The pliant and obedient Esther has become a woman of action.Įsther appears unsummoned before King Ahasuerus, who not only does not kill her but promises to grant her as-yet unarticulated request. However, following Mordecai’s insistent prodding, she resolves to do what she can to save her people, ending with the ringing declaration “After that I will go to the king, though it is against the law and if I perish, I perish” (Esth 4:16). On pain of death she cannot approach the king without being summoned, and the king has not summoned her in thirty days, implying that she has fallen out of favor (Esth 4:11).
When she first learns of Haman’s plot and the threat to the Jews, her reaction is one of helplessness. When Mordecai learns of Haman’s plot, he rushes to the palace to inform Esther, weeping and clothed in sackcloth (Esth 4:1–3).Īt this point in the story, Esther’s character comes to the fore. He secures the king’s permission to do this, and a date is set, Adar 13 (this episode determines the date of the festival of Holiday held on the 14 th day of the Hebrew month of Adar (on the 15 th day in Jerusalem) to commemorate the deliverance of the Jewish people in the Persian empire from a plot to eradicate them. Mordecai refuses to bow before Haman, and this so infuriates Haman that he resolves not only to put Mordecai to death, but also to slaughter his entire people. All this takes place while Esther keeps her Jewish identity secret (Esth 2:10, 20).Īfter Esther becomes queen, her cousin Mordecai becomes involved in a power struggle with the grand vizier Haman the Agagite, a descendant of an Amalekite king who was an enemy of Israel during the time of King Saul (1 Sam 15:32).
She quickly wins the favor of the chief eunuch, Hegai, and, when her turn comes to spend the night with the king, Ahasuerus falls in love with her and makes her his queen. Not much is revealed about her character, but she is described as beautiful (2:7) and obedient (2:10), and she appears to be pliant and cooperative. She is identified as the daughter of Avihail (Esth 2:15) and the cousin and adopted daughter of Mordecai, from the tribe of Benjamin (Esth 2:5–7). Esther first appears in the story as one of the young virgins collected into the king’s harem as possible replacements for Vashti, the banished wife of King Ahasuerus (Xerxes I, reigned 485-465 B.C.E.).
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