God’s name in the Megillah
The Divine Name never appears explicitly in the Book of Esther, but there are a number of hints of it.
There are acrostics where the Name is formed by the initial letters of several verses, e.g. 1:20, 5:4, 5:13 and 7:7.
The background idea is that God was constantly working behind the scenes. His Presence was implicit in events.
Why the Name is not spelled out explicitly may be, as some commentators suggest, that the Megillah was a popular historical tract which might not be treated with due seriousness and sanctity.
From the point of view of human history it suggests a daily experience. There are countless occasions when human beings cannot explain events without God, without bringing in the Omar Khayyam concept, “The moving finger writes”.
It should also be pointed out that there are times such as in the Torah portion of T’tzavveh when Moses’ name is not mentioned even though he is obviously at work behind the scenes.
