There is one book in the Bible in which no sign of any name or title of Deity is visible. It may be read in the original Aramaic, a mixture of Hebrew and Chaldee, and still no reference to Deity will be found. Yet, according to a distinguished scholar, the name of God is in this book not only once but four times, but in every case it is hidden. This refers of course to the book of Esther; and this inspired narrative, so little read and seldom quoted, should be of unusual interest to every Christian Scientist, because it records one of the most wonderful demonstrations of the power of divine law to overturn and reverse completely the machinations of the one evil, to be found in the whole Bible. Why God's name is hidden in the book we shall now proceed to observe.
In the thirty-second chapter of Deuteronomy we read: "Of the Rock that begat thee thou art unmindful, and hast forgotten God that formed thee ... And he said, I will hide my face from them. I will see what their end shall be." As Christian Scientists we know that God, divine Love, could not deliberately hide His face from His own people, but the meaning of this passage is made clear in the opening words of the fifty-ninth chapter of Isaiah: "Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear: but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you."
The natural and inevitable result of the people's sins was captivity. They were carried into a "far country," even to Babylon (material knowledge). After seventy years a remnant returned to their "own land,"—returned to follow the spiritual idea,—but a portion of the people remained behind in Babylon and degenerated, until we find Mordecai the Jew planning the admission of his niece Esther into the harem of a voluptuous oriental monarch. In this degeneracy God's face was largely hidden from the view of His people, and hence in the narrative which records their tribulations in this "far country" His name is hidden also.
