( Judges 4:6, 7) When Barak asked Deborah to go with him, she did not give in to fear but willingly complied with his request.- Judges 4:8, 9.Īfter God gave the Israelites a decisive victory, Deborah composed at least part of the song that she and Barak sang recounting the event. At his direction, she summoned Barak to lead an Israelite army against their Canaanite oppressors. What did she do? The prophetess Deborah courageously supported God’s worshippers. God also used her to help settle problems among the Israelites.- Judges 4:4, 5. Who was Deborah? She was a prophetess whom Israel’s God, Jehovah, used to reveal his will on matters affecting his people. ▸ For a further discussion about Abigail, see the article “ She Acted With Discretion.” She handled a tense situation calmly and did so with tact, courage, and resourcefulness. To keep peace, she was willing to apologize for something that was not her fault. What can we learn from Abigail? Although beautiful and wealthy, Abigail had a balanced view of herself. ( 1 Samuel 25:32, 33) Soon thereafter, Nabal died and Abigail became David’s wife.- 1 Samuel 25:37-41. ( 1 Samuel 25:14-19, 24-31) When David saw her gift, observed her humility, and heard her wise advice, he recognized that God had used her to prevent a tragedy. She gave her servants a supply of food to take to David and his men, and she followed to beg David for mercy. David was incensed! So he and his men went out to kill Nabal and all the men of his household.- 1 Samuel 25:10-12, 22.Ībigail acted quickly when she heard what her husband had done. But when messengers from David asked Nabal for some food, Nabal insolently refused to provide it. While David and his men were there, they protected Nabal’s flocks of sheep from robbers. She and Nabal lived in the region where David, Israel’s future king, was hiding as a fugitive. What did she do? Abigail acted with wisdom and discernment in order to avoid calamity. Abigail, however, was discerning and humble, as well as beautiful both physically and spiritually.- 1 Samuel 25:3. Ultimately, the Book of Esther seeks to address the question of how Jewish people in the Diaspora can be successful members of larger society while maintaining their unique identity.Who was Abigail? She was the wife of a wealthy but harsh man named Nabal. As both a woman and a Jew, the eponymous Queen Esther’s access to power is limited and indirect as a rhetor, she develops strategies of delaying and trust-building, thus anticipating the Renaissance rhetoric of the courtier by almost two millennia. Rather than focusing on a metaphorical return to Jerusalem through spirituality or religious observance, Esther addresses the practical realities of survival in the Diaspora. As the centerpiece of the Purim holiday, the Book of Esther has played (and continues to play) an important role in shaping discourse around Jewish peoplehood as defined by Diasporic community. By placing Esther as a cultural artifact within the larger context of Jewish history, I argue that the text’s inclusion in the canon speaks to the lived experiences of a conquered and exiled people. The only book of the Tanakh without any reference to God, the text tells the story of Esther, a young Jewish woman who becomes Queen of Persia and saves the Jewish people from a genocidal plot. This chapter analyzes the sociocultural background and rhetorical strategies of the Book of Esther in the Tanakh, or the Hebrew Bible. Similarly, the narrative of Herodotus regarding Amestris (a name meaning ‘vigorous woman’ in Old Persian), Xerxes' unique wife and only queen known in Persia, corresponds in many ways to Esther (‘star’ in Old Persian”) despite the unfavourable and biased description of the Persian queen. Yet it is easy to check in the tablets of Persepolis that Mordecai was an eminent royal scribe called Marduka who worked with Tatennai, the governor beyond the River, under the direction of Uštanu, the satrap of Babylon, during the years 17 to 32 of Darius. Additionally, in order to establish historical truth, they regularly quote the official propaganda of the time which is very often misleading. Worse still, to establish their chronology, historians have blind faith in the Babylonian king lists which are nevertheless false (reporting no usurpation and no co-regency). Very few Bible scholars believe now in the historicity of the book of Esther, but what is really incomprehensible is that their conclusion is based only on the following prejudice: this story looks like a fairy tale, consequently, it is a fairy tale! There is no chronological investigation despite the fact that chronology is the backbone of history and there has been no historical research among archaeological witnesses despite the fact that apart from ancient texts there is no witness.
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