reception by the king, the king’s insomnia, Haman’s early arrival at the palace, and Haman’s reckless plea for mercy at Esther’s feet.” We must reckon, moreover, not only with the individual coincidences but with the elaborate and highly improbably symmetrical pattern in which they have been embedded (see the figure on p. 8). Fox is correct that “[n]umerous stories shamelessly heap up improbable coincidences without investing them with theological significance—As You Like It, The Marriage of Figaro,