The Hand Of God

THE HAND OF GOD

Scripture: Esther 9”18-23

Preached: January 18, 2026

Love’s Chapel

Wow! Ever thought that we’d see open antisemitism like we’ve been seeing lately? It seems to have died down a little … at least the media isn’t talking about it as much … they seemed to have moved on to other more “urgent” stories and events. Is this open antisemitism something new? Or is it just more out in the open now?

I don’t know who or what exactly is the driving force behind it but we do have some political leaders … some pretty high up … who may not openly declare that they are anti-Semitic but who do support groups and people who openly call for the elimination of the Jewish people and the Nation of Israel.

So where is God’s hand in all of this? I’m sure that the Jews living in exile under Persian domination wondered that too … so an unknown, unnamed author wrote the Book of Esther to explore and wrestle with this question. While it has been frequently pointed out for centuries and millennia that God is not mentioned anywhere in the Book of Esther, I feel God’s hand is all over it … and I also find the fact that God’s name is never mentioned … whether accidentally or on purpose … is the beauty of the author’s message. Just like with what’s happening with the Jews and Israeli today, we many not “see” Him … we may not “hear” Him … but that doesn’t mean that He is not very clearly at work.

On the one hand, the Book of Esther is an exciting, fast-paced story that has captured the imagination of the Jews for centuries. It contains all the elements of a popular romance novel:

- A beautiful, young heroine … Esther

- A wicked, scheming villain … Haman

- A Wise, older father figure … Mordecai

- And a laughable and inept ruler … Ahasuerus.

In the story, God triumphs … evil is destroyed … and everyone lives happily ever-after ... except for Haman.

It is no surprise, then, that the Book of Esther was so popular that … despite certain objections … including its failure to mention God even once … it made its way into the Jewish Canon … what we call the “Old Testament” … by popular acclaim. Beneath the light-hearted surface, however, the Book of Esther deals with some very dark issues … such as racial hatred … in this case, antisemitism … the threat of genocide … the evil over-weening pride and vanity of very powerful people in very powerful and influential positions.

The Book of Esther is what I would call an “historical fiction.” On one level, it is a work of fiction. As far as we know, none of the characters ever existed … but the characters in the story are set in a very real place during a very real time in Jewish history. And the person who wrote the Book of Esther paints a very accurate picture of the way that intrigue and the way that power worked in the Persian courts of his day. The early readers of the Book of Esther knew that the story and the characters weren’t real but they could certainly relate to the world in which the characters lived and moved and survived.

The Book of Esther is set in the Jewish diaspora … or Jewish exile … in Persia during the reign of King Ahasuerus … who was pattered after a real king … Emperor Xerxes. The real-life king, however, was nothing like Ahasuerus in the Book of Esther. Xerxes did rule over a vast empire that extended from India to the border of Ethiopia. As it was such a large empire, it contain ed a wide variety of people and ethnic groups. Non-Persians could attain high office in the Persian government.

In real life, Xerxes was married to Amestris … to whom he was married throughout his reign. He didn’t ban his wife from the royal court as Ahasuerus did. There is no record of a Haman- or Mordecai-type … or any non-Persian … serving as Xerxes’ second-in-Command. There is no record of a great massacre in which the Jews killed thousands at any point in Xerxes reign.

As I said, the author of the Book of Esther paints a picture of the world that Jews in the Persian exile could relate to and he used romance, intrigue, drama, and humor as a way to give them hope. The Book of Esther consistently lampoons their gentile overlords. Ahasuerus, for example, is a less-than-inspiring ruler who is an easily manipulated buffoon. Haman is an egomaniac whose vanity leads to his humiliation and downfall. The author uses hyperbole to high-light the excesses of the leaders of that time. Ahasuerus, for example, holds a banquet that last 180 days … that’s 6 months ... half a year. That would never happen and was impossible in the real world. In fact, every time you turn around in the Book of Esther, someone is holding a banquet … 10 in all … with the last two forming the basis of Purim … which is primarily a two-day banquet. But, as I said, the surface story … the romance, the intrigue, the drama, and the humor … masks, in a pleasant way, the author’s very serious intent … to teach diaspora Jews that it is possible to lead successful lives in the sometimes inexplicable gentile world in which they found themselves. In other words, he uses romance and drama, intrigue and humor to give them hope! Something that the Jews … and us, frankly … can use today, amen?