Commentary on the Book of Esther
Father Tadros Y. Malaty

AN INTRODUCTION

Queen ‘Vashti’ was dethroned, and replaced by ‘Esther’, the fatherless girl, born in the land of captivity, whom God used for the salvation of His people from the evil plot of the tyrant ‘Haman’, which almost brought the whole Jewish people in the states of Media and Persia to perdition.

It was an actual episode lived by the whole people; beside being a personal experience that touches the life of every true believer; when he uproots from his heart queen ‘Vashti’, the one with authority, and lets the humble ‘Esther’, reign in her place; not because of her riches or family prestige, but according to the exalted grace of God, which takes away from us our inner orphanage, to make God, Himself our Father, and the heavenly church our mother; to be counted as kings in the Lord, and to enjoy victory over the true ‘Haman’, the devil. As ‘Vashti’, in her haughtiness, probably refers to the literality of the law, I wish the letter dies in us, the spirit of the new covenant sets, and queen ‘Esther’ reigns; to say, together with the apostle: “In that He says, ‘A new covenant’, He has made the first obsolete. Now, what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away” (Hebrew 8: 13). … The book of Esther is a proclamation that the letter has grown old, and of the spirit of the new covenant, that grants salvation and life.

Hegomen Father Tadros Y. Malaty