When I was in high school I worked in a seafood restaurant—Po Ed’s—owned by one of the members of our congregation. The place had his “marks” all over it. It bore his name. He had built most of it with his own two hands. By the time I came to work there, he had two main roles. He did the bookkeeping, and he roved the dining room, rubbing elbows with his customers and maintaining the ambiance. In the spring of my junior year he had a massive stroke, and after several days on life support, he passed away.
The restaurant never was the same. I worked there one more year before leaving for college. On many occasions I remember rounding the corner expecting to see him. At times I thought I heard him laughing and cutting up in the back room. He was the soul of that restaurant. Before I finished my college career, it had closed down; the building demolished to make room for some other venture by someone else.
At first glance, the book of Esther might seem a bit like that. Adele Berlin called Esther “the most ‘secular’ of the biblical books,” because it makes “no reference to God’s name, to the Temple, to prayer, or to distinctive Jewish practices,” such as obeying cleanness and purity laws. The more you read Esther, the more you keep expecting God to “pop up.” It’s no wonder, then, that the apocryphal version of Esther adds “God” in numerous places, as well as prayers from both Mordecai and Esther. Even a popular paraphrase, the Living Bible, inserts “God” twice in Esther 4:14 (considered a key verse for the entire book).
What do you do with a book of the Bible that never mentions God, shows his people behaving in questionable ways at best, and raises far more questions than answers? Martin Luther said he wished it didn’t exist! If, however, we believe it is inspired, the book of Esther must do more than simply exist. It must teach us some valuable lessons God chose to impart to His people.
Probably the biggest takeaway from the book concerns the nature of God’s providence. Dr. Ralph Davis defines providence as “That always interesting, frequently surprising way that God has of keeping His people on their feet in this world.” He goes on to say the main emphasis of Esther is “the ever fascinating providence of a never-slumbering God.” Even when God is “silent” He is at work! Even when God does not intervene in an overt fashion, He expects His people to serve Him. The book of Esther vividly teaches these truths!
Clay Leonard
