Sersonage, depends on the historicity of the look of Est (see below), her name not being men- tioned in any other tmok of the (>T, nor anywhere else in pre-Alex. literature. The only queen of Xerxes mentioned by Herodotus (vii. 61, 82, 114; ix. 108-112; cf. Ctesias, 20) is Amestris, a cruel and superstitious woman, whom some (Scaliger, PfeifTer, Eichhom, Bertholdt, Bunsen, Sliickard, etc.) would identify with Esther. But Amestris was a daughter of a Pers. general connected with the royal family, and the chronology and circum- stances of her reign cannot be reconciled with the biblical account either of E. or of Vashti. Xerxes (like his predecessors) may have had more wives than one, but, according to Pers. custom, they must have been taken from some of the great families connected with the throne, or from some other royal house ; and the most tenable hypo- thesis seems to be that E. (as well as Vashti) was merely the chief favourite of the seraglio, gaining
a remarkable influence over the foolish and cap ricious monarch, and using that influence at a critical moment for the benefit of her Jewish com- patriots. While there are some things recorded of E. that offend our Christian feelin" — in particulai her \'indictive treatment of the bodies of Haraan'a sons (9"), and her request for an extension of time to the Jews at Susa for the slaughter of their enemies (9"), — regard must be had to the spirit of the age in which she lived, and to the passions that had been excited by Haman's inhuman malignity. On the other hand, her devotion to the cause of her oppressed nationality (' I will go in unto the king ; and if I perish, I perish '), and her dutiful bearin" towards her foster-father, notwithstanding the sudden rise in her fortunes, explain the honour in which her memory has been held by her country- men. J. A. M'Clymont.
ESTHER, BOOK OF.— I. Canonicity.— Est is one of the latest of the Uagiogranka or Kethuhim, the third and latest accretion of the OT Canon. It may have been among ' the other books of the Fathers' which the Gr. translator of Sir (B.C. 132) mentions (in his Prologue) along with the ' Law and the Prophets' as well known to his grand- father, the author of that book (c. B.C. 180) ; but this seems unlikely, in view of the fact that neither Esther nor Mordecai is mentioned in the Traripuv vfivoi towards the close of the book. The earlie.st undoubted reference to E. is in Jos. (c. Ap. i. 8), who includes it among the 22 books long held sacred (Snaius Sfia jreTricrrevfi^ya), as is evident from the terminus ad quern which he assigns to the history {fiexpl ttj$ 'Afna^^p^ov llepautv jSafftX^wy dpxvs), Artaxerxes being, in Josephus as in the Sept., erroneously identified with Ahasuerus. The secular and foreign character of the book * gave rise among the Jews of the Ist and 2nd cent, of the Christian era to questionin'js as to its right to a place in the Canon. In the Jerus. Talm. [Meg. 70. 4) there is a statement that 85 elders, including more than 30 prophets, had scruples about the recognition of the Feast of Purim (at which the Book of Est was publicly read) because there was no sanction for it m the law of Moses ; and elsewhere {liab. Meg. la) we find traces of various difliculties felt by liabbis as to the full inspiration of the book. It appears certain, however, that it formed an integral part of the Jewish Canon when the latter was virtually, if not formally, closed at the Councils of Jerus. and Jamnia in the Ist cent. A.D., as the .same books that are in our OT are implied (numerically) in ch. 14 of 2 Es, which was written in end of 1st cent., anil are embodied in the Mishna, committed to writing by K. Judah I. about A.D. 200. Breathing a sj)irit of intense patriotLsm, the book soon became popular with the Jews, and its annual reading in the synagogue was accompanied with lively tokens of sympathy on the part of the congregation, while the reader pronounced the names of Haman's 10 sons in one breath to indicate that they all expired at the same moment, the names being written by the scribes in large letters in 3 perpendicular lines of 3, 3, 4 to signify that the 10 men were hung on 3 parallel cords. Although the last of the 5 Megillolh or Hulls which were read at 5 dilferent feasts.t it came to be known as the Uoll {Megillah) par excellence, and we may judge of the honour in which it was held from a saymg of Maimonides (Carpzov, Intr. xx. § G), that in the days of the Messiah the only Scriptures left would be the Law and the ItoU. I'he excessive love which the Jews
* The name of Oofl if( never mentioned in it, but the king ol Persia 1^7 liinett, and h'm l<in^dom 'JO timeii ; while the nearest ftI)Itn>aoh to any reco^'riition of relit,nnn is to be found in thi ftustiii^ of 4'*, and jmssiitly also in the conrtdence expressed in O*
t The order is dilTerent in the Kng. Bililo, as also Id the Sept and Vulg., where Est closes the historical books.