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The Book of Esther tells a story of the deliverance of the Jewish people. We are shown a Persian emperor, Ahasuerus (loosely based on Xerxes, 485–464 B.C.), who makes momentous decisions for trivial reasons, and his wicked minister, Haman, who takes advantage of the king’s compliance to pursue a personal vendetta against the Jews by having a royal decree issued ordering their destruction. The threat is averted by two Jews, Esther and Mordecai. Their influence and intervention allow the Jews to turn the tables on their enemies and rout their attackers. This deliverance is commemorated by the inauguration of the Jewish festival of Purim on the fourteenth and fifteenth of Adar (mid-February through mid-March). The book confronts the modern reader with important themes, the evils of genocide and racism.

Esther’s character matures over the course of the narrative. As a girl she is recruited for the king’s harem because of her physical beauty. But at a key moment in the book, she rises to the challenge to risk her life for the salvation of her people. At that point, she transforms her status as queen from a position of personal privilege to one of power and public responsibility.

Esther’s uncle, Mordecai, appears first as an adoptive father, whose solicitude for Esther leads him to the king’s gate, where he foils a plot to assassinate the king. When he learns of the edict against the Jews, he encourages Esther to confront the king. The book ends with Mordecai as the king’s chief minister.

The Book of Esther

After these events King Artaxerxes promoted Haman son of Hammedatha, a Bougean, advancing him and granting him precedence over all the king's Friends. So all who were at court used to do obeisance to Haman, for so the king had commanded to be done. 


Mordecai, however, did not do obeisance. Then the king's courtiers said to Mordecai, 


"Mordecai, why do you disobey the king's command?" 


Day after day they spoke to him, but he would not listen to them. Then they informed Haman that Mordecai was resisting the king's command. Mordecai had told them that he was a Jew. So when Haman learned that Mordecai was not doing obeisance to him, he became furiously angry, and plotted to destroy all the Jews under Artaxerxes' rule.


In the twelfth year of King Artaxerxes Haman came to a decision by casting lots, taking the days and the months one by one, to fix on one day to destroy the whole race of Mordecai. The lot fell on the fourteenth day of the month of Adar.


Mordecai Refuses to Do Obeisance