ESTHER (Heb. 'Estēr; Vulg. Esther). - Jewish heroine after whom the 8th of the Hagiographa is named, in the Hebrew Bible the 5th of the megilloth or "scrolls" of liturgical use. Ahasuerus (v.), having repudiated Vashti, raised E. to be queen in the 7th year of his reign. When Haman the grand vizier obtained, out of hatred for Mordecai, E.'s cousin, the edict of death against the Jews of the Empire, fixing by lots (pūrīm) the date of the extermination, E. courageously revealed her race to the king, accused Haman and obtained the salvation of her people. With E.'s intervention is interwoven the providential triumph of Mordecai, for having once saved the sovereign's life by revealing to him the conspiracy of two courtiers. Haman is killed, Mordecai 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 Haman. Thus originated the annual Jewish feast, merry and extremely popular, of Pūrīm, the 14th to 15th of 'ădhār, that is, February-March, mentioned by II Macc. 15:36 as "the day of Mordecai."
To this narrative, complete in itself, of the Hebrew text, the Greek translation adds, here and there, 7 chapters (the "deuterocanonical" parts), which St. Jerome groups at the end of his translation of the Hebrew (chapters 11-16): the dream of Mordecai; the edict of death against the Jews; the prayer of Mordecai and of E.; E. before the king; the edict in favor of the Jews; the explanation of Mordecai's dream.
These parts, not belonging to the present Hebrew Bible, are 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 normal, in the mass of manuscripts (A. Rahlfs); the other shortened, in codd. 19, 93, 108 (attributed to Lucian). According to the careful study of Schildenberger, the primitive Greek was a reworking, rather than a free translation, of the Hebrew original, carried out by a writer who was himself also inspired; it is preserved in the old 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 against the historicity of the book of E. and seeks elsewhere the origin and meaning of the feast of Pūrīm. It considers improbable the killing of 70,000 Persians by the Jewish minority scattered throughout the Empire; equally improbable the tenor of the related edict and the levity with which it is issued. Herodotus, IX, 108-13, knows only Amestris, a queen of royal blood and wife of Xerxes I. We would therefore be faced with a fable (L. B. Patton, H. Gunkel), an Egyptian myth (H. Willrich) or a Babylonian myth (H. Zimmern, P. Jensen and recent scholars): Mordecai-Marduk, Esther-Ishtar, etc.; Pūrīm would be the feast of the Babylonian new year; to justify its celebration in Judah the book of E. was written in the 2nd 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 account freely embellished," agreeing with many non-Catholics who admit a historical core in the book of E.
Ahasuerus (v.), Hebrew 'Ăḥashwērōsh, is certainly Xerxes I (485-465 B.C.), who had his capital at Susa (Esth. 1:2). The historical-geographical indications and the character of Xerxes, as they emerge from our book, coincide with what Herodotus writes, VII-IX. In 483 (3rd year of his reign), the banquet and preparation for the war against Greece (1:3 ff.; Herodotus, VII, 8-19); E. in the king's ḥarem (2:8); the campaign against Greece and the defeat (480-479); E. is raised to be queen (479); the king after the defeat thinks of his ḥarem (Herodotus, IX, 109 ff.). Massacre of the Persians on the 13th to 14th of ădhār 473. E. is called queen; but to enter the king's presence she must await the summons (2:14; 4:11; 5:2), she lives with the others in the ḥarem (2:11, 14); she may well be called a queen of second rank or a favorite, in the same way as Vashti (cf., for similar cases, Herodotus, III, 31, 67-69, 88; VII, 2, 7, 64). And one should above all keep in mind the literary genre of the book. This should be noted again for the massacre; the very number of the Hebrew text is not critically certain: the Greek (9:16) has only 15,000; let one think again of similar episodes of the ancient East: Herodotus, III, 76, 79; Cassius Dio, Hist. Rom., 68, 32. The Jews moreover, by the royal edict, had the support of the local authorities. No explanation attempted so far (apart from that offered by the biblical text) of the origin of the Jewish feast and of the etymology pūrīm can be called satisfactory, as L. Gauthier acknowledges. The feast celebrated on the 14th-15th of 'ădhār has nothing to do with the Babylonian feast of the new year
(in nīsān). The affinity of the Hebrew names with names of Babylonian divinities is only apparent or coincidental. The tablets of Kültepe assure the derivation of the Hebrew pūr from the Assyrian puru-lots (Biblica, 21 [1940], p. 199). A cuneiform text studied by Ungnad, among the list of dignitaries at the court of Susa, has a Mardukā, treasurer, rightly identified by Ungnad with the Mordecai of our book: a precious non-biblical testimony.
The author of the book of E. was familiar with Persian history and customs; he had in his hands the Persian annals (2:23; 10:2) and the writings of Mordecai (9:20). He wrote in Persia around 350-300 B.C. The language itself, akin to Chronicles and Daniel, favors such a date of composition. Schildenberger nevertheless postpones it to about 180.
Critics, exaggerating, have spoken of chauvinism and cruel hatred in the book of E., defining it as entirely profane. Its religious character, besides some significant hints in the Hebrew
(cf. 4:14), is brought out in the more of the Greek text. Nor are there lacking mitigating circumstances as regards the moral side; the Jews fight the Persians who attack them (8:11) and want their destruction (9:2, 5, 16). In the vengeance are included the family members, by the principle of solidarity then in force. Nor should one forget that the author often narrates without at all approving the conduct of the characters of the book.
Bibliography2 works
For the text: D. Schütz, Das hebräische Buch Esther, in Biblische Zeitschrift, 21 (1933), pp. 255-76; A. Rahlfs, Septuaginta, I. Stuttgart 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, Tübingen 1916 (non-Cath.); M. Haller, Esther, in M. Haller - K. Galling, Die Fünf Megilloth, Tübingen 1940 (non-Cath.). - Studies: L. Binet, Esther, in DThC, V. coll. 830-71; A. Bea, De origine unis pūr, in Biblica, 21 (1940), p. 198 ff. - Non-Catholics: I. Lewy, Old assyrian puru'sum and pūrim, in Revue hittite et asiatique, 3 (1938-40), pp. 117-24; A. Ungnad, Keilinschriftliche Beiträge zum Buch Esra und Esther, 2, Mardochei, in Zeitschrift für die alttest. 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