When deistic conception of society and arbitrariness rule …

The last of the 24 books included in the Old Testament, the Book of Esther, takes place in Persia, roughly today’s Iran. It is surprisingly topical in light of events in the Middle East and around the globe. It shows how decisions made in societies ruled by deistic/dictatorial conceptions, where arbitrary rules can bring a perpetual Damocles’ sword of violence to hang above them – occasionally saved by a vital few with moral backbone.

The events take place in the court of King Achashverosh. After a failed attempt on his life, the king appoints Haman to be prime minister, without any due diligence, who then promptly orders everyone in the empire to prostrate themselves before him.

Mordecai, a Jewish courtier, refuses. Haman, his pride and vanity wounded, tells the king that not only Mordecai, but all the Jews in the empire, are violating the laws of the kingdom, though they have not done so.

The king impetuously gives Haman permission to kill all the Jews, Haman promising to “weigh out ten thousand silver talents into the hands of those who perform the work, to bring [it] into the king’s treasuries” (Esther 3:9). This rings some bells now.

Zeresh, Haman’s wife, chooses the method for the killing: “Let them make a gallows fifty cubits high, and in the morning say to the king that they should hang Mordecai on it, and go to the king to the banquet joyfully.”

By this time Esther, a relative of Mordecai, has become queen of Persia, after Achashverosh impetuously got rid of his first wife for not showing up at a dinner party. Courtiers suggested the king to do so promptly, before all the women got the idea that they could disobey their husbands with impunity.

Mordecai convinces Esther to intervene with the king and save