Queen Esther In The Hebrew Bible

I. Introduction
Throughout the Hebrew Bible, otherwise known as the Old Testament to Christians, God worked in a strict, disciplinary manner. The history of the Jewish people from their Babylonian captivity in 586 B.C., to deliverance from Haman and their oppressors in 473 B.C., was a direct result of God working fervently in their lives. What started out as discipline shaped into deliverance, because of a pure hope, faith, and trust the Jewish people maintained during trials and tribulations. Queen Esther functioned as an instrument of God to protect her Jewish people from the wicked ways of Haman and their oppressors during their trying times of possible annihilation. The years between the Babylonian captivity by King Nebuchadnezzar and the
All the days that it lay desolate it kept sabbath, to fulfill seventy years. In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, in fulfillment of the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord stirred up the spirit of King Cyrus of Persia so that he sent a herald throughout all his kingdom and also declared in a written edict: “Thus says King Cyrus of Persia: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people, may the Lord his God be with him! Let him go up” (2 Chronicles 36:
The author of the Book of Esther is unknown. Traditionally recognized as likely authors of this book are Mordecai, Ezra, and Nehemiah, but the accuracy of these conclusions have not been proven. After trials and tribulations throughout the years among the history of the Jews, they continue to endure a severe hardship in the story of Esther. However, not only with Esther’s faith, but the faith of the Jewish people triumphing over persecutors, the deliverance of the Jews by God will be pronounced…King Xerxes ruled over Persia and Media with magnificent grandeur, and viewed himself as sovereign to all his subjects. He held a seven-day banquet for everyone great and small in the garden of his palace quarters, and summoned Queen Vashti to be seen by all; for her beauty was admirable. When she refused to appear before the king and his subjects, he deposed her from being queen, and sent out a royal decree affirming that every man be master within their household. The time for a new queen has come. The king’s attendants went out and sought all of the beautiful young virgins in the citadel of Susa, to undergo a full year of beauty treatments and cosmetics under the rule of the king’s eunuch Hegai, and spend a night with the king when their time has come. According to the kingdom at that time, it was acceptable for a virgin girl to spend a night