By any assessment, Esther is a rather strange book to find in the Bible. Not only is it, along with Daniel, the only book of the Bible to be set entirely outside of the Promised Land, it also shows no interest in that land. More than that, Esther is the only book in the Bible which definitely does not mention God. None of this should be taken as meaning that the book has no theological intention--on the contrary it has a developed theology, but it is a theology which operates precisely because it does not mention God directly. In this volume in the Bible Speaks Today commentary series, David Firth explores this paradoxically important book and its implications for our own contemporary context, where the reality of God’s presence is experienced against a backdrop of God’s relative anonymity and seeming absence.

About the Bible Speaks Today (BST) Series:

Edited by J.A. Motyer and the late John R. W. Stott, the Bible Speaks Today commentaries are characterized by what Stott called a "threefold ideal . . . to expound the biblical text with accuracy, to relate it to contemporary life and to be readable." As such, each contributor in this series is both a noted scholar and a working pastor.

The BST series, now complete, covers all sixty-six books of the bible (Old and New Testaments) in fifty-five volumes. If you preach or teach from Scripture, the Bible Speaks Today series will help you apply the timeless biblical message to the everyday experiences of your listeners. And if you study the Bible on your own, these volumes will be a helpful resource focusing on the significance of God's Word for your own life and work.