The virtues of the Jewish heroine were emphasized in the Austrian dramatist Franz Grillparzer's unfinished play Esther (1848), and other treatments included J.A. As chapter one of Esther begins, we read that King Xerxes was throwing a huge party. He became King of Persia in 485BC at the age of 33. The hero of the Book of Esther is a Jewish woman who lived in Susa and became queen when she was chosen to be the wife of King . *Admon (Gorochow). At first violently opposed to the Bolsheviks, she later became a leader of the Kombund, and in May 1921 voted for the self-liquidation of the Bund and joined the Communist Party. During the second banquet, Queen Esther revealed her origin to the king, begged for her life and the life of her people, and named her enemy (7:36). Whereas before they had been dismissive and even rude to her, now they treated her with the utmost respect and deference. The monarch of Persia, King Ahasuerus, was wealthy and powerful. The Queen had a strong faith. She was taken captive. The name Purim, or "lots," was likely given in a sense of irony, because Haman, the enemy of the Jews, had plotted to completely destroy them by casting the lot (Esther 9:24). Angry with Haman, Ahasuerus went into the palace garden. See the index, s.v. Many of the Jewish males had already served in the Persian army and they benefited from their military training. This was around the time that Ahasuerus began to look for a new queen after his first wife, Vashti, was deposed. Queen Esther, also called Hadassah, the heroine of the biblical Book of Esther, is considered one of the pivotal females in scripture because, according to Jewish tradition, she was divinely ordained to save her people from genocide. 2004. It said, Cyrus, the king of Persia, says, The Lord is the God of heaven. Her story is recounted in the Bible in the Book of Esther. The king held a party in his honor one day. Check out our fun Bible studies articles: facts about David in the Bible and facts about Daniel from the Bible. In doing so, she placed her own life at great risk. 2. Now, the king ordered that Haman be executed, along with his ten sons, on the very same gallows. It is one of only two books in the Bible named for women (the other is Ruth). To get around this, Esther convinced the king to give the Jews all of the weapons and military authority they would need in order to defend themselves against the slaughter. https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/esther, ELIZABETH KNOWLES "Esther One of the biggest challenges she faced was convincing her husband, King Xerxes, to spare the Jewish people from destruction. 2 Then the king's personal attendants proposed, "Let a search be made for beautiful young virgins for the king. If you purchase using the buy now button we may earn a small commission. The information given by Mordecai was written in the book, and this was the beginning of Haman's downfall (Esth. She would enter in the evening and return in the morning to the second harem, where she was kept in the care of Shaashgaz, the king's eunuch, who was in charge of the concubines. The dark room does not dim the candle flame. So were the princes and the nobles of the territories he ruled over. Louise Lombard, Thomas Kretschmann, F. Murray Abraham, Jurgen Prochnow, Ornella Muti; D: Raffaele Mertes. In the end, Queen Esther and her Uncle Mordecai succeed in saving their . The quest for a new queen began soon after. ." Well, we are told that Ahasuerus married her in the seventh year of his reign (Esther 2:16), and we know that Xerxes I reigned for 21 years. One of the few works on the subject in the second half of the 18th century was K. Ditters von Dittersdorf's oratorio La liberatrice del popolo giudaico nella Persia o sia l'Esther (1773). He does NOT want the people around us to affect us. Does the devil have power to make us sick? But as we said earlier, believers are called to live in the world with all the other people. Mordecai was elevated to a prominent position in the kings court following Hamans death (10:13). "Queen Esther," hyperhistory.net, http://www.hyperhistory.net/apwh/bios/b1estherp1mw.htm (January 6, 2005). She had been orphaned as a child and raised by her cousin Mordecai. MICHAEL KENNEDY and JOYCE BOURNE "Esther Any information you provide to us via this website may be placed by us on servers located in countries outside the EU if you do not agree to such placement, do not provide the information. At this time, the Israelites were also known as Jews. https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/esther-0, "Esther 3. Esther, an opera by Jan Meyerowitz with text by Langston Hughes, was written in 1956. In 478 B.C., Esther became the queen of Persia. Esther was a young woman with a God gifted appearance. Esther's memory is also preserved in two fourteenth-century Judeo-Persian (Fars in Hebrew letters) epics, Ardashr-nma (The book of Ardashr [Ahasuerus]), and Ezra-nma (The book of Ezra) by the Iranian Jewish poet Mowln Shhn. Share Based on Biblical information and historical data recorded, it is stated that King Ahasuerus could have been anywhere between 37 and 40 years old while Esther would have been anywhere between 14 and 16 years of age. In art the Book of Esther is represented in the cycle of paintings from the third-century synagogue at *Dura-Europos and also in the ninth-century mural in the basilica of San Clemente in Rome. When Queen *Vashti fell into disgrace because of her disobedience to King *Ahasuerus, Esther was among the beautiful virgins chosen to be presented to the king (1:192:8). World Encyclopedia. King Xerxes held a big dinner in Esthers honor. According to some sources, the tomb of Esther and Mordecai in Hamadan, Iran, which is considered the most important pilgrimage site for Iranian Jews, houses the remains of Esther and Mordecai. Say: The King asked the wise men around him what he should do about Queen Vashti. Queen Esther uncovered Haman's plot and fought to thwart it. With Mordecai and the Persian King, we see her humility. . Historia de Esther y Mardocheo (1781). The story of Esther begins with a king's banquet. According to one translation of events, she refused to appear at the banquet "wearing her royal crown." Esther was faced with many challenges as queen. Esther would then be aged18 when she wins the beauty contest, 22 when she becomes queen (Esther 2:16-17), and 27 when she helps to defeat Haman's genocide scheme. We hope you love our recommendations for products and services! 4a), they were obliged to hear. As his first bit of counsel, he told her to conceal the fact that she was Jewish. Esther's motive in inviting Haman to the banquet was that he should not discover that she was Jewish, and that the Jews should not say: "We have a sister in the king's palace," and so neglect to pray for God's mercy. Please note: prices are correct and items are available at the time the article was published. If so, how is she the one? Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender: Culture Society History. Rabbah 6:5; BT . ), Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie, 1 (1968), 6837; F. Rosenberg, in: Festschrift Adolf Tobler (1905), 33554; P. Goodman, Purim Anthology (1960). Queen Esther was one of the most influential women of her time. The original target audience was theJewish people. At Esthers banquet for the king and Haman, she requested that they come again tomorrow, and then she would tell them what she wanted (Esther 5:4). To her adopted father, Mordecai, she was a dutiful daughter who was obedient to his wishes and heedful to his counsels. In brief the plot of the Book of Esther centers on Esther's fairy-tale-like good fortune, a destiny that transcends mere personal dimensions through the divine plan (although God is not mentioned in the Book of Esther) that turns her into a savior of her people. Anchor Bible, vol. The king signed Mordecai's new decree. His name was Mordecai. This time, she disclosed that she was a Jew and that Haman was plotting to kill all the Jews including her (7:16). Retrieved February 22, 2023 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/esther-0. When Esther was chosen to be queen, those close to her were very excited. He also remembered the royal order he had sent out concerning her. . Mishkinsky, Moshe; Spector, Shmuel "Esther Retrieved February 22, 2023 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/esther, Biblical story of a young Jewish girl named Esther who is sought as the bride of Ahasuerus, the King of Persia. Why did Herod like to listen to John the Baptist, who criticized Herods lifestyle? Haman was hanged accordingly. ELIZABETH KNOWLES "Esther She risked death with her refusal, but the king only banished her, using this as an example to all wives living in his empire. Lawrence Siamuyoba. It deemphasizes the comic and stresses the melodramatic elements and it is considerably more concerned with issues of Jewish ritual. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music. Still, there are many scholars who believe that Queen Esther really did exist, as events of her life show up in other historical records besides the Bible. 91m/C VHS, DVD . There is speculation as to the exact nature of this refusal. 460 B.C. people from KingHerod evil wrath to hurt them. Within the Cite this article tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style. With the revocation of the evil decree, Esther sent to the sages and asked them to perpetuate her name by the reading of the book of Esther and by the institution of a feast. Some scholars now believe that her story, recounted in the Book of Esther in the Bible, is actually a "historic fiction" with no basis in fact, and that it was intended as an allegory designed to teach essential truths. Special thanks to John R. Cross, The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus, GoodSeed International. ).She is identified as the daughter of Avihail (Esth 2:15) and the cousin and adopted daughter of Mordecai, from the tribe of Benjamin (Esth 2:5-7). (February 22, 2023). Sometime later, Mordecai discovered and successfully foiled an assassination plot made against the king by his chamberlains Bigthan and Teresh. Esther herself, a model of Christian womanly virtues, evidently represented the sponsor, while Vasthi (Vashti) represented the king's former mistress, Madame de Montespan, heightening the political implications of the play. Ahasuerus' grand vizier, Haman, is offended by Esther's cousin and guardian, Mordecai, due to his refusal . The choice is Esther, a Jewess, who follows Mordecai's counsel not to reveal her ethnic-religious origins (Est. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. At this point, the king entered the room and thought Haman was making a sexual advance on Esther. Esther then revealed all to the king: her petition for the Jewish people, her own Jewish heritage, and Haman's deceit in obtaining the decree. Mordecai suggested that maidens be again assembled as if the king wished to remarry and that Esther, aroused by jealousy, would comply with his wishes. But, because he ordered that Vashti be removed as queen, he could not bring her back. Mishkinsky, Moshe; Spector, Shmuel "Esther The most notable modern work on the subject is Darius *Milhaud's opera Esther de Carpentras, which dramatized the staging of an old Provenal Purim play with the threat posed by a conversionist bishop of Carpentras. The king had become drunk on wine and commanded that his wife, Queen Vashti come out before everyone to show how beautiful she was. She had lost both her father and her mother and was raised by her older cousin, Mordecai (Esther 2:7). "Esther." 2:7), a testimony to the practice of Jews having double names, as do the heroes in *Daniel. She acquired a wide Jewish knowledge in childhood, including Hebrew and Bible studies, and studied in St. Petersburg and Berlin. Vaillant's Romanian Legenda lui Aman i Mardoheu (1868), Joseph Shabbetai Fari's Italian Alegria di Purim (1875), and the U.S. writer Frank C. Bliss' verse drama Queen Esther (1881). When the book of Esther opens, the great-grandson of King Cyrus, a man named Xerxes, was king over the massive territory of Persia and Media. The kings servants who attended him said, Let a search be conducted in the kings behalf for attractive young women. Some of these include a series of six panel paintings by Filippino Lippi and Sandro Botticelli of the 1470s, known as Life of Esther, or Three Scenes from the Story of Esther; Esther before Ahasuerus (15461547) by Venetian painter Tintoretto; Ahasveros and Haman at the Feast of Esther (1660) by Rembrandt van Rijn; Esther before Ahasuerus by 17th-century Italian artist Artemisia Gentileschi; and Queen Esther (1878) by Edwin Long. Second, Esther, as a "hidden" Jew (together with the frequently noted absence of an explicit reference to God in the scroll), symbolized in mystical circles the hiddenness of the Shekhinah (divine feminine presence) in the world and in the Jewish exile. She took an active part in founding a network of Yiddish schools, courses for teachers, and other educational institutions. Thus Esther herself is of royal blood, a descendant of King Saul, worthy of royal marriage. The king also allowed the Jews to destroy the ones who were trying to kill them (8:114). When her cousin Mordecai angers Hamanthe big bad of the storyHaman decides her's going kill every Jew in revenge. ." King Ahasuerus has been described as a sensualist who enjoyed drinking and other forms of debauchery. 22 Feb. 2023
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