Esther 1:1a-1l; 10:3a-3k (Epilogue); Job 40-41; Daniel 1, 7-8, Luke 1:46-55, Rev. 12, Psalm 15 LXX/16MT: 5-7.
Clearly I am dating myself when the Prologue and Epilogue to Septuagint Esther send me back to the time when my children were little, and encountered Elliott, that ridiculous green-scaled, pink-haired monster, who elicits from the orphan Pete the sentimental song “I Love You, Too!” This animated cartoon, or perhaps the Luck-Dragon of the Never-ending Story provide exceptional references to a good dragon, who in Scriptural, martyrological, and folk literature, is virtually always a symbol of evil. This week, as we begin our study of the extra bits of Esther, we will have to do with a good as well as a bad dragon, and what they portended for the exiled people of God.
The book of Esther as a whole is an unusual one in the Old Testament, and was debated for some time among rabbis before it was included among the holy books. From the beginning of the Christian tradition, however, it has been cited in its full form from the old Greek translations. Indeed, its heroine Esther is cited by some early fathers as the epitome of piety. It is, of course, the story of the young Esther who becomes queen through a beauty contest after her predecessor shames King Artaxerxes. Esther is supported by her pious uncle Mordecai, who is honored by the king because he has discovered that two of the king’s servants are planning to assassinate the monarch. Mordecai, however, has a notable enemy named Haman who turns the king against the Jewish exiles in his land, so that Haman is given permission to execute them all, including his rival Mordecai. Mordecai then calls upon his niece Esther to influence her husband the king, whose presence she cannot enter without a summons; all the Jewish people fast, hoping that her unsummoned audience will bring release for them rather than death for her. Esther’s plea before the king prevails, and he reverses his permission for Haman to murder the Jewish people, honors Mordecai again, and soon executes Haman who is publicly exposed as a traitor by Esther at a banquet. The king additionally gives his blessing that his own people help the Jewish people who may be attacked by those who have been influenced by Haman: the Jewish people are victorious. The language of “lots” is used at the end of the story, referring back to how Haman cast lots in order to determine the day that the Jewish people would be executed, but in fact the events shook out differently, so that the enemies of the Jewish people were destroyed. “Purim” is the word for “lots” in Hebrew as the Greek version explains (9:25), and so the day that was to be the Jewish mass execution is now taken as the feast of Purim, celebrated by Jews throughout the world. Indeed, Queen Esther establishes the feast by a royal proclamation, and Mordecai becomes second to the King.
Greek Esther, like Greek Daniel, is longer than the Hebrew version. Its additional parts add depth to a story of national triumph: there is not only a prologue and epilogue, but also other bits throughout the book that render it less a secular work explaining the origins of the feast of Purim, and more a tale to encourage God’s people when they are in extreme circumstances. At times the Greek version is more concise, but notable are its unique pasages: a vision and interpretation as frames for the book (1:1a-1r; 10:3a-3k), two edicts given by King Artaxerxes (3:13a-13g; 8:12a-12u), and two prayers offered by first Mordecai and then Esther (4:17i-17x). Besides this, the passage in chapter 5 where Esther enters the king’s presence without summons is given a theological foundation, for God is declared to be the One who softens the king’s heart so that she is not summarily executed, and then the Lord makes it difficult for the king to sleep once he has heard about Haman’s condemnation of Mordecai. Most scholars consider that these parts were added in order to supply the story with a clear theological component; some analysts, however, think that a later Jewish version of Esther stripped these parts away because Purim is a feast in which people are allowed to become intoxicated, and the rabbis might have feared that if the book of Esther contained references to God, the name of God might have been blasphemed by those not in command of their senses. Unfortunately, we have no early copy of Esther among the OT books found at the Dead Sea, and so have no way to adjudicate between these two positions. For Orthodox, it doesn’t matter, since we have confidence that the Holy Spirit of God makes sure, either by a developing tradition, or by the retention of an original one, that we have everything that we need for our instruction. As with the longer version of the gospel of Mark, which is not in our earliest manuscripts, extended Esther is our holy book. We learn not only from the overall story, but also from its visions, prayers, and copious references to the providential work of God.
Today we are going to read the prologue and epilogue, which present us with an apocalyptic vision and its interpretation, all of which are interconnected with the story. Here are those book-ends of the story of Esther:
In the second year of the reign of Artaxerxes the Great, on the first day of Nisan, Mordecai the son of Jair, son of Shimei, son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin, had a dream. He was a Jew, dwelling in the city of Susa, a great man, serving in the court of the king. He was one of the captives whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had brought from Jerusalem with Jeconiah king of Judea. And this was his dream: Behold, noise and confusion, thunders and earthquake, tumult upon the earth! And behold, two great dragons came forward, both ready to fight, and they roared terribly. And at their roaring every nation prepared for war, to fight against the nation of the righteous. And behold, a day of darkness and gloom, tribulation and distress, affliction and great tumult upon the earth! And the whole righteous nation was troubled; they feared the evils that threatened them, and were ready to perish. Then they cried to God; and from their cry, as though from a tiny spring, there came a great river, with abundant water; light came, and the sun rose, and the lowly were exalted and consumed those held in honor.
Mordecai saw in this dream what God had determined to do, and after he awoke he had it on his mind and sought all day to understand it in every detail….
And Mordecai said, “These things have come from God. For I remember the dream that I had concerning these matters, and none of them has failed to be fulfilled. The tiny spring which became a river, and there was light and the sun and abundant water — the river is Esther, whom the king married and made queen. The two dragons are Haman and myself. The nations are those that gathered to destroy the name of the Jews. And my nation, this is Israel, who cried out to God and were saved. The Lord has saved his people; the Lord has delivered us from all these evils; God has done great signs and wonders, which have not occurred among the nations. For this purpose he made two lots, one for the people of God and one for all the nations. And these two lots came to the hour and moment and day of decision before God and among all the nations. And God remembered his people and vindicated his inheritance. So they will observe these days in the month of Adar, on the fourteenth and fifteenth of that month, with an assembly and joy and gladness before God, from generation to generation for ever among his people Israel.”
I have spent a good deal of my academic career studying apocalypses, ever since I became interested in them in graduate school. What Mordecai sees is called both a “dream,” as we have in the first half of the book of Daniel, and a “vision,” as we have in the last half of that book (Esther 1:1a, 1:1k). As far as apocalypses go, this passage, with its delayed interpretation, is fairly short, and quite tame. We have no rivers of blood, no fire or slaughter, no demons stalking the heavens and falling to earth. However, the general imagery is familiar to those who read Jewish and Christian apocalypses: noise, confusion, thunders, earthquake, tumults, roaring, darkness, tribulation, and two great dragons ready to fight. There is also the typical apocalyptic connection between these dragons and the threat of warring nations on earth, which causes the righteous to cry out. Over against this dark and horrific imagery is the hopeful sign of a great and abundant river, light, the rising sun, and the exaltation of the lowly. It is perhaps surprising that this great river begins as a “tiny spring,” but this also is consonant with biblical apocalyptic visions, in which God uses the humble and meek, and brings about a surprising reversal.
It is interesting that the tableau before Mordecai (and thus also before our eyes) seems to include the whole creation—nations all ranged against God’s people, who are described as a single nation, and cosmic signs in heaven and on earth. This universal scope, however, is made to add drama to the single local danger felt in Babylon by the exiled people of God: it is as though their plight is a sign of the worldwide and time-wide persecution of God’s people, in which Satan enlists those who do not worship the true God. Mordecai’s vision is introduced like the visions of Daniel, with the pedigree of Mordecai given (Mordecai of the tribe of Benjamin, Daniel of Judah, Daniel 1:6), the time according to the year of the king’s reign (Dan 7:1; 8:1), and so on. We are certainly to take Mordecai’s dream as a revelation of great import, so that it adds a luster and significance to the story that is to come. The story is not simply local, but is an emblem of the great battle between good and evil.
It does seem odd that good and evil are presented in the form of warring dragons. In Daniel 7, various dragon-like beasts are bested by one “like a Son of Man;” in Rev 12, the dragon and his angels are conquered by “the blood of the Lamb” and the firm witness of his followers. The apocalyptic traditions show us beasts versus the Human One, a dragon versus the Lamb. But in Mordecai’s vision are two dragons, preparing to fight a battle that does not materialize, but is fended off by prayer, God’s action, and the little stream. And, indeed, the two dragons are not the main characters of the vision, for they are simply Haman and Mordecai, as Mordecai interprets them—supporting characters to the real plot, in which God, through Esther, brings salvation. As Mordecai brings the interpretation to its climax: “And my nation, this is Israel, who cried out to God and were saved. The Lord has saved his people; the Lord has delivered us from all these evils; God has done great signs and wonders, which have not occurred among the nations.”
Why not a good dragon, then? For God can use anything, including a little stream, or a girl in a beauty pageant, and he can use a stubborn exile in Babylon who refuses to pay homage to the king, as Mordecai did. He is quite a dragon! We may be reminded of the fact that everything in creation is God’s handiwork, and gives praise to Him, either voluntarily or involuntarily. There is that strange passage in Job where God speaks with a certain amount of pride to Job about Behemoth and then Leviathan, that dragon-like creature with terrible teeth, scales, and sparks of fire shooting from his mouth: “Strength dwells in his neck, and destruction runs before him…His heart is as hard as stone…When he turns he is a terror” (Job 41:1-26). It is this one, God implies, that may terrorize humans, but is a merely like a pet whom God “can play as with a bird” (46:29), or who, as the Psalmist puts it, “sports” in the water that God has prepared for him (Psalm 103:26). From God’s perspective, then, there can be a “good” dragon, and Mordecai has been placed in Babylon for God’s purposes just as Leviathan is placed in the waters. Then, of course, who can forget the huge sea creature that God prepared to swallow Jonah, all for His own plan? To Jonah, the belly of the great fish was as Hades, dark and deadly, but in the strategy of God, that whale had an honored place.
So, too, with Mordecai, who not only sees the danger that is to come, but also the hope—his own niece, like a pure stream, becoming a strong woman who pleads for her people, and wins them hope and light. In God’s plan, Esther and her people, who have cried out humbly to God, have a portion in the land of the living—this is their “lot” in life. It is not because of their prowess or power, but because they depend upon the God who raises up the fallen and rescues those who will perish without His intervention. Like the Theotokos, Esther could easily say:
My soul magnifies the Lord…for He has regarded the lowly state of his maidservant…He has shown strength with His arm, and scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty. He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy” (Luke 1:46-55).
And this, indeed, is what Mordecai also says, in so many words, making God Himself the only major actor of the vision, of the interpretation, and of the story itself. The Hebrew version keeps God offstage, only implying His presence when Mordecai asks of Esther, “who knows if you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” The Greek version that we read, however, begins and ends with praise to the God who “has done great signs and wonders, which have not occurred among the nations.” Moreover, it calls on all God’s people to remember what He has done, announced beforehand in vision, actively present throughout the story, and capped by Mordecai’s instructive interpretation. God remembered his people and continues to remember us in our extremity; let us remember Him in our cycle of fasts and feasts, calling out to Him and rejoicing in His salvation. Dark times come, and yet, with Mordecai, Esther, and the Psalmist, we exclaim: “The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and my cup; Thou art He who restores my inheritance. Portions fell to me among the best, and my inheritance is the very finest. I will bless the Lord who caused me to understand” (Psalm 15 LXX/16 MT: 5-7).
Edith M. Humphrey 