The Book of Esther is a book in the Ketuvim ("writings"), the third section of the Jewish Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible) and is part of the Christian Old Testament. It tells the story of a Jewish girl named Esther who became queen of Persia and thwarted a plan to commit genocide against her people. Also called the Megillah, the book is the basis and an integral part of the Jewish celebration of Purim. Its full text is read aloud twice during the celebration, in the evening and again the following morning.
It is the only book in the Bible that does not explicitly mention God.
Read more about Book Of Esther: Setting, Plot Summary, Authorship and Date, Historicity, Historical Reading, Allegorical Reading, Relation To The Rest of The Bible, Additions To Esther, Reinterpretations of The Story
Famous quotes containing the words book of, book and/or esther:
“The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.”
—Bible: Hebrew Psalms, 90:10.
The Book of Common Prayer (1662)
“I am both a public and a private school boy myself, having always changed schools just as the class in English in the new school was taking up Silas Marner, with the result that it was the only book in the English language that I knew until I was eighteen—but, boy, did I know Silas Marner!”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“So Haman came in, and the king said to him, “What shall be done for the man whom the king wishes to honor?” Haman said to himself, “Whom would the king wish to honor more than me?””
—Bible: Hebrew, Esther 6:6.