Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 82:328 (Oct 1925)
Article: The Book Of Esther
Author: Charles Edward Smith

BSac 81:328 (Oct 1925) p. 397

The Book Of Esther

Charles Edward Smith

This book has long been, probably has always been, a stumbling block to interpreters by reason of the peculiar and essential difference of its contents from those of all other books. One difference alone—the absence of the name of God from its pages—is sufficient to raise the question whether it rightfully belongs in the Bible, and how it ever got placed in the canon. Ingenious attempts have been made to account for this remarkable omission, but none have proved really satisfactory.

The trouble has been the assumption that this book, in spite of its wide difference from the other late Jewish histories, is intended to show Jehovah’s love and care for his chosen people, and we may therefore expect to find substantially the same manifestations of the divine presence and leadership in Esther that we find in Ezra and Nehemiah. Impelled by this assumption we try to read into the book facts which are not there, and attribute to Mordecai and Esther, sanctified character like that of the great heroes of Hebrew history of which the book itself affords no evidence. It is not until this unjustifiable assumption is abandoned and the book is judged by what it actually says, that we can arrive at any correct conception of its true character, and the real reason for its place in the Word of God.

With our eyes wide open to facts we soon discover that a good deal more is absent from the book than the name of God. There is no prayer mentioned, although the Jews are in utmost peril of being all massacred, from the least to the greatest. What a contrast this is to every other threatening crisis in Jewish history from the time of Moses to that of Nehemiah. How Moses interceded for his calf-worshiping Israel, and David prayed for deliverance from the Philistines, and Daniel prayed when in danger of the lions’ den! But what did Esther do? She fasted, and her maidens fasted, and she commanded Mordecai

BSac 81:328 (Oct 1925) p. 398

to fast. But not a word about prayer, nor apparently a thought; what an omission!

Again, there is no allusion to the former wonderful history of the Hebrew people, no heartening in this great trouble and danger by recalling the heroic examples of their fathers and their glorious victories over their enemies. And, of course, no sublime confidence that the danger will prove only apparent, and deliverance be certain. The words of Esther when she announced her decision to go in, though uninvited, before the king, have no ring of cheerful hope or assurance of success, but rather the gloom of a great fear, and almost a presentiment of utter failure. “If I perish, I perish,” sounds very much like “I expect to perish.”