A Queen, a Plot, and a Reversal

The biblical Book of Esther narrates events set at the royal court of Susa under a Persian king named Ahasuerus, generally identified by scholars with Xerxes I, who ruled the Achaemenid Persian empire in the fifth century BCE. According to the narrative, Esther, a Jewish woman, becomes queen after the king's previous wife is removed from her position, while keeping her Jewish identity concealed at the advice of her cousin and guardian Mordecai. When Haman, a senior royal official, plots to have all Jews throughout the Persian empire killed after Mordecai refuses to bow to him, Mordecai persuades Esther to intervene with the king despite the considerable personal risk of approaching him uninvited.

Esther's intervention, carried out over a sequence of banquets and culminating in her public exposure of Haman's plot before the king, results in Haman's execution and a royal edict permitting the Jews of the empire to defend themselves against the attacks Haman had arranged, reversing the threatened catastrophe into a decisive Jewish victory and deliverance.

The narrative closes with the establishment of Purim as an annual commemorative festival, and the Book of Esther itself functions within Jewish scripture both as a historical narrative and as the founding text explaining the festival's own origin and continued observance.