Esther
Co-incidence or Providence
The Name of God does not
appear in the Book of
Esther
Or does it?
Acrostics
• The writers of the Old Testament
sometimes used acrostics
• They would arrange their material so as to
commence the first word of each sentence
with the successive letters of the Hebrew
alphabet
• Examples of this are found in
Lamentations, Psalm 119 and Proverbs
31:10-31
The Name of God -YHWH - appears
over 6 800 times in the Old Testament
It is rendered LORD (all upper case)
in the NIV and other translations
It was regarded as too holy to
pronounce - Israelites did not wish to
risk “taking the name of the LORD in
vain” (a misunderstanding of Lev 24:16)
The rendering Jehovah arose when
the vowel points of Adonai (Lord)
were inserted between the consonants
For example, consider the simple
statement: “You have welcomed him.”
It records a statement of fact but it
so happens that the first letters of
the four words, “You have welcomed
him” spell YHWH
There need not be any significance
in this fact.
Unless, of course, the acrostic is
intentional.
‫יְהוָ֥ה‬
HWHY
“Let the king, together with Haman, come today to
a banquet I have prepared for him” (Esther 5:4)
‫ָיבֹ֨וא המֶ ֶּ֤לְֶך והָ מָ ן֙ היֹּ֔ום‬
today and Haman the king Let come
There are said to be 4 instances of this acrostic, (1:20;
5:4, 13; 7:7)
In the 1st and 2nd instances the Name is spelled by the
first letters of the successive words and in the 3rd and
4th, by the last letters of the successive words.
In some ancient Hebrew manuscripts, the letters of the
acrostic are accentuated
To be honest, this is not all that unlikely since the two
letters H and W occur with great regularity (the definite
article is formed by prefixing the letter H to a word and
the W is the conjunction “and” which can be used to
join words and also at the beginning of a sentence).
Esther in its
Historical
Context
Old Testament History - An Outline
Assyria
Babylonia
N Kingdom
A.
Joshua
(1240)
Judges
Egypt
United
Kingdom
(721)
(922)
Remnant
S Kingdom
(586)
The
Prophets
Ezekiel
Hosea
Daniel
Jonah
537 BC
Amos
722 BC
Esther
483
930 BC
Isaiah
587 BC
Haggai
Micah
Nahum
Habakkuk
Zephaniah
Joel ?
Jeremiah
Obadiah
Zechariah
Malachi
Esther in
Historical
Context
Return under
Zerubbabel
(537)
Events recorded
in Esther
(483
)
Return under
Ezra
(458)
“For such a time as this”
Understanding why you are
where you are
God used:
• The pride, militarism, insomnia and
moodiness of the king
• The courage of the deposed queen
• The advice of the counsellors
• An assassination plot
• The conceit and hatred of Haman
• The spirituality and perceptiveness of
Mordecai
• The hesitant intervention of Esther
• King Xerxes’ insomnia
Providence
• Providence is the continuous agency
of God by which he makes all the
events of the physical and moral
universe fulfil the original design
with which he created it
• It is “God’s attention concentrated
everywhere”
In relation to evil, God’s
providence is:
• Permissive. God permits free agents to commit
sin
• Preventive. God sometimes prevents sin that
would otherwise have been committed
• Determinative. God determines the bounds of
evil
• Directive. God directs evil acts to ends
unforeseen and unintended by the agents.
When evil is in the heart and will certainly
come out - God orders its flow in one
direction rather than another so that the
least harm will result (A. H. Strong)
“And we know that in all things
God works for the good of those
who love him, who have been called
according to his purpose”
Romans 8:28
See also Gen 45:4-8; 50:19-21; Acts 2:23; Phil
1:12-18