The Apocalypse of Esther

So, I have recently finished reading the Book of Esther in my Revised Standard Version: Catholic Edition of the biblical books — a translation I highly commend. The narrative has a similarity to both the Book of Judith which precedes it and to the Book of Nehemiah in both of which the Jewish people are on the precipice of genocidal ethnical cleansing by their adversaries. The Book of Judith is very similar in that it also features a brave, female heroine who prevents the apocalyptic destruction of the Hebrew people.

I want to draw the readers attention to the apocalyptic imagery contained in the deuterocanonical parts of the Book of Esther — included in the Roman Catholic canon, but not in the Protestant or Judaic canons. For Roman Catholics, the book opens with the apocalyptic-divine Dream of Mor'decai, the guardian of the young Esther, that reads:

"And this was his dream: Behold, noise and confusion, thunders and earthquake, tumult upon the earth! And behold, two great dragons came forward, both ready to fight, and they roared terribly. And at their roaring every nation prepared for war, to fight against the nation of the righteous. And behold, a day of darkness and gloom, tribulation and distress, affliction and great tumult upon the earth! And the whole righteous nation was troubled; they feared the evils that threatened them, and were ready to perish. Then they cried to God; and from their cry, as though from a tiny spring there came a great river, with abundant water; light came, and the sun rose, and the lowly were exalted and consumed those held in honor." (Esther XI:iv-xi RSV:CE).

I could not find a Christian painting of Mor'decai's Dream, so I chose this image to set the mood. I think it fits, as the dragon-imagery was the most striking feature of the dream that also creates a welcome parallel with the Book of Revelation. 

I do not wish to ramble on and on in analyzing the Dream of Mor'decai, but the crucial point I want to draw from this narrative is its similarity to the apocalyptic imagery found in the Gospels. A futurist interpretation of the apocalypse runs into a great number of absurdities and inconsistencies with the character of God revealed in the person of Christ. So I read Mor'decai's Dream as the perfect allusion for preterist/idealists to draw.

Futurists interpret the sayings of apocalyptic destruction in the Gospels and the Book of Revelation quite literally. So for instance, in Matthew XIV:vii-viii we find the passage, "For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places: all this is but the beginning of sufferings." I was listening to John MacArthur preach about the apocalypse on the radio the other day, and he definitely understands these words of Christ in a literal fashion. There will be earthquakes literatim, letter-for-letter.

The Dream of Mor'decai provides us with a biblical map for reading apocalyptic literature, and gives us a biblical justification for deciphering apocalyptic passages from a non-futurist perspective. In the Book of Esther we find a prophecy of dragons, earthquakes and war of the whole earth against the Hebrew people. It is the equivalent of the devastating, End of Days passages we find in the Gospels and the Book of Revelation. Towards the very end of the book, Mor'decai acts as his own cipher and tells us, in hindsight, that the apocalyptic dream was the truth of all the events that unfolded in the whole of the book:

"For I remember the dream that I had concerning these matters, and none of them has failed to be fulfilled. The tiny spring which became a river, and there was light and the sun and abundant water — the river is Esther, whom the king married and made queen. The two dragons are Haman and myself. The nations are those that gathered to destroy the name of the Jews. And my nation, this is Israel, who cried out to God and were saved" (Esther X:v-ix).

There were no actual earthquakes to be found in the narrative of Esther, there were no mythical dragons and there was no world war. The Dream of Mor'decai was a hyperbolic-imaginative allegory of material-human events. The earthquakes do not represent the vibration of tectonic plates, but rather the fear, danger and disorder that the Israelites faced under the genocidal machinations of Haman. The dragons are not winged-beasts, but the titanic personalities of Mor'decai and Haman. The world is deployed as a metonymy for the nations of the Persian empire.

If nothing else, the apocalyptic elements of the Book of Esther should give us pause when reading the Book of Revelation and the End of Days portions of the Gospels. We should not be so swift to interpret their words in a literal manner. St. John's visions of dragons, earthquakes and a world war against Zion might very well be imaginative, hyperbolic descriptions of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD. When viewed in light of Mor'decai's apocalypse, it no longer appears unlikely.