Esther's Story
After the Assyrians conquered the Northern Kingdom, another great power arose in the land known as Babylon. When the Babylonians conquered the Southern Kingdom of Judah and destroyed the first temple of King Solomon, they carried off all of the remaining Jewish people as slaves. This period has been known since then as the Babylonian captivity.
The Babylonian captivity is remembered as one of the darkest periods in the history of God’s people. But many heroes and prophets kept the flame of faith in God alive even when we were surrounded by those who hated the Jewish people and our lives would have been easier if we just gave up our belief in the Lord our God and followed the pagan gods.
After many generations in exile, Babylon went the way of all earthly powers and was itself conquered by another great empire—The Persian Empire, which is located in what is now modern day Iran. The Great Kings of Persia were more favorable towards the Jewish people and the let us live and worship the Lord God. The Persian king, Cyrus, decreed that the Jews could return to the Holy Land. Another King, Ahasuerus, known to the Greeks as King Xerxes (ZERK-sees) let the Jews arm and defend themselves from those who would persecute them.
Xerxes was looking for a wife and chose me from among all the women in the empire because of my beauty, but he did not know that I was a Jew. Even though the Persian kings were more favorable to the Jews than the Babylonians, we were initially still second class citizens in their empire.
Xerxes’ vizier, Haman, plotted to kill all the Jews because my guardian, Mordecai (MORE-de-k-eye) refused to do him homage. Mordecai would bow to no human, only to the Lord God. I told my husband, Xerxes, of the plot and pleaded for the Jewish people and he deposed the vizier who plotted against the Jews and made Mordecai his new chief advisor. It was this saving event that the Jews remember even today in the feast of Lots.
It was under the Persian empire that the Jews who were in exile returned to the Holy Land and began to rebuild the temple that was destroyed by the Babylonians. The Jewish people were free for a time, but routinely came under the dominion of the great empires. After the Persians, the Holy Land was conquered by the Greeks, led by Alexander the Great, and after the Greeks, it was conquered by the Roman Empire. Like the Persians, the Greeks and Romans let the Jews worship God as we saw fit, as long as we paid our taxes to support the empire.
By the time of Jesus, the Temple had been destroyed and rebuilt, the 12 tribes reduced to the Jews and a remnant of the Levites, and God’s kingdom had been conquered by many different empires. The people often wondered where God was during these trials and God sent many prophets. These prophets promised a savior for Israel and for all human kind. It is the prophets that we will study next month. This is fitting because the Church observes the season of Advent to prepare ourselves for the coming of the promised savior, Jesus Christ.