of standard ‘Wisdom’ motifs”;34 and the characters in Esther are the typical stereotypes found in Wisdom literature. Because the author of Esther was a student of the Wisdom school,35 he naturally did not emphasize the usual elements of Jewish piety, for example, dietary laws, covenant, and the immanent God who is easily accessible in prayer and who personally acts in Jewish history. In this respect, Esther is not unlike other Wisdom books such as Qoheleth, or Ecclesiastes, where God is only rather