Esther - The Principal Characters

"... to the end that you may be putting to the test the things that differ, in order that you may be incorrupt and may give no occasion of stumbling, unto the day of Christ" [Php 1:10] [Roth]

The first person we shall mention is the king. As we have already noted in the previous post, he represents our soul and the story of our life. This will become obvious to us by the end of the account. When we come to the next installment it will be the interplay of all the following characters with the king that sheds much light on our own circumstances, struggles and joys. As a side note, the word Ahasuerus is a title rather than a proper name. It is speculated that this is referring to Xerxes, the Persian. But the inspired account leaves this detail out. So you see, Father has left open the door of our association in type, with this unnamed individual.

Next we are introduced to Vashti. She is described in glowing terms. It is generally held that her name means "beautiful".

In the account, Vashti never appears in public. We know very little about her and secular scholars deem her to have been a minor consort of this king - a concubine. Her role, however, will turn out to be quite significant. So Vashti remains mostly a mystery.

Now we come to Mordecai. He is introduced simply as a Jew who has occasioned the capital City of Susa. How he arrived there, what his occupation might be and so on are also a mystery. The salient point is that Mordecai is in the vicinity of the king.

Esther, for whom the book is titled, is now introduced as the younger cousin of Mordecai who has assumed the role of her parent. We wil have much to say about her later.

Next we meet the antagonist, the Agagite, Haman. His heritage as an Amalekite also figures into the metaphor, as we shall see. As you may recall, Agag was the Amalekite king spared by Israel's king Saul after Samuel had given him explicit instructions from God to leave none of that nation living. As it turns out, Father was way ahead of Saul, preserving a descendant to assume the role of the enemy of the Jews. The type that Haman portrays (which his lineage and Saul's actions suggests to us) will add significantly to our understanding.

Now we have introduced almost all of the significant characters. There is one more introduction to make, but we are going to leave that until the very end of the story.

Next up: Esther - the Story Unfolds.