Preview

Book Of Esther

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
450 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Book Of Esther
Book of Esther:
Esther lived in ancient Persia about 100 years after the Babylonian captivity. When her parents died, the orphaned child was adopted and raised by her older cousin Mordecai.
One day the king of the Persian Empire, Xerxes I, threw a lavish party. On the final day of the festivities, he called for his queen, Vashti, eager to flaunt her beauty to his guests. But the queen refused to appear before Xerxes. Filled with anger, he deposed Queen Vashti, forever removing her from his presence.
To find his new queen, Xerxes hosted a royal beauty pageant and Esther was chosen for the throne. Her cousin Mordecai became a minor official in the Persian government of Susa.
Soon after, Mordecai uncovered a plot to assassinate the king. He
…show more content…
He hated the Jews and he especially hated Mordecai, who had refused to bow down to him.
So, Haman devised a scheme to have every Jew in Persia killed. The king bought into the plot and agreed to annihilate the Jewish people on a specific day. Meanwhile, Mordecai learned of the plan and shared it with Esther, challenging her with these famous words:
"Do not think that because you are in the king's house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?" (Esther 4:13-14, NIV)
Esther urged all of the Jews to fast and pray for deliverance. Then risking her own life, brave young Esther approached the king with a plan of her own.
She invited Xerxes and Haman to a banquet where eventually she revealed her Jewish heritage to the king, as well as Haman's diabolical plot to have her and her people killed. In a rage, the king ordered Haman to be hung on the gallows--the very same gallows Haman had built for Mordecai. (Some translations read "impaled on a pole" rather than "hung on the gallows." In ancient Persia the precursor to Romancrucifixion was done by impaling the body and hanging it on a wooden pole or

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    Cyrus (Kurush), the son of a Persian chieftain and a Median princess, united the various Persian tribes and overthrew the Median monarch around 550 B.C.E.…

    • 3342 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Queen Tetisheri Influence

    • 551 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Of all the royal women, the most important was the queen consort. If she happened to also be the mother of the heir-apparent, her stature further enhanced. The most influential queens of the new kingdom were as followed; Tetisheri the grandmother of Ahmose, Ahhotep the mother of Ahmose and Ahmose-Nefertari, The sister-wife of Ahmose, whilst having great influence over Hatshepsut, who later is known as one of the greatest Pharaohs.…

    • 551 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Xerxes’ kingship after Darius was from 426BC to 465BC, his accession being a decision finalised by the previous king from a number of factors as evident in inscriptions, reliefs as well as accounts by the Greek historian, Herodotus. It was not straightforward that Xerxes’ would succeed his father, and the sources provide dates and insight that factor out possibilities which may have resulted in Darius’ final decision.…

    • 540 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    King Darius of Persia was mostly known as Darius Codomannus at the time of his reign. He was the cousin of Artaxerxes III who was murdered by a eunuch named Bogoas. Bogoas raised Darius Codomannus to the thrown after killing Artaxerxes III and his son Arses.…

    • 346 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The book of Esther support raises several questions regarding the role of Jewish people and their survival. While another purpose of the book of Esther seemed to be explained in the origin of the Jewish feast of Purim.…

    • 54 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Ester Study Guide

    • 2195 Words
    • 9 Pages

    2. (Source Sheet 1, #6) Because the names are in Greek, we don’t know which Achashverosh is the ruler in the Purim story, so we need to look for a king with a huge empire of 127 countries. Rashi says he is after Cyrus after 70 years of Galut. There are 2 views: that he is Xerxes I according to Chazal based on Rashi, or Ataxerxes II according to the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Tanach.…

    • 2195 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    3. Teiresias, the blind prophet, warns King Creon that Polyneices' body must be buried to prevent a plague from terrorizing and consuming Thebes.…

    • 618 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The French girl that Elie meet while he was working said this to Elie to gave him hope and told him not to give up. She told him that what was happening to them would come to an end one day and they would be set free. She told him to keep his anger for another day, when they would be set…

    • 410 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Himself as the successor to the Persian king as the land's ruler rather than as an Egyptian…

    • 1011 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Legacy of Xerxes

    • 659 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Xerxes lived from 520 to 465BC. He was the grandson of Cyrus and son of Darius. Xerxes was put into succession according to the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, as Xerxes was the first son of Darius’s wife Atossa. Xerxes father Darius 1 died in 486BC, and this is where Xerxes took over for his father and became king.…

    • 659 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The country formerly had a man as a ruler, for some seventy or eighty years after that there were some disturbances and warfare. Thereupon the people agreed upon a woman for their ruler, her name was Himiko, She occupied herself with magic and sorcery, bewitching the people. Though mature in age, she remained unmarried; she had a younger brother who assisted her in ruling the country. She had one thousand women as attendants, but only one man. She resided in a palace surrounded by towers and stockades with armed…

    • 297 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    King Xerxes The King

    • 953 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Once a king is dead another shall take his place, as has been repeated throughout history. No different was the succession of the great King Darius after his death, his son Xerxes comes to power, to take his father’s place and rule the vast empire of Persia. What makes the rise to prominence of Xerxes so controversial is that Xerxes is the third born son of Darius which would normally name him third in line in competition with his two older brothers. So why was the third born son Xerxes chosen over the others to reign King? Two theories can be retrieved from this mystery, was it that Xerxes had a direct blood link to Cyrus the Great? Or was it that Xerxes was first born after Darius’s rise to the throne and that it was the will of the divine…

    • 953 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The reasons for the Egyptian revolt were mainly due to the defeat at Marathon, the protest against a rise in taxes designed to finance the military expedition to Greece, against the policy of skilled workers being drafted to work on building projects in Susa and Ecbatana and finally the corruption of the Persian administration. Xerxes was known to have suppressed the revolt very efficiently however the way he did it is considered to have been done harshly and that he had shown no mercy. He immediately sent armed troops to quickly demolish the rebel force. He confiscated their temples, thus earning the hatred of the Egyptian priests. Xerxes removed the two statues of Darius from Persepolis…

    • 462 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Cyrus the Great

    • 791 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Darius of Parsa. "Cyrus the Great." All Empires. 31 Oct. 2007. Web. 4 Mar. 2010. .…

    • 791 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    My reign was sufficient and completely beneficial to the Persian society, I deserve this power as even Herodetus the Greek writer said with “among all these immense numbers there was not a man who, for stature and noble bearing, was more worthy than Xerxes to wield so vast a power. I deserved to take the throne, and it was Ahuramazda's will. Other sons of Darius there were, but thus unto Ahura-Mazda was the desire – Darius my father made me the greatest after himself. When my father Darius went away from the throne, by the will of Ahura-Mazda I became king on my fathers throne. I am of royal decent and Achmaenid blood runs through me as I am Xerxes, the great king, king of kings, king of lands, containing many men, king in this great earth far and wide, son of Darius the king, an Achaemenid, a Persian, son of the Persian, an Aryan, of Aryan seed. I have legitimate reason to access the throne.…

    • 1155 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays