The book of Esther is a strange book of the Bible. In Esther God is not mentioned by name or by attribute at all. The temple is never mentioned. No one prays that it was recorded. Fasting is mentioned but not prayer. The timeline tells us that after the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 586 BC it was about 108 years into the Babylonian captivity that Esther became queen of Persia in 478 BC. It was about 20 years later that Ezra led the first group of Jews back to Jerusalem and only a few years after that when Nehemiah led his group back. Esther and Mordecai were a part of the group that chose to remain in Babylon long after the remnant returned.
What does all of this historical fact tell us? The Esther and Mordecai grew up in a world without God. They grew up in pagan Persia. They were Jews in name only, not by any signs of an active spiritual life. God is not mentioned in Esther because God was not a part of Mordecai's life. He wrote the book, not her. It was all political intrigue and political power and human effort to him. We read more into the book of Esther than entered into the mind of the man who wrote her story.
We see the hand of God at work in Esther. We see the enemy at work to kill and destroy. We see things happening that to us prove that God was at work even though to Esther God was not a factor. We think that because it is included in the Bible God must be in it. But 100+ years of no God is hard to overcome on your own in a pagan king's palace.
One other book of the Bible does not mention God at all. Do you know which book that is?
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