Esther is the main heroine of the same name book of Tanakh and events connected with the Purim holiday. One of the famous biblical women. The image of Esther has inspired artists for many centuries. The artists of the Italian Renaissance Botticelli, Mantegna and Tintoretto reflected on their paintings certain events related to her life. She wrote Rubens and Rembrandt, she dedicated her oratorio Handel, and the great French playwright Racine wrote the tragedy “Esther”.
Esther was a relative and disciple of the Jew Mordecai, who lived in Susa and who once saved the life of the Persian king Artaxerxes. When the king chose his new wife, instead of the proud Queen queen Vashti, his choice fell on Esther. Esther was not only beautiful. It was a quiet, modest but energetic and passionately devoted woman and her own religion. The rise of Judaism aroused both jealousy and anger at some courtiers and especially Aman, an Amalekite who enjoyed power with extreme arrogance and despotism.
Annoyed by the fact that Mordecai treated him without servility, Aman decided to kill not only himself, but all his people, and obtained the king’s consent to issue a decree on the extermination of Jews. Upon learning of this, Mordecai demanded from Esther that she should intercede with the king for her people. Courageous Esther on pain of losing her position and life, despite strict court etiquette, came to the king without an invitation and persuaded him to visit the feast prepared by her, during which she appealed to him for protection.
Learning what was happening, the king ordered to hang Haman on that gallows, which he had prepared for Mordecai, and in order to cancel the decree on the extermination of the Jews, a new decree was sent out: on the right of them to oppose the execution of the first. Because of this decree, the Jews, with weapons in their hands, rose up to defend their lives and beat many enemies, and the ten sons of Haman were subjected to the same fate as their father. In remembrance of this, a special Purim feast was established among the Jews.
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