The Book of Esther: Word for WORD Bible Comic (Book 5) by Simon Amadeus Pillario, Leslie Wilmer Simonin and Ryan Esch. Simon Amadeus Pillario writes, Our ...

Suzanna Murawski on “The Book of Esther in the Age of Rembrandt,” at the Jewish Museum, New York.

Esther has the longest verse in the Hebrew Bible, 43 Hebrew words. The feasts in Esther come in couplets. There are constant reversal of fortunes to each of the book’s major characters.

The Book of Esther and the Haggadah tell of Jewish victories and the punishment of Jewish enemies. In 2024, they are prescient, agonizing and troubling as never before.

Esther falls to her husband’s feet weeping (Esther 8:3), echoing back to what Mordechai told her to do way back in Chapter 4 (verse 8). She begged Achashveros to avert the evil plotted by Haman.

The Book of Esther tells how she and her pious cousin, Mordecai, defeated the scheming Haman, a powerful royal adviser, thereby saving the Jewish people from annihilation.

This book is named after its principal character, Esther, the beautiful Jewish maiden whose vicissitudes at the court of Persia were instrumental in saving her people from extermination.

Opinion: "We see God’s hand throughout the book of Esther," writes Joseph Magen. People read the megillah on Purim night, March 17, 2022.