Jesse Johnson has another great post at The Cripplegate, this time about the book of Esther. (I previously linked to one about Ezra.) In “Why Study Esther,” Johnson delves into the mystery of why God is never named or explicitly mentioned in the book.
To drive this point home, Esther is the only book of the Bible that does not mention God or God’s name. In fact, the author goes out of his way to avoid writing it (consider the pains he took in Esther 4:14, writing an ambiguous sentence when every Jewish child would know God was the one working).
But this too is by design. No book of the Bible has its focus on God’s sovereign direction of history to the extent that Esther does. It’s masterful. It’s clear. It’s unambiguous. But it’s also subtly beautiful.
Only a fool would look at a backyard covered in animal tracks and declare that because the animals can’t be seen now, they must not have been there at all. Similarly, only a fool would look at Esther and imagine that because God is not seen on stage that he is not there at all.
At the end of 2019, I spent a few months saturating in Esther, reading it 20 times in a row. I agree with Johnson on the book’s high value. The full article is worth your time.
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