Esther (Heb. 'Estēr; Vulg. Esther)

ESTER (Heb. 'Estér; vern. Esther). – Jewish heroine after whom the eighth of the Hagiographa is named, and, in the Hebrew Bible, the fifth of the maghillath or “scrolls” used in the liturgy. Assuero (v.), having repudiated Vasthi, raised E. to be queen in the seventh year of his reign. When Aman the great vizier obtained, out of hatred for Mardocheo, E.’s cousin, the edict of death against the Jews of the Empire, fixing by lots (pārīm) the date of the extermination, E. courageously revealed her race to the king, accused Aman, and obtained the salvation of her people. Interwoven with E.’s intervention is the providential triumph of Mardocheo, who had once saved the sovereign’s life by revealing to him the conspiracy of two courtiers. Aman is killed, and Mardocheo takes his place; the king issues a decree ordering the Jews to defend themselves and destroy their enemies, which they do on the day fixed by Aman. Thus originated the annual Jewish feast, joyous and immensely popular, of the Pōrim, on the 14th and 15th of 'ādhār, that is, February–March, recalled by II Mach. 15, 36 as “the day of Mardocheo.”

To this narrative, complete in itself, of the Hebrew text, the Greek translation adds, here and there, seven chapters (the “deuterocanonical” sections), which St. Jerome groups at the end of his translation of the Hebrew (chapters 11–16): the dream of Mardocheo; the edict of death against the Jews; the prayer of Mardocheo and E.; E. before the king; the edict in favor of the Jews; the explanation of Mardocheo’s dream.

These sections, not belonging to the present Hebrew Bible, are nevertheless equally inspired (cf. already St. Clement of Rome, I Cor., 55; Clement of Alexandria, Strom., 4, 19, and the Council of Trent). The Greek text has come down to us in two recensions: one, which may be called the normal recension, in the majority of the manuscripts (A. Rahlfs); the other abridged, in codices 19, 93, 108 (attributed to Lucinus). According to Schildenberger’s careful study, the primitive Greek was a reworking, rather than a free translation, of the Hebrew original, produced by a writer who was himself inspired; it is preserved in the ancient Latin version; the normal recension was the work of Lysimachus (30 B.C.), who substituted his own translation of the Hebrew for the corresponding sections of the primitive Greek.

Non-Catholic criticism is generally opposed to the historicity of the book of E. and seeks elsewhere the origin and meaning of the feast of the Pūrim. It considers improbable the killing of 70,000 Persians by the Jewish minority scattered throughout the Empire, as well as the wording of the related edict and the lightness with which it was issued. Herodotus, IX, 108–13, knows only Amestria, a queen of royal blood and wife of Xerxes I. One would therefore be dealing with a fable (L. B. Patton, H. Gunkel), an Egyptian myth (H. Willrich), or a Babylonian myth (H. Zimmern, P. Jensen, and more recent scholars): Mardocheo–Marduk, Ester–Istar, etc.; Pūrim would be the feast of the beginning of the Babylonian year; to justify its celebration in Judah, the book of E. was written in the second century B.C.

Modern Catholic exegetes (Nikel, Fischer, Schildenberger) assign both the Hebrew original and the reworking of the primitive Greek to the literary genre of free narrative, or “historical narrative freely embellished,” agreeing with many non-Catholic scholars who admit a historical nucleus in the book of E.

Assuero (v.), Hebrew 'Aḇaḇnārāt, is undoubtedly Xerxes I (485–465 B.C.), whose capital was at Susa (Esth. 1, 2). The historical and geographical indications and the character of Xerxes, as they emerge from our book, agree with what Herodotus writes in Books VII–IX. In 483 (the third year of his reign), a banquet and preparations for the war against Greece (1, 3 ff.; Herodotus, VII, 8–19); E. in the king’s ḇarem (2, 8); campaign against Greece and defeat (480–479); E. is raised to be queen (479); after the defeat, the king turns his thoughts to his ḇarem (Herodotus, IX, 109 ff.). Massacre of the Persians on the 13th and 14th of ādhār 473. E. is called queen; but, in order to enter before the king, she must await his summons (2, 14; 4, 11; 5, 2), lives with others in the ḇarem (2, 11, 14); she may rightly be called a queen of secondary rank and a favorite, just as Vasthi was (cf., for similar cases, Herodotus, III, 31, 67–69, 88; VII, 2, 7, 64). Above all, the literary genre of the book must be kept in view. This should also be noted with regard to the massacre; even the number in the Hebrew text is not critically certain: the Greek (9, 16) has only 15,000; one should also bear in mind similar episodes of the ancient Near East: Herodotus, III, 76, 79; Dio Cassius, Hist. Rom., 68, 32. Moreover, through the royal edict, the Jews had the support of the local authorities. No explanation thus far proposed (apart from that offered by the biblical text) for the origin of the Jewish feast and the etymology of pūrim can be considered satisfactory, as L. Gauthier acknowledges. The feast celebrated on the 14th–15th of 'ādhār has nothing to do with the Babylonian feast of the beginning of the year

(in nīśā). The similarity of the Hebrew names to the names of Babylonian deities is only apparent or accidental. The Kültepe tablets establish the derivation of Hebrew pūr from Assyrian puru-sorti (Biblico, 21 [1940], p. 199). A cuneiform text studied by Ungnad, among the list of dignitaries at the court of Susa, contains a Mardultā, treasurer, rightly identified by Ungnad with the Mardocheo of our book: a valuable non-biblical testimony.

The author of the book of E. was familiar with Persian history and customs; he had the Persian annals (2, 23; 10, 2) and the writings of Mardocheo (9, 20) in his hands. He wrote in Persia around 350–300 B.C. The language itself, akin to that of Paralipomeni and Daniel, supports this date of composition. Schildenberger, however, postpones it to about 180.

Critics, exaggerating, have spoken of chauvinism and cruel hatred in the book of E., defining it as wholly profane. Its religious character, beyond certain significant allusions in the Hebrew text

(cf. 4, 14), is brought out in the additions to the Greek text. Nor are mitigating circumstances lacking in the moral aspect; the Jews fight the Persians who attack them (8, 11) and seek their destruction (9, 2, 5, 16). In the vengeance, the relatives are included, in accordance with the principle of solidarity then prevailing. Nor should one forget that the author often narrates events without in any way approving the conduct of the book’s characters.

For the text: D. Schütz, Das hebräische Buch Esther, in Biblische Zeitschrift, 21 (1933), pp. 255–76; A. Rahlfs, Septuaginta, I. Stoccarda 1935, pp. 951–73. – Commentaries: J. Schildenberger, Das Buch Esther, Bonn 1941 (cf. A. Vaccari, in Biblica, 27 [1946], p. 137 ff.); H. Gunkel, Esther, Tubina 1916 (non-Catholic); M. Haller, Esther, in M. Haller – K. Gelling, Die Fünf Megilloth, Tubina 1940 (non-Catholic). – Studies: L. Binet, Esther, in DThC, V. cols. 830–71; A. Bea, De origine unis pūr, in Biblica, 21 (1940), p. 198 ff. – Non-Catholic authors: I. Lewy, Old assyrian puru'sum and pūrim, in Revue hittite et asiatique, 3 (1938–40), pp. 117–24; A. Ungnad, Kellinschriftliche Beiträge zum Buch Esra und Esther, 2, Mardochei, in Zeitschrift für die alttext. Wissenschaft, 58 (1940–41), pp. 243–44; 39 (1942–43), p. 219; C. C. Torrey, The older book of Esther, in Harvard theological review, 36 (1943), pp. 1–10; 37 (1944), pp. 1–40; T. E. N. Pennel, Esther und Autoemitism, in Expository Times, 55 (1947–44), pp. 237–40; E. J. Bickermann, The solaphon of the Greek book of Esther, in Journal of Bibl. Literature, 63 (1944), pp. 339–62; D. Daube, The last chapter of Esther, in Jewish Quarterly Review, 37 (1946), pp. 130–47. Francesco Spadafora