12/20/2025
Recently, when redacting the Greek Old Testament, I was surprised to find the name of 'KYRIOS' and 'THEOS' quite often in the text of Esther, but at the same time remembered what the church today taught over and over: the legend that the book of Esther does not contain the name of G-d.
But the name of KYRIOS appears actually 23 (!) times, and the name of THEOS appears 21 (!) times in the book of Esther, mostly in the six major sections which do not appear in the Masoretic text. The ancient and still prevalent legend, that the book of Esther does not contain any mention of the name of KYRIOS and / or THEOS, is therefore highly misleading and simply ridiculous. It is very clear that the divine name was both intentionally removed and filtered out so as to remove credibility from the book.
1. In Esther 2:20, the addition "to fear THEOS, and perform his commandments" was removed from the Hebrew text.
2. In Esther 6:1, the Hebrew text neglects the information that it was KYRIOS who removed the sleep from the king.
3. In Esther 6:13, Haman's wife states that he " will not be able to withstand him, for the living THEOS is with him." The Hebrew cuts this out.
4. Another significant manipulation relates to the letter announcing the liberty of the Jews. In the Greek text of Esther 8:9, this letter is dated to Abib / Nisan 23rd, the exact same date of CHRISTOS' resurrection (see the respective study at www.fitforfaith.ca/studies/ ). It is a mindblowing parallelism, that the precise day the certain death sentence of the Jews was annulled by the empire's ruler, would become the day CHRISTOS annulled our spiritual death sentence. In the Hebrew text, this has been modified to be the third month, with no parallel to any biblical date.
Why all those manipulations?
1. To disguise the resurrection date. Through the removal of this very important date, those evil men both concealed the death & resurrection at the end of the Passover Week, and removed the main essence of the book of Esther - being a precursor to the most important of all the Passover Weeks. This is certainly the main reason why the book was and is still being -mutilated- and the Greek OT is questioned.
2. Many ancient scholars removed the entire book from their canonical lists.
3. Luther also strongly disliked the entire book and argued that the book "Judaized too much" and "lacked any mention of G‑d", calling it "less worthy of being held canonical" . . .
What do we learn from this? Read the Greek Old Testament (without the much later written Apocrypha). More details about the manipulations are found at www.fitforfaith.ca/bible/ (page 10)
Unique Bible studies that support your sanctification and inspire you in your walk with THEOS.