The book of Esther does not make any mention of God and this has led some people to question whether it should have been included in the Canon of Scripture. Martin Luther is reported as saying that he wished that the book of Esther did not exist. But it is included in our Bible and there is a good reason for it, even though there is no mention of God in any of the ten chapters. It is clear that God is at work in the events described in this book despite the lack of reference to His name. There are no miracles described either - such as the Israelites crossing the Red Sea on dry land or a stubborn prophet surviving after being swallowed by a great fish. But I want to suggest that God is at work invisibly in the ordinary events of Shushan the palace in Persia. This is closer to what happens in our lives. We may not benefit from God's miraculous intervention such as healing or raising the dead, and there may be times when we are oblivious to the hand of God. But He is still present and still at work even in the ordinary life events. The next Day Share will look at the subject of God's providence and explore the meaning and the implications of this for our lives.
In today's Day Share, I want to consider two things. Firstly, why is God not mentioned in this book? Secondly, I want to look at God's hidden signature on the book itself. For both of these I have drawn on the work of a Bible teacher who was a big help to me in my early days - the late J. Sidlow Baxter, the former pastor of Charlotte Chapel in Edinburgh. I never heard him preach any sermons but I used his book extensively in my private study when I was in my teens and twenties - Explore the Book by J. Sidlow Baxter. His writing is a bit old-fashioned and so I have taken his ideas and put them into my own words. By the way, Explore the Book is hard to obtain. I have a Kindle Version.
Why is God not mentioned in the Book of Esther?
Sidlow Baxter argues that this is deliberate and that it enhances its relevance and increases its impact for us today. Here is a quotation from Baxter
…. if God had been specifically mentioned in the story, or, still more, if the story had specifically explained, in so many words, that it was God who was bringing about all those happenings which are recorded, the dramatic force and moral impact of the story would have been reduced; for, above all, we are meant to see, in the natural outworking of events, how, without violating human free will, and without interrupting the ordinary ongoing of human affairs, a hidden Power unsuspectedly but infallibly controls all things. [Baxter, J. Sidlow. Baxter's Explore the Book (p. 527). Zondervan Academic. Kindle Edition.]
So Baxter is saying that if the writer of the Book had stated that God was acting in each of the events in the life of Mordecai and Esther, we would have missed the point. God works invisibly in the ordinary events of our lives even though at times we do not fully appreciate his intervention. God is still at work even though humans fail to grasp this. The writer did not specifically explain to us that God was behind the various events but this makes them all the more significant. This is true for us today. God is at work invisibly in our ordinary lives. Notice too that Sidlow Baxter mentions 'free will' and this causes many debates among Christians and non-Christians. If God is in control, does this not mean that we have no freedom of choice. To take a precise example, Vashti made a decision freely and deliberately to refuse to obey her drunken husband's command. But this was in God's divine plan so that he would bring Esther, the Jewess to the throne and put her in a position where she could influence King Xerxes and stop the massacre of the Jews. And yet God is not mentioned in any of these events. Looking back over my life, I now see so many occasions where God was powerfully at work - sometimes preventing me from taking a course of action which would have been contrary to His will and at other times he has opened doors for me to carry out His purpose in my life. My colleagues at work, for example, were completely oblivious to God's intervention but it was very real.
Sidlow Baxter acknowledges that there may have been other reasons why the name of God was not specifically mentioned. Sidlow Baxter makes the point that the Jews who were involved in the story of Esther were out of touch with God's plan for the nation. God had planned for his people to be in exile for a period of 70 years (see Jeremiah 29:10; 25:11-12) and he had raised up a deliverer who would allow the Jews to return to their homeland. The prophet Isaiah had named a person by the name of Cyrus, king of Persia who would allow Jerusalem to be rebuilt (even though Isaiah lived long before Cyrus was born - see Isaiah 44:28). The Persians conquered Babylon and so the destruction of Babylon as predicted by Jeremiah did happen. We read in the book of Ezra that this Cyrus made a proclamation allowing all the Jews to return to their homeland and to rebuild the city of Jerusalem and its temple (Ezra 1:2-4). But only a minority of Jews made the decision to leave Persia and to return to their homeland. So what we are reading in the book of Esther relates to the Jews who had preferred to stay in a heathen country rather than follow God's plan for the nation. Sidlow Baxter suggests that this is why God's name in not specifically mentioned. The Jews are acting in disobedience. But yet despite this, God still acts in providence and preservation of His people.
Sidlow Baxter also refers to a hidden inscription in the book of Esther. He refers to acrostics where the consonants making the word Yahweh are hidden in the text of the Book. There are four occasions where we find the following letters - I am not able to write them in the original Hebrew - JeHoVaH given in that order. It is a different speaker on each occasion. Sidlow Baxter provides more detail
In the first two cases the acrostic is formed by the initial letters of the words. In the other two it is formed by the final letters of the words. In the first and third acrostics, the letters spell the name backwards and the speakers are Gentiles. In the second and fourth, the letters spell the name forwards and the speakers are Hebrews. [Baxter, J. Sidlow. Baxter's Explore the Book (p. 528). Zondervan Academic. Kindle Edition.]
Here are the references to these acrostics but unless you are reading in the original Hebrew you will not see the significance of this (Esther 1:20; 5:4; 5:13; 7:7). There is also another acrostic spelling out another divine title - Ehyeh ("I am that I am") in Esther 7:5. As I am not a Hebrew scholar, I need to accept Sidlow Baxter's claim without being able to verify it. However, he is making a very interesting point that God did put his name to this book but it was in hidden form. It would not have been immediately recognisable by any casual reader. There is a lesson in this. Many people read the Bible and fail to grasp the significance of its meaning and do not see the hand of God in its writing. Most people live through momentous times and do not see the work of God in any of the events. When I studied history at the University of Glasgow in the 1970s, many lecturers were dismissive of those historians who saw the hand of God in history. I am not a serious historian but I have consistently observed the hidden hand of God in life's events in the present and the past.
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