Esther
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- For other uses, see Esther (disambiguation).
Esther (Hebrew: אֶסְתֵּר, Standard Ester Tiberian ʾEstēr), born Hadassah, was a woman in the Hebrew Bible, the queen of Ahasuerus (commonly identified with Xerxes I or Artaxerxes II), and heroine of the Biblical Book of Esther which is named after her.
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[edit] The name
According to the Book of Esther she was a Persian Jewish woman originally named Hadassah. Both Esther and Mordechai's burial is in Hamadan, Iran. When she entered the royal harem she received the name Esther by which she was henceforth known. Hadassah means "myrtle" in Hebrew and the name Esther is most likely related to the Median word for myrtle, astra, and the Persian word setareh meaning star — the myrtle blossom resembles a twinkling star. As a result of Esther's benevelonce, Persian Jews lived in Persia, modern day Iran for another 2700 years even after the decree of Cyrus the great. Given the great historical link between Persian and Jewish history, modern day Persian Jews are referred to as "Esther's Children". Esther can also be understood to mean "hidden" in Hebrew, and her name is interpreted thus in Midrash, where it is told that Esther hid her nationality and lineage as Mordecai had advised. In addition God's workings are hidden in the events of the Book of Esther even though he is never mentioned explicitly. Therefore, in Hebrew, "The Book of Esther" can be understood as "The Book of Hiddenness," representing God's hiddenness in the story.
The Targum provides another Midrashic explanation claiming that she was as beautiful as the Evening Star, which is astara in Greek.
It is also possible that Esther is derived from Ishtar, Akkadian for the Evening Star. (Despite resembling Indo-European words for star, the Semitic "Ishtar" is unrelated, the root beginning with a pharyngeal ayin and the sh sound derived from an earlier th sound.) "Ishtar" was worshipped throughout the Middle East as a goddess. Some critics of the historicity of the Book of Esther seized on this as evidence to support a view that the story of Esther derived from a myth about Ishtar. However, in Hebrew the goddess was referred to by the Hebrew cognate of her name - Ashtoreth. "Esther" cannot be derived directly from the latter. The Book of Daniel provides accounts of Jews in exile being assigned names relating to Babylonian gods and "Mordecai" is understood to mean servant of Marduk, a Babylonian god. "Esther" may have been a Hebrew rendition of a form of "Ishtar" in which the "sh" sound had become an "s" sound.
[edit] The story
Esther was the daughter of Abihail, a Benjamite. She resided with her cousin Mordecai, who held some office in the household of the Persian king at "Shushan in the palace" and was responsible for thwarting a plot by Bigthan and Teresh, two palace guards, to assassinate the king.
Ahasuerus, having rid himself of Vashti, chose Esther to be his wife and queen. Soon after this he gave Haman the Agagite, his prime minister, power and authority. Haman planned to kill and extirpate all the Jews throughout the Persian empire, and gained the king's approval for this plan in exchange for ten thousand silver talents. This attempted genocide was averted when Esther revealed that both she and Mordecai belonged to the doomed race of Jews. The king, contemplating his love for Esther and recalling his gratitude to Mordecai, without whom he would have been murdered, ordered Haman and his 10 sons to be hanged on the gallows, just as Haman had planned for Mordecai. The king then appointed Mordecai as his prime minister, and gave the Jews the right to defend themselves against any enemy. A peculiarity of Persian law that also occurs in the Book of Daniel is that royal edicts of this sort could not be reversed, even by the king--by siding with the Jews instead of their persecuters, however, the King presumably dissuaded any pogroms. This precipitated a series of reprisals by the Jews against their enemies. This fight began on the 13th of Adar, the date the Jews were originally slated to be exterminated. The Jews killed three hundred in Susa alone, killing seventy-five thousand (fifteen thousand in the Greek biblical account) in the rest of the empire.
Jews established an annual feast, the feast of Purim, in memory of their deliverance. According to traditional Jewish dating this took place about fifty-two years after the return.
Esther appears in the Bible as a woman of deep piety, faith, courage, patriotism, and caution, combined with resolution; a dutiful daughter to her adopted father, docile and obedient to his counsels, and anxious to share the king's favour with him for the good of the Jewish people. That she was raised up as an instrument in the hand of God to avert the destruction of the Jewish people, and to afford them protection and forward their wealth and peace in their captivity, is manifest from the Scripture account.
For a discussion of the historicity of Esther, see Book of Esther.
[edit] Modern retelling
In 1718 Handel wrote an oratorio Esther based on a play by Jean Racine.
The play entitled Esther (1960), written by Welsh dramatist Saunders Lewis, is a retelling of the story in Welsh.
A movie about the story, Esther and the King
One of the parts of Amos Gitai's Exile series, called Esther is an updated version of the story.
There is a fictional book by Rebecca Kohn called The Gilded Chamber that retells the story.
A 1978 miniseries entitled The Greatest Heroes of the Bible starred Victoria Principal as Esther, Robert Mandan as Xerxes, and Michael Ansara as Haman.
A movie that reflects the exact words from the bible, Esther.
In 2000, VeggieTales, a company that uses CGI vegetables to teach children lessons from the Bible in a comical way, released Esther..._The_Girl_Who_Became_Queen.
In 2005, biblical novelist Ginger Garrett released, Chosen: The Lost Diaries of Queen Esther 480-465 BC.
A 2006 movie about Esther and Ahasuerus, entitled One Night with the King, stars Tiffany Dupont and Luke Goss. It was based on the novel Hadassah: One Night with the King by Tommy Tenney and Mark Andrew Olsen.
[edit] See also
- Vashti
- Mordecai
- Ishtar, Marduk
- In late 2004, the iconic singer, Madonna, changed her name to Esther.
- In 2006, accomplished artist Lilian Broca exhibits a series of mosaic pieces on the story of Esther in Toronto, Canada<ref>Lilian Broca web site.</ref>
[edit] External links
External links and References verified 2006-11-25 unless noted.
[edit] References
<references />de:Königin Ester et:Ester eo:Ester fr:Esther (Bible) he:אסתר המלכה ja:エステル (人物) nn:Estér fi:Ester ru:Есфирь diq:Ester
