The Story of Esther, Revised to Furnish Purim with a History

See, e.g., Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions, translated by John McHugh (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1961), 515; Otto Eissfeldt, The Old Testament: An Introduction, transl. Peter R. Ackroyd (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1974), 508.

See the groundbreaking, early study of Charles C. Torrey, “The Older Book of Esther,” HTR 37 (1944), 1–40, and the restatement and development of Torrey in David J. A. Clines, The Esther Scroll: The Story of the Story, JSOTSup 30 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1984), 39–63. Following this thesis, scholars have put forth various suggestions about the original nature of the festival, before it became associated with the story of Esther. For a review of these approaches see Adele Berlin, Esther, The New JPS Commentary (Philadelphia: JPS, 2001), xlv—xlvi. See also William W. Hallo, “The First Purim,” BA 46 (1983), 19–26.

The most prominent Purim ritual that clearly marks it off as a day that commemorates the Esther story is the reading of the Megillah. This practice, however, is of Talmudic origin (b. Megillah, 4a).

The bracketed words are retroverted from the Greek, and likely fell out of the MT because of homoeoteleuton, i.e., the scribe’s eye jumped from the first לחדש to the second one. The Greek reads:

^{Esther 3:7} καὶ ἐποίησεν ψήφισμα ἐν ἔτει δωδεκάτῳ τῆς βασιλείας Ἀρταξέρξου καὶ ἔβαλεν κλήρους ἡμέραν ἐξ ἡμέρας καὶ μῆνα ἐκ μηνὸς ὥστε ἀπολέσαι ἐν μιᾷ ἡμέρᾳ τὸ γένος Μαρδοχαίου, καὶ ἔπεσεν ὁ κλῆρος εἰς τὴν τεσσαρεσκαιδεκάτην τοῦ μηνός, ὅς ἐστιν Αδαρ.

See discussion in Frederic W. Bush, Ruth, Esther, WBC 9 (Dallas: World Books, 1996), 380–381.

Indeed, the Greek Alpha Text version of the story more logically places the verse (without reference to “Pur,” and without mention of the date on which the lot was cast) after the king approves Haman’s plot and offers him his signet ring. See AT 3:7, which follows vv. 9, 11, 10. The lack of dating of 3:7 is consistent with AT’s version of 1:3 and 3:12, which are similarly undated.

It seems likely that the notice about letters sent to the provinces and peoples to the effect that every man should wield authority in his home and speak his language (Esther 1:22) is also secondary.

^{אסתר א:כב} וַיִּשְׁלַח סְפָרִים אֶל כָּל מְדִינוֹת הַמֶּלֶךְ אֶל מְדִינָה וּמְדִינָה כִּכְתָבָהּ וְאֶל עַם וָעָם כִּלְשׁוֹנוֹ לִהְיוֹת כָּל אִישׁ שֹׂרֵר בְּבֵיתוֹ וּמְדַבֵּר כִּלְשׁוֹן עַמּוֹ.

^{Esth 1:22} Dispatches were sent to all the provinces of the king, to every province in its own script and to every nation in its own language, that every man should wield authority in his home and speak the language of his own people.

The language of the verse is very close to 3:10; 8:9. Memuchan’s suggestion was merely that a law be written to have Vashti replaced. The news of this law would have the effect of strengthening male authority, but this would not itself be part of the law. The section comes to a perfect end with the previous verse:

^{אסתר א:כא} וַיִּיטַב הַדָּבָר בְּעֵינֵי הַמֶּלֶךְ וְהַשָּׂרִים וַיַּעַשׂ הַמֶּלֶךְ כִּדְבַר מְמוּכָן.

^{Esth 1:21} The proposal was approved by the king and the ministers, and the king did as Memucan proposed.

So, e.g., Carey A. Moore, Esther, AB 7B (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1971), 37–38. According to the analysis of several scholars, the Greek version of Esther known as the “Alpha Text” reflects a version of the Esther story that pre-dates our Masoretic version. Significantly, the original version of this Alpha Text did not, apparently, include the founding of an annual festival. For a presentation of the Alpha-text in Greek with an English translation see Clines, The Esther Scroll, 215—247. See also the more recent translation in Karen H. Jobes, “Esther,” A New English Translation of the Septuagint, Albert Pietersma and Benjamin G. Wright, eds. (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 424—439. For a helpful and accessible discussion of AT, its original form (referred to as “proto-AT”), and its potential significance for the development of the Esther story, see Bush, Ruth, Esther, 281–292. The issues related to AT are, however, much disputed. See the bibliography in Koller, Esther, 35–36, n.1.

Emanuel Tov has gathered a significant number of examples of biblical passages or sections that are (on other grounds) secondary additions, and that, because of their late origins, appear in different positions or sequences in different textual traditions. See Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, Revised and Expanded Fourth Edition (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2022), 252—253. Verse 7 may be another example of this phenomenon. Significantly, the verse appears in AT (without reference to “Pur,” and without mention of the date on which the lot was cast) after the king approves Haman’s plot and offers him his signet ring.

For a discussion of this redaction, and suggestion about the historical origins of the festival, see Amitai Baruchi-Unna, “On the Origins of Purim and Its Assyrian Name,” TheTorah (2018). Several scholars affirm that an original, pre-Purim story existed, but seem to assume that it can no longer be reconstructed from the present MT. See, e.g., Aaron Koller, Esther in Ancient Jewish Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 35–53. In my view, this approach is overly cautious. In contrast, some scholars take a source critical approach, arguing that the core story of the Megillah was built from a combination of two stories. See Sarah Japhet and Zev Farber, “Unraveling Megillat Esther: How the Story was Developed,” TheTorah (2016). My view is that the megillah began as one story, and that it is indeed for the most part recoverable.  

That the note that Haman cast a lot which fell on the 13^th of Adar is essential for the logic of the continuation of the narrative is one reason some scholars push back against seeing the 3:7 as a supplement. See Bush, Esther, 381.

Notably, the fact that we are told that date the messengers are sent but not the year, shows that the author is relying on verse about the lottery (3:7), which dates Haman’s casting of the lot to the 12^th year of Ahasuerus’ reign.

Notably, Haman’s request of Ahasuerus for a written law makes no mention that it is to be dispatched far and wide, or that letters would call upon the citizens of the empire to carry out the killing. A somewhat similar situation appears in the story of Daniel in the den of lions (Daniel 6). Here we are told that the administrators and satraps of Darius’ vast kingdom seek to bring about Daniel’s downfall. They therefore have the king write a law that prohibits praying to any human or deity other than the king for thirty days. Daniel learns of the law, proceeds to pray to God, and is then accosted by the administrators and thrown into the lions’ den. There is no concern with the fact that it would have been impossible for the numerous citizens of Darius’ vast empire to learn of the new law that he wrote concerning them. The drama requires ignoring this technicality. The same is true for the original Esther story. Haman asked that the destruction of the Jews be written in law. The king granted Haman his request, “and the law was issued in the citadel of Susa” (verse 15a^b). How it would have been implemented in concrete terms is made moot by the fact that Haman was killed.   

It is possible, though hardly certain, that the final editor removed some material that filled the gap between verses 1 and 15–16.

Verse 17 is also redactional, as it refers to the effect of the letters of Mordechai on the Jews (=joy) and Gentiles (=fear) throughout the empire, and prepares the way for the acts of vengeance of Adar, and the establishment of Purim. It corresponds to the addition of Esther 4:3 (see above) about the fasting and wailing of the Jews throughout the empire when they received Haman’s letters. 

According to the LXX version of Esther 8:9, Mordechai sent out his letters on the twenty third of Nisan rather than Sivan. That would make it ten days later than Haman’s letters of Esther 3:12, rather than two month and ten days. This would tighten the timeline of the narrative.

For this and other tensions between Esther 1–8 and Esther 9 see Clines, Esther Scroll, 37–63. In my view, some of the contrasts that Clines posits are imprecise because he sees Esther 1–8 in toto as representing the original story. 

For the etiological element as a secondary accretion in biblical narrative in general, see Isaac Leo Seeligmann, “יסודות אטיולוגים בהיסטוריוגראפיה המקראית” [Etiological Elements in Biblical Historiography], in מחקרים בספרות המקרא [Studies in Biblical Literature], ed. Avi Hurvitz, Sara Japhet, and Emanuel Tov (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1992), 11–45. The apocryphal book of Jubilees, for example, retells the story of the binding of Isaac of Genesis 22 in a way that allows it to serve as a “festival legend” for the feast of Massot! Jubilees 17:15–18:19. In the view of many scholars, late biblical authors expanded and reformulated the narrative in the book of Exodus so that it would provide a new foundation for the originally independent Passover ritual. See Samuel E. Loewenstamm, The Evolution of the Exodus Tradition, transl. Baruch J. Schwartz (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1992), 189–218.

For a recent discussion see Jill Middlemas, “Dating Esther: Historicity and the Provenance of Masoretic Esther,” in On Dating Biblical Texts to the Persian Period: Discerning Criteria and Establishing Epochs, ed. Richard J. Bautch and Mark Lackowski, FAT II 101 (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019), 149–168.