Whenever I write a historical novel, I am always asked how much of the tale is fact and how much fiction. I hope you will be pleased to know that nearly every event in this novel comes from the historical record. The biblical account is accurately represented here, and I have supplemented that story with writings from the Greek chronicler Herodotus. He wrote extensively of the Persian court and its kings, particularly of Xerxes and his Queen Amestris (Vashti). He did not mention a queen called Esther, but just because he didn’t mention her doesn’t mean she didn’t exist.
The casual reader can be easily confused, because anyone researching this period will have to deal with at least four different languages: the Greek version of names, which were applied later and would never have been used by the actual people, the Persian name, and, to those familiar with the biblical account, the Hebrew name as well as the Anglicized version of the Hebrew name. The king represented in the story of Esther, for example, is Xerxes (Greek), Khshayarshan (Persian), Achashverosh (Hebrew), and Ahasuerus (Anglicized Hebrew).
Which is why I often referred to him as “the king.”
I carefully considered which names to use in this novel. The Greek names are the easiest to read and pronounce, but something in me resists referring to characters by names they would never have used themselves. The Persian names are obscure and hard to track down, as well as hard to pronounce. Anglicized Hebrew is more familiar and easier for the average reader to understand, but the Hebrew is the closest thing to what the characters themselves would have experienced. But since most people are familiar with the English Bible, I have chosen to use the Anglicized Hebrew names.
Other details:
Theologians believe that Amestris (Greek) is Vashti (Hebrew) of the biblical account. And while the Bible is silent about what happened to Vashti after her demotion, Herodotus relates the story of how she mutilated the mother of one of the king’s lovers. He also tells us that she was alive and well during the reign of Artaxerxes, her son, and as late as 454 BC she had one of his political enemies impaled. She is also rumored to have buried alive fourteen noblemen’s children as a sacrifice to Ahura Mazda.
We have no record of Esther ever being pregnant. But the three sons in line for the king’s throne were his children by Amestris, so if Esther did have children, they would have been far down the line of succession unless Xerxes had elevated them.
Herodotus tells us that the provinces of Babylonia and Assyria sent King Darius five hundred boys to be made into eunuchs, along with a thousand talents of silver. According to another source, this was an annual payment, but I sincerely hope it was a one-time event. So from that fact I fleshed out the character of Harbonah, whose existence is biblical.
Scripture does not tell us that Mordecai had a wife, but since the first of the Torah’s 613 commandments is to have children, devout Jewish men would have felt responsible to marry and raise a family. Furthermore, society would have considered it improper for a single man to raise a young girl without a wife’s help, so I invented Miriam.
The Scripture does not tell us that Esther was betrothed, yet most Jewish children were betrothed by their parents at an early age, so it seemed natural and logical for Esther to have a fiancé. And theologians are divided about the king’s call for beautiful virgins. Did he ask for virgins as in “young women” or did he want young, sexually pure women? The Hebrew word could mean either (see Isaiah 7:14: “virgin” meant young woman when applied to Isaiah 8:3–4, and sexually pure when applied to Luke 1:34. This is an example of the “law of double reference,” where one Scripture is applicable to two situations).
Some of the Jewish sages believe Esther was actually married to Mordecai and was still taken up by the king’s men; in that case the former use would apply. But since the Bible stresses the fact that Esther was as a daughter to Mordecai, I don’t believe they were married.
Would a king want a potential bride who’d been married to another man? I doubt it. And since in many Eastern cultures tradition still demands the “blood on the sheets” proof of virginity, I believe it’s reasonable to assume that the king wanted young, unmarried women—their youth alone would help explain the yearlong preparation before they were allowed to go into the king’s bedchamber. On the other hand, if a man brought a stunningly beautiful woman to the palace or gave her to the king as a gift, I doubt she’d be turned away.
Given all of the above, I believe Esther must have been a teenager when she entered the king’s palace, and therefore not much older than many of his children. Her cousin Mordecai loved her like a father and, because he’d lost his wife, invested his life in his work and in his young ward. Because he worked “at the King’s Gate,” or in the courtyard of the palace complex, he undoubtedly heard palace rumors and knew of the many dangers lurking behind the smiling faces belonging to other royal concubines, eunuchs, politically ambitious nobles, and dissatisfied soldiers.
Seen in this light, and supported by the writings of Herodotus and others, we have a thoroughly fascinating story of how God worked within a pagan culture to sustain His people . . . and drew the heart of a distracted daughter back to himself.