Queen Esther’s Real Indentity
Bible scholars who have been studying the Book of Esther have documented an intriguing discovery: there are a multitude of Assyrian words and phrases in a story that purports to have been written in Persia circa 483 B.C., well over a century after the demise of the Assyrian Empire in 612 B.C. Why is this? I covered this subject more fully in a lecture at Capac Bible Church, posted on their YouTube site. Following is a short synopsis of the evidence.
A fascinating answer has been proposed and amply documented by Professor Stephanie Dalley in her book, “Esther’s Revenge at Susa,” published by Oxford University Press in 2007. She states, “The Hebrew book of Esther contains more Akkadian and Aramaic loanwords in proportion to its length than any other book in the Hebrew Bible…and in a few cases we can show that they fell out of use before the Persian period” (p.165). Was the book of Esther actually first written in Assyria in the 8th century BEFORE the exile of the two tribes of the House of Judah in the 6th century? Was it actually originally a story relating to the earlier exile of the ten tribe House of Israel?
Dr. Dalley presents some interesting facts to establish this surprising suggestion. She adds, “Between 612 [B.C.] and the Persian occupation, therefore, came at least seventy-two years during which Assyrian was no longer used in Babylonia, and Persian had not yet become current. A text that combines Assyrian and Persian vocabulary must have been revised at least once, allowing Persian words to enter into an earlier text” (p.166).
The title of the book itself is neither Hebrew, nor Persian, but pure Assyrian! The word “lot” is “puru” in Assyrian, “isqu” in Persian, and “goral” in Hebrew. The Assyrian word “puru” simply had the plural ending “im” added to it to form the word, “purim.” Notice the helpful explanation given in Esther 3:7 and 9:24, “they cast the pur (that is, the goral/lot).” Goral was the common familiar Hebrew word for “lot.” The game of casting “lots” itself is not of Hebrew origin but was a part of the Assyrian Akitu New Year festivals. The name “Esther” is derived from the Assyrian, “Ishtar,” the goddess of love and war. It is often mistakenly assumed that Esther’s secondary name, “Hadassah,” is a Hebrew word for “myrtle.” Actually, it is derived from the Assyrian, “hadassatu,” a bride of a deity. The Hebrew word for myrtle is “hedas,” and Dr. Dalley states, “there are no Hebrew noun formations comparable with hadassah as a feminine noun form linked to hedas.” The name “Vashti” is derived from the Assyrian “Bashti,” meaning dignity, and was used as an Assyrian feminine personal noun. The name “Mordecai” has long been recognized as derived from Marduk, a god of Babylon also worshipped by the Assyrians. The name “Haman” is derived from “Humban,” a god of the late Assyrian period.
There are many Assyrian words and phrases sprinkled throughout the Book of Esther, such as “bitan,” a pavilion; “bira,” a fort; “sharbit,” a scepter (Esther 4:11; 5:2; 8:4); “keter,” a crown; “pahat” for a high official, instead of the Persian word “satrap.” In Esther 7:7, the king stalked off to his garden, using the Assyrian word, “yannah”; the Persian word “paradeisos” (English, “paradise”) was not used. The use of Assyrian month names in the book of Esther, instead of Hebrew or Persian, is a direct connection. In Esther 3:7, Addar is stated to be the end of the year, which matches the Assyrian calendar, not that of Elamite Susa, where it is the first month of the year. Scholars have also determined that the dates of the pagan holidays in the book of Esther do not match up with the now-known Persian holy days, but instead match Assyrian holy days (ibid. pp. 146, 168, 169, 190).
The book of Esther is the story of a Hebrew girl who marries a pagan king. This could not have happened in Persia, whose laws required the king to only marry from within the Persian royal families. However, it did happen in Assyria more than once. The Assyrian tablets recorded that King Sargon II, who deported the House of Israel in 721 B.C., married a Hebrew Ephraimite girl of the ten-tribe House of Israel named Athaliah (or Atalya), but who was not the same person as the daughter of King Omri in Second Chronicles chapter 22. In addition, Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III, or Pul (2 Kings 15:19), who exiled the Israelite trans-Jordan tribes in 732 B.C., married a woman named Yaba who bears a West Semitic Name, probably Hebrew (“Prosophy of the Neo-Assyrian Empire,” Helsinki, 2002). Jewish scholar, Dr. Yehezkel Kaufmann says, “From cuneiform writings we know that some of the important officials of the kingdom of Assyria were Israelites” (“The Babylonian Captivity and Deutero-Isaiah,” p.9). In fact, it is now known that Hezekiah, king of Judah, was related to Assyrian king Sennacherib, who attacked Jerusalem in 701 B.C. (S. Dalley, ibid., p.29). Two of Hezekiah’s daughters also married into the Assyrian royal family (S. Dalley, ibid., p.94). The weight of evidence suggests that Esther was originally a story with a historical framework regarding Ephraim, the ten tribes, in the Assyrian exile. After they disappeared from history, Judean editors revised it into a story of the Babylonian exile of Judah. However, the Judean exile was to the city of Babylon; the House of Israel was exiled to northern Assyria and “the cities of the Medes” in Persia (2 Kings 17:6). Dr. Lawrence Geraty of Andrews University states, “there is no evidence for a bona fide Persian period occupation” by Jewish exiles (“The Word Shall Go Forth,” 1982, p.546). Dr. Stephanie Dalley says, “…the deportees who came into Assyria in the time of Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon II, and Sennacherib, [were] taken from northern Israel, from Samaria, and from Judah. They were settled in various parts of the Assyrian homeland…All of them had reason to call the festival by an Assyrian word and to relate it to a story which was linked to the cultic calendar of Ishtar-of-Nineveh” (ibid. p.189).
The Jewish Encyclopedia says, “The Babylonian schools of the amoraic period cite the two cities of Shush and Shushtri were among the places to which the ten tribes were exiled (Sanh. 94a). Curiously enough, both these names are given to Susa…although it is uncertain whether…the Talmud refers to two separate localities at or near the ancient Susa.”
It was actually the Ten Tribes, not Judah, who were exiled to Susa, and it was therefore a part of the Assyrian conquest of 721 B.C., not the later Judean exile of 586 B.C. There is no evidence of an exile of Judah to Susa at all. The evidence strongly indicates that Queen Esther was actually a Jewish revision of the story of an Ephraimite House of Israel girl named Athaliah or Atalya, who in exile married Assyrian King Sargon. This is actual history, verified by the Royal Assyrian cuneiform tablets, and this is Queen Esther, or Athaliah’s real historic identity.
