The God of the Exodus...

Exodus 2:23-25

(23) A long time after that, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites were groaning under the bondage and cried out; and their cry for help from the bondage rose up to God. (24) God heard their moaning, and God remembered the covenant with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. (25) God looked upon the Israelites, and God took notice of them.

Exodus 6:1

Then יהוה said to Moses, “You shall soon see what I will do to Pharaoh: he shall let them go because of a greater might; indeed, because of a greater might he shall drive them from his land.”

Deuteronomy 26:6-9

The Egyptians dealt harshly with us and oppressed us; they imposed heavy labor upon us.

We cried to יהוה, the God of our ancestors, and יהוה heard our plea and saw our plight, our misery, and our oppression.

יהוה freed us from Egypt by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm and awesome power, and by signs and portents,

bringing us to this place and giving us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

The Exodus - a covenant that is conditional, faith proclaimed coersively:

Deuteronomy 28:1-2, 15

Now, if you obey your God יהוה, to observe faithfully all the divine commandments which I enjoin upon you this day, your God יהוה will set you high above all the nations of the earth.

All these blessings shall come upon you and take effect, if you will but heed the word of your God יהוה:

But if you do not obey your God יהוה to observe faithfully all the commandments and laws which I enjoin upon you this day, (then) all these curses shall come upon you and take effect:

Talmudic Midrash

“And they (the Israelite community) took their places at the foot (תחתית) of the mountain (Sinai)” (Exod 19:17) – Said R. Avdimi b. Chama b. Chasa: “It teaches that the Holy One, blessed be He, turned the mountain over them like a tub (גיגית), and said to them: ‘If you accept the Torah, well and good; and if not, there^[1] will be your burial.’”^[2]

Book of Esther - faith by how perceive the world and the events that surround us; faith in how we respond.

How who we describe the theology of "the Exodus," in both the Book of Exodus and the Book of Deuteronomy?

Now to consider the theology of the Book of Esther

No name of God appears in the Book of Esther.

Does this mean this is a secular (non-religious) book?

A "nationalism ...in complete indifference to God." (Bernhard Anderson)

What about the absence of religious rites? (4:1-3. 16)

The oddity of the Jews fasting on Passover, the fourteenth of the first month (Nissan)

Even more amazing is Esther's marriage to a Gentile.

If this is a story of a people in exile, we would expect a yearning to return to the Land of Israel - none.

That God is unnamed does not mean God is not involved.

How do you account for the extraordinary pattern of apparent coincidences:

- the timely vacancy of the queenship in the Persian court

- the opportune accession of a Jew to queenship

- Mordecai's discovery of the enuchs' conspiracy

- Esthers' favorable reception by the king

- the king's insomnia

-Haman's early arrivale at the palace,

- and Haman's reckless plea for mercy at Esther's feet

Could we say, "a coincidence is a miracle in which God prefers to remain anonymous?"

A hidden force arranges events in such a way that even against the most daunting odds the Jews are protected and delivered...Esther's God is one who works behind the scenes.

Esther 3:11-14

On the thirteenth day of the first month, the king’s scribes were summoned and a decree was issued, as Haman directed, to the king’s satraps, to the governors of every province, and to the officials of every people, to every province in its own script and to every people in its own language. The orders were issued in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed with the king’s signet.

Accordingly, written instructions were dispatched by couriers to all the king’s provinces to destroy, massacre, and exterminate all the Jews, young and old, children and women, on a single day, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month—that is, the month of Adar—and to plunder their possessions.

The text of the document was to the effect that a law should be proclaimed in every single province; it was to be publicly displayed to all the peoples, so that they might be ready for that day.

The couriers went out posthaste on the royal mission, and the decree was proclaimed in the fortress Shushan. The king and Haman sat down to feast, but the city of Shushan was dumfounded.

Esther 4:1-15

When Mordecai learned all that had happened, Mordecai tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes. He went through the city, crying out loudly and bitterly,

until he came in front of the palace gate; for one could not enter the palace gate wearing sackcloth.—

Also, in every province that the king’s command and decree reached, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping, and wailing, and everybody lay in sackcloth and ashes.—

When Esther’s maidens and eunuchs came and informed her, the queen was greatly agitated. She sent clothing for Mordecai to wear, so that he might take off his sackcloth; but he refused.

Thereupon Esther summoned Hathach, one of the eunuchs whom the king had appointed to serve her, and sent him to Mordecai to learn the why and wherefore of it all.

Hathach went out to Mordecai in the city square in front of the palace gate;

and Mordecai told him all that had happened to him, and all about the money that Haman had offered to pay into the royal treasury for the destruction of the Jews.

He also gave him the written text of the law that had been proclaimed in Shushan for their destruction. [He bade him] show it to Esther and inform her, and charge her to go to the king and to appeal to him and to plead with him for her people.

When Hathach came and delivered Mordecai’s message to Esther,

Esther told Hathach to take back to Mordecai the following reply:

“All the king’s courtiers and the people of the king’s provinces know that if any person, man or woman, enters the king’s presence in the inner court without having been summoned, there is but one law for him—that he be put to death. Only if the king extends the golden scepter to him may he live. Now I have not been summoned to visit the king for the last thirty days.”

When Mordecai was told what Esther had said,

Mordecai had this message delivered to Esther: “Do not imagine that you, of all the Jews, will escape with your life by being in the king’s palace.

On the contrary, if you keep silent in this crisis, relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another quarter, while you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows, perhaps you have attained to royal position for just such a crisis.”

Then Esther sent back this answer to Mordecai:

“Go, assemble all the Jews who live in Shushan, and fast in my behalf; do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maidens will observe the same fast. Then I shall go to the king, though it is contrary to the law; and if I am to perish, I shall perish!”

So Mordecai went about [the city] and did just as Esther had commanded him.

Esther 6:1-11

That night, sleep deserted the king, and he ordered the book of records, the annals, to be brought; and it was read to the king.

There it was found written that Mordecai had denounced Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s eunuchs who guarded the threshold, who had plotted to do away with King Ahasuerus.

“What honor or advancement has been conferred on Mordecai for this?” the king inquired. “Nothing at all has been done for him,” replied the king’s servants who were in attendance on him.

“Who is in the court?” the king asked. For Haman had just entered the outer court of the royal palace, to speak to the king about having Mordecai impaled on the stake he had prepared for him.

“It is Haman standing in the court,” the king’s servants answered him. “Let him enter,” said the king.

Haman entered, and the king asked him, “What should be done for a man whom the king desires to honor?” Haman said to himself, “Whom would the king desire to honor more than me?”

So Haman said to the king, “For the man whom the king desires to honor,

let royal garb which the king has worn be brought, and a horse on which the king has ridden and on whose head a royal diadem has been set;

and let the attire and the horse be put in the charge of one of the king’s noble courtiers. And let the man whom the king desires to honor be attired and paraded on the horse through the city square, while they proclaim before him: This is what is done for the man whom the king desires to honor!”

Esther 9:27-26

...the Jews undertook and irrevocably obligated themselves and their descendants, and all who might join them, to observe these two days in the manner prescribed and at the proper time each year.

Consequently, these days are recalled and observed in every generation: by every family, every province, and every city. And these days of Purim shall never cease among the Jews, and the memory of them shall never perish among their descendants.

[like Hanukkah, Purim does not appear in TaNaKh (Hebrew Bible]