Esther’s Story

Esther was a Jewish orphan raised by her cousin Mordecai in the Persian capital of Susa. She and Mordecai were of the tribe of Benjamin, descended from Kish. The events recorded in Esther take place during the reign of the Persian king Ahasuerus, commonly identified with Xerxes I, in the years following the Babylonian captivity and Persia's conquest of Babylon.

Esther's story takes place after the first group of Jewish exiles had already returned to Jerusalem under Zerubbabel and rebuilt the temple, but before the later ministries of Ezra and Nehemiah in Jerusalem. This means the Book of Esther appears earlier in the canon than some books whose events actually happened before it, making its place in Old Testament chronology easy to misunderstand.

After Queen Vashti was removed from her position, Esther was brought into the king's household and was eventually chosen as queen. At Mordecai's direction, she did not initially reveal that she was Jewish. Meanwhile Haman, one of the most powerful men in the king's court, became enraged when Mordecai refused to bow to him and obtained a royal decree calling for the destruction of the Jews throughout the empire.

Mordecai urged Esther to intervene, warning that she may have come to her royal position "for such a time as this." Esther asked the Jews in Susa to fast for her for three days and then approached the king without being summoned, knowing she could be put to death for doing so. She declared, "if I perish, I perish." Esther ultimately exposed Haman's plot, Haman was executed, and Esther and Mordecai were given authority to issue a new decree allowing the Jews to defend themselves.

The Jews' deliverance became the basis for the annual Feast of Purim. The name comes from the word pur, meaning the lot Haman had cast in selecting the time for his planned destruction of the Jews.