The theme of the book of Esther is elusive at first. After all, the name of God is never mentioned in the book. The spiritual activities of prayer and the worship of Jehovah are never recorded in the book. All of the events of the book take place outside of Jerusalem in the far-off Persian city of Shushan. There is not so much as a mention of the temple that had been rebuilt in Jerusalem or the offerings that had been resumed on the altar. What possible message could God have intended for his church in a book such as this? 

In order to discover the theme, a very important principle of biblical interpretation must be applied. In fact, it is the first of all of the principles of interpretation: scripture interprets scripture. That is to say, God interprets his own word. The whole Bible stands together as the one word of God to his church. The message of the Bible is one message. That message is proclaimed through a great variety of speech: prophecies, history, poetry, song, visions, epistles, and more. Yet the message is the same. Therefore, the word of God interprets the word of God; scripture interprets scripture. So it is for the book of Esther. The light of the whole word of God must be shined on the book of Esther. The theme of the whole Bible, which is the glory of God in Jesus Christ, must illuminate the book of Esther. The message of all scripture, which is Jesus Christ and him crucified and risen as the savior of his church to the praise of the glory of God’s grace, must be brought to bear on the book of Esther. In the light of the scriptures, the theme of the book of Esther will become clear.

And how clear it becomes! In the light of all the scriptures, the theme of the book of Esther fairly leaps off the page! There is especially a word in the book of Esther, a single word, that grabs our attention as all-important. It is such a small word and so tucked away that it is hard to see it at first. But illuminated in the light of the whole word of God, that little word shines as the biggest word with the biggest significance. In that little word, the theme of the book of Esther is found. In that little word, the theme of the Old Testament is found. In that little word is found the gospel of Jesus Christ and the message of the whole Bible.

What is that little word? It is this: seed. “For Mordecai the Jew was next unto king Ahasuerus, and great among the Jews, and accepted of the multitude of his brethren, seeking the wealth of his people, and speaking peace to all his seed” (Esther 10:3). There it is: seed! Seed! See how tucked away it is? It is the very last word of the whole book. Seed! One must read all ten chapters and all 5,633 words finally to come to it. Seed! But in the light of the rest of scripture, that little word—seed!—stands out as the brilliant and grand theme of the book of Esther.

The word “seed” is one of the most important words, if not the most important word, in the entire Old Testament. From beginning to end, the message of the Old Testament is the message of the seed. The seed was the content of Jehovah’s first promise to his church. Speaking to the serpent after man’s fall, God said, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15). Her seed! The seed of the woman! This was God’s promise to his people that he would give them a seed, the seed of the woman. It was his promise to his people that the seed of the woman would bring them victory over their enemy, and thus would bring them salvation from their sin and death. What a promise this was! Adam and Eve were guilty, ashamed, miserable, afraid. By the instigation of the devil, and by his own willful disobedience, Adam had deprived himself and all his posterity of God’s divine gifts of true knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. He had made himself—and the entire human race that would spring from him—so corrupt that he was incapable of doing any good and inclined to all wickedness. He was wicked and perverse. He was depraved and spiritually dead. He had corrupted his whole nature. He was fallen into perdition and ruin. From henceforth even infants themselves in their mothers’ wombs would be infected with this hereditary disease of sin and with the corruption of their whole nature (Heidelberg Catechism, LD 3–4; Belgic Confession 14–16). To his fallen, ruined people, God made the powerful, saving promise: The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head! The seed of the woman! The seed!

God repeated his promise of the seed to Abraham. “I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee” (Gen. 17:7). God repeated his promise of the seed to David. “When thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build an house for my name, and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son” (2 Sam. 7:12–14).

How important was the seed! The seed would crush the serpent’s head. God’s covenant would be established with the seed. The seed would build God’s house and rule God’s kingdom as God’s son forever. How God’s people needed the seed! How they longed for him to come according to the promise of God! The entire Old Testament must be read in the anticipation of the coming of the seed. From Adam on, God’s people looked for the coming of the seed for their salvation. And come he would, for God had promised: the seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, the seed of David. The seed!

In the fullness of time, God sent the promised seed. When we turn the page from the Old Testament to the New, the very first verse introduces us to the long-awaited seed: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matt. 1:1). The son of David is the seed of David. The son of Abraham is the seed of Abraham. The seed is Jesus Christ. This is also the testimony of the Lord’s apostle. “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ” (Gal. 3:16). The seed is Jesus Christ! Jesus is the seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent. Jesus is the seed of Abraham with whom God established his covenant. Jesus is the seed of David who would build God’s house and reign upon God’s throne as God’s son forever. Jesus is the seed!

In the light of God’s promise in the Old Testament, the word “seed” at the very end of the book of Esther becomes all-important for the book. The theme of the book of Esther has to do with the coming of the seed, Jesus Christ. 

There is one more thing about the Old Testament that we must understand in order to see the full theme of the book of Esther: the seed of the woman is not the only seed. There is also a seed of the serpent. The seed of the woman is Jesus Christ and all who belong to him (Gal. 3:16, 29). The seed of the serpent are all of those outside of Christ. They are the reprobate. They are the world of godless men and women. They are those who are of their father the devil, who do his lusts, who murder, and who lie (John 8:44). God himself identified these two seeds in the mother promise of Genesis 3:15: “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”

Between these two seeds there is constant enmity. There is no unity between them, no peace between them, no common ground between them. One seed is of God in Jesus Christ; the other seed is of the devil; and what concord has Christ with Belial (2 Cor. 6:15)? All of history is a record of the enmity between the two seeds. All of the Old Testament is a record of the seed of the serpent bruising the heel of the seed of the woman and the seed of the woman crushing the head of the serpent. As much as God’s people anticipated the seed of the woman, so much Satan hated that seed and sought to destroy that seed. The devil knew God’s promise very well, for God had spoken the promise of the seed directly to Satan, who was in the serpent in the garden. God’s promise of the seed was announced to Satan as a declaration of his defeat: it shall bruise thy head!

Satan’s project throughout the Old Testament was to prevent the coming of the seed of the woman, and thus to spare his own head. Revelation 12 describes the entire Old Testament as the church’s bringing forth the seed of the woman and the devil’s attempting to devour that seed. The great red dragon, that old serpent, called the devil and Satan, “stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born” (Rev. 12:4, 9). The devil’s project to devour the seed of the woman can be seen in some of the great episodes of the Old Testament. Cain’s murder of Abel was the serpent’s attempting to cut off the seed of the woman. Pharaoh’s enslavement of Israel in Egypt, and his edict that all of the baby boys should be cast into the Nile and drowned, was the serpent’s attempting to cut off the seed of the woman. Herod’s decree to kill all of the boys around Bethlehem who were two years old and under was the serpent’s attempting to cut off the seed of the woman. There was enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent! Satan bent his seed to the purpose of devouring the Christ by cutting off the seed of the woman before he could be born.

The book of Esther records a great episode in this project of the devil. The seed of the woman was in the loins of the remnant of the Jews who had returned to Jerusalem and rebuilt the temple. Christ was there in Jerusalem with the Jews. If the devil could bend the power of the mighty Persian Empire against those Jews, he would be rid of the seed of the woman once and for all. Through Haman, his wicked and vain servant, Satan convinced King Ahasuerus to set a date for the destruction of all of the Jews in his kingdom. The goal was to eradicate the Christ! Even though the events in the book of Esther take place far away from Jerusalem in Shushan, all of the events were on account of that remnant of God’s people in Jerusalem. Two seeds were at war! From Shushan came the serpent’s strike against the heel of the Christ in Jerusalem. This also explains the book of Esther’s emphasis on Mordecai and Esther being Jews, and on Haman being the enemy of the Jews. Regardless of whether Mordecai and Esther themselves were of the seed of the woman, the seed of the Jews was at stake, which seed is Jesus Christ.

In his project to eradicate the seed of the woman, the devil must fail. The promise of God is sure. The promise of God is yea and amen in Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 1:20). Though the devil may plot and rage against Christ, he can still only bruise his heel. The victory belongs to the seed of the woman for the sake of the salvation and deliverance of the church from her sin and death in Adam. In Adam, all died. In Christ, the seed of the woman, all of his people are made alive. Therefore, in Shushan, Haman’s plot must also fail, and the remnant in Jerusalem must be spared, for the sake of Christ, the seed!

What, then, is the theme of the book of Esther? It is this: the victory of the seed of the woman over the seed of the serpent according to God’s promise of salvation, and worked by God’s sovereign power.

Or, to say the same thing in the language of the book of Esther: “peace to all his seed” (10:3).