threatened them from their implacable enemy, Aman. This latter had determined on a wholesale destruction of the Jews throughout the Persian dominions, and had by lot (pur) decided on the 13th Adar as the day for carrying out his design. The tables were turned upon him, however, and the Jews rose up and slew their enemies. Hence was established the feast of Purim or Lots to commemorate the event. The book is thus intended to afford an historical explanation of this Feast.

The Text of Esther

The book exists in Hebrew and Greek. But the latter has many passages not to be found in the present Hebrew text. These Greek additions were gathered together by St. Jerome and placed at the end of the book in his Vulgate and they are so found in the Douay version. Yet they are necessary for the understanding of the story, and should be inserted into the body of the text in the following order:

Greek 11:2-12:6, Mardochai's dream; he detects a plot on the part of Bagatha and Thara, the porters of the palace, to slay the king; his action is recorded and he is honored for what he has done.

Hebrew 1-3:13, the story of Vashti's disobedience; Esther is advanced in her place; Mardochai detects another (?) plot on the part of two eunuchs who are annoyed at his advancement (in the Cod. Vaticanus, B, no names are given and the reason for their plot is stated as above). Aman is advanced by the king, but finding that Mardochai refuses to honor him he determines to destroy the whole Jewish nation.

Greek 13:1-7, the text of the Decree which Aman obtains from the king for the destruction of the Jews.

Hebrew 3:14-4:8, the couriers are sent out with the decree; the grief of the Jews.

Greek 15:2-3, Mardochai's words to Esther urging her to defend her people.

Hebrew 4:9-17, Esther's fast.

Greek 13:8-18, Mardochai's prayer.

Greek 14:1-19, Esther's prayer.

Greek 15:4-19, Esther's visit to the king.

Hebrew 5:3-8:12 (5:1-2 is omitted in the Greek which thus unifies the visits of Esther); she invites the king to a banquet with Aman; Mardochai is honored at last for the discovery of the plot (cf. 2:21-23 and cf. 12:5); Aman is hanged, Mardochai is advanced to his place, the edicts procured by Aman against the Jews are reversed.

Greek 16:1-24, text of the reversed decree.

Hebrew 8:13-10:4, the reversed decree is sent out; the subsequent slaughter of the Gentiles; the establishment of the feast of Purim; finale, the growing glory of Xerxes and of Mardochai.

Greek 10:4-13, the epilogue; Mardochai realizes that the previously narrated events are but the fulfillment of his dream.

Greek 11:1, the subscription saying that in the fourth year of Ptolemy and Cleopatra this epistle of Phurim was brought to Egypt.

Historic Accuracy of Esther

Few books of the Bible present a more complicated problem than that of Esther. But in judging of its character we must bear in mind that it exists in at least three distinct texts. For in addition to the Hebrew text, we have two widely differing Greek texts and, as pointed out, the Greek is considerably longer than the Hebrew. The main difficulty regards the identity of Ahasuerus, the name as it stands in the Hebrew text undoubtedly represents Xerxes, but it does not follow that it was Xerxes who was originally meant. We have already pointed out one chronological difficulty, viz., the improbable age of Mardochai at the time of the events recorded. And that there was always some doubt regarding the identity of Ahasuerus is clear from the fact that in the Greek text he is always called Artaxerxes. Further, while the names of Mardochai and Esther are Babylonian, thus according with the statement about Nabuchodonosor, 2:6, the picture as a whole is Persian and the author betrays a remarkable knowledge of Persian customs. Again, it cannot be denied that the names are often symbolical, thus Mardochai means "the beloved of Marduk or Merodach," Esther is "Istar"; it is remarkable, too, that Aman should be called of the race of Agag, Esther 3:1, 3:10, 8:3, 9:24, cf. 1 Samuel 15:32; in the Greek additions he is termed a Bugite, 12:6, and again a Macedonian, 16:10-14. Thus it would appear that Aman stands for some symbolical enemy of Israel in the Hebrew text, while in the Greek he stands for the Macedonian Alexander the Great, the enemy of the Persian Empire. But, after all, the names are of small importance, they may have been changed, the text may have been corrupted etc., but the facts still remain. And nothing has ever been brought forward to prove the impossibility of the facts stated in Esther. The book was intended to explain the origin of the feast of Purim, and it is an historical fact that this feast was a most ancient one.

Canonicity of Esther

Josephus, c. Apion, ii. 8, evidently reckons Esther amongst the twenty-two Canonical Books; in Ant. XI. vi., he uses indifferently the Hebrew text and the Greek additions; thus we note that (12) he calls Arnan an "Amalecite." Similarly, the king, for Josephus, is always Artaxerxes, not Xerxes. In 2 Maccabees 15:37, the 13th Adar is called the day before Mardochai's day. Later there arose doubts among the Jews regarding the canonicity of Esther because of its secular tone, for the Name of God is not once mentioned in the Hebrew text though frequent in the Greek additions. Some of the Fathers, too, doubted the canonicity of Esther, e.g. St. Athanasius and St. Gregory of Nanzianzen; but Origen in his Letter to Africanus defends the canonicity of the Greek additions, and St. Clement of Rome, I. Cor. lv., uses them without qualification. St. Augustine regarded it as canonical, and St. Jerome, while setting on one side the Greek additions as not occurring in the Hebrew, yet makes no disparaging remarks regarding them; according to his principles, however, he must have considered them as extra-canonical. The book has always figured in the official catalogs of the Church, and the Greek portions must be held to be included in the expression of the Council of Trent: "the entire Books with all their parts."

The Date

In the subscription, 11:1, the book is said to have been translated by one Lysimachus, at Jerusalem, and to have been brought into Egypt in the fourth year of Ptolemy and Cleopatra; but as there were four Ptolemies who had wives called Cleopatra, it is impossible to learn the date of its translation or its appearance in Egypt from this statement; the earliest of these Ptolemies was Ptolemy V., B.C. 205-182. In 9:20, we read of Mardochai that he himself wrote the letters, hence it is not impossible that we have contemporary documents employed; but the whole tone of 9:20-32, is against the idea that Mardochai wrote the book as we now have it in Hebrew.

Theological and Moral Tone of the Book of Judith

As already remarked, in the Hebrew text the name of God is absent, and were it not for the practice of fasting, 4:16, and the reference to a Providential choice of Esther, 4:14, we should have to class the book as frankly pagan. Possibly this is to be explained by the presence of the Jews in a heathen land where all expression of their religion was denied them, and where they had gradually absorbed the current ways of thinking; we find the same feature in the First Book of Maccabees. The greatest difficulty, to the modern mind, lies in the massacres of chapter 9, see especially Esther's request, 5:12-15, where she asks to have an extra day of slaughter allowed to the Jews. But we must judge of these things according to the ideas of the times, and it must be remembered that the Jews had received gross provocation from the cruel vindictiveness of Arnan.


by
Very Rev. Hugh Pope, O.P., S.T.M.
Doctor in Sacred Scripture,
Member of the Society of Biblical Archaeology, and
late Professor of New Testament Exegesis at the Collegio Angelico, Rome.