Book of Esther Resources

Bible Gateway gives many, many different translations of Esther (in lots of different languages). It's a useful resource, especially if you want to read the King James and New Revised Standard versions side by side.

The Chabad website gives an illuminating selection of comments from different rabbis and Jewish sages on the Book of Esther.

This is the most recent movie production of the Book of Esther. It didn't get stunning reviews or anything, but still… it exists.

This TV movie version of the Esther story stars Academy Award Winner F. Murray Abraham as Mordecai.

This early-sixties-style Bible pic stars Joan Collins—later of the hit show Dynasty—as Esther. It uses a framing story where a modern-day (or, rather, sixties-era) woman tells her daughter the story of Esther to teach her about courage and resilience.

Of all the Esther movies, this one probably had the biggest amount of popularity (not that much, but more than all the other ones). The late, great Peter O'Toole makes an appearance as… um, a prophet named Samuel. He's not the Samuel—but yeah, some character they added.

These are the parts that the Greek Septuagint translation added to Esther, making it more religious by having Esther and Mordecai make prayers of thanks to God.

This is a contemporary opera by Hugo Weisgall. The music is hard to find online (since the opera's still current and under copyright), but you can see a promotional video about it on YouTube.

The Hasidic Jewish organization Chabad has a whole series of videos about how to read the hidden deeper meanings in Esther.

This Jewish a cappella group at Yale did this song as a tribute to the beloved holiday. Their interpretation of the Esther tale also tries to find a religious meaning inside the story.

The great composer, George Frederic Handel, wrote an oratorio based on the playwright Jean Racine's version of the Book of Esther. This version is brought to you by Pacific Music Works in Seattle.

This seventeenth-century French composer's painting depicts the moment when Esther gets the bad news about Haman's evil plot from Mordecai. In this version, she passes out after receiving the note.

Jean Lievens—a little-known Dutch painter who was overshadowed in his time by the master of all Dutch painters, Rembrandt—depicted the scene where Esther, King Ahasuerus, and Haman get down to some serious banqueting. (Psst: Rembrandt painted the same thing once too. He's like The Simpsons—they've always already done it.)

A nineteenth-century British painter who specialized in Biblical and historical subjects, Edwin Long offered up this depiction of Esther, with a pair of eunuchs attending to her.

Another painting by Long, this painting focuses on a more unexpected subject—Vashti—rather than on Esther.

John Everett Millais was one of the painters who founded the British "Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood" in the nineteenth century. Here's Millais' portrait of Esther in that particular style.

The all-time #1 Dutch painter—by common consensus, the Wayne Gretzky or Michael Jordan of Dutch painters—Rembrandt, painted this version of the banquet scene from Esther. It's the moment right after Esther calls out Haman—and the king's looking upset.