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:
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together this Man and this Woman in holy Matrimony.”
—Book Of Common Prayer, The. Solemnization of Matrimony, Exhortation, (1662)
“There comes Poe, with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge,
Three-fifths of him genius, and two-fifths sheer fudge.
Who talks like a book of iambs and pentameters,
In a way to make people of common sense damn metres,
Who has written some things quite the best of their kind,
But the heart somehow seems all squeezed out by the mind.”
—James Russell Lowell (18191891)
“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.