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Hidden Codes in the Book of Esther: The Name of God Is There — You Just Have to Look

  • Writer: Brad Banardict
    Brad Banardict
  • Nov 30, 2025
  • 7 min read

Updated: Jun 28

How Hebrew Acrostics & Letter Sequences Reveal YHVH, Yeshua, and El Shaddai in Esther's Text


The Book of Esther is the only biblical book that never mentions God, worship, or the Messiah by name. But hidden within the Hebrew text are deliberate codes (acrostics and letter sequences) that spell out YHVH, Yeshua, and El Shaddai. This post walks through each one.


What you'll learn:

  • Why God's name is "missing" from Esther — and what scholars think

  • How acrostics in Esther 1:20, 5:4, 5:13, 7:5, and 7:7 encode YHVH

  • How Equidistant Letter Sequences (ELS) reveal Messiah, El Shaddai, and Yeshua

  • The pattern in who speaks when God's name appears (Jew vs. Gentile, forward vs. reverse)


There have been a number of articles postulating on why God and anything "relious" in not openly mentioned in the Book of Esther. The basis of these has been commentaries and modern scholarship. Obviously I can’t claim to have read all of them because I haven’t discovered them all. So if you happen to read this and see that you have been missed, please contact me because you may have corroborating or refuting information. Both would be welcome so the matter could be settled.


Esther Is Truly An Enigma

It is the only biblical book not found among the Dead Sea Scrolls — at least, not in any confirmed form. It is in the Septuagint (285–246 BCE) → disappeared from the Essene culture → reappeared in the Masoretic Text. The oldest complete manuscript, The Leningrad Codex, is dated to 1009 CE so it was in the shadows for a long time.


Some evidence may have been discovered in the Qumran Caves. It is a wine stained fragment which could not be read until recently and mentions Purim. Perhaps the wine is evidence in itself of a raucous Purim celebration. It may mean that all those PhD’s about why the Book was not at Qumran are now a bit shaky. Work is going on.


Her Hebrew name was Hadassah, meaning myrtle: a beautiful tree. But the Jewish scholars interpret the Persian name, Esther, as meaning “something hidden.” The Jewish Orthodox Chabad.org views of the “hiddenness” in the Book of Esther is that she was the personification of the hidden inner beauty of The Wife of Noble Character, Proverbs 31:10–31, but it will be seen that there is much more information hidden in the text for those who seek it.


It is written in Proverbs 25:2 "It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, But the glory of kings is to search out a matter."


The intention of this post is to let the content of the Book speak for itself. The following information is not mine. However, I did confirm it by counting the letters (that will become clear soon) and using various Hebrew translation sites to confirm translations.


It is conceded that the Machine Learning of the different sites lean toward modern vernacular but it will be seen that the method gives acceptable results. It will also be seen that sometimes it is necessary to translate backward. I'm speaking about messages contained within the text (codes), these are not hidden but are there to be found.


If this opened up the Book of Esther for you, The Book of Esther Reexamined goes even deeper and is one of our most read-through articles on the site.


The Reference

There are a number of references online which deal with this matter — many are good, many are not. My experience has shown that Cosmic Codes: Hidden Messages from the Edge of Eternity Volume 2: Microcodes, Chuck Missler, © 1998 Koinonia House Inc is the most informative (but you may disagree). As of August 2025 available for free download at the Khouse store.


There are a number of types of codes in the Bible

The Book of Esther uses only two with regard to the Divine Name.


  • Acrostic, 5.

  • Equidistant Letter Sequence (ELS), 3.


The workings of the ELS has been explained and used in the post QUEEN ESTHER AT NUREMBERG so it will not be expanded on here. You will have to read that post if you require more information.


Note: In the following examples the bold font English is the part of the Hebrew that is analyzed. The bold font Hebrew letters are those that are the extracted code.


The Acrostic

An Acrostic is a composition in which sets of letters (such as the initial or final letters of the lines or words) are taken in order to form a word or phrase or a regular sequence of letters of the alphabet.


In Psalm 119, for instance, each successive chapter is devoted to a successive letter in the Hebrew alphabet, and each successive line in that chapter begins with that letter. Try it. Other examples of these in the Tanakh are Psalms 25; 34; 37; 111; 145; Proverbs 31:10–31, and Lamentations 1–4.


An extremely important one is written in John 19:19–22:"Now Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross. And the writing was: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. Then many of the Jews read this title, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Therefore the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but, ‘He said, “I am the King of the Jews.” ’ ” Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”


The Chief Priests and the Jews were perplexed because they were well versed with acrostics. The Hebrew for JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS is


ישוע הנצרי ומלך היהודים


And is translated:


Google Translate shows "Jesus the Nazarene and King of the Jews" in Hebrew. Acrostic text reads "yod-hey-vav-hey, Yehoveh."

The acrostic is yod-hey-vav-hey, Yehoveh.


Hebrew text with an acrostic, reads "Acrostic of Pilate’s Title for Jesus" beneath. Black text on a white background.

Pilate was publicly declaring that Jesus was Yahovah, the God of the Old Testament.


Acrostics in the Book of Esther

Note: The Hebrew for this part of the exercise is sourced from Blue Letter Bible which separates the Hebrew into individual words as opposed to the usual practice of having no word spacing. Obviously, this helps those who are illiterate in Hebrew.


Remember. Hebrew runs right ← to ← left so when I say, “Running forward,” the flow applies to Hebrew, right ← to ← left. The reverse applies for, “In reverse.”


It is written in Esther 1:20 "And when the king’s decree which he shall make shall be published throughout all his empire, (for it is great,) all the wives shall give to their husbands honour, both to great and small"


Hebrew text from Esther 1:20 with an acrostic highlighted. Black text on a white background. "Esther 1:20 acrostic" captioned below.

The acrostic is the initial letters of the words which spells out YHVH, Yehoveh, in reverse.


It is written in Esther 5:13 "Yet all this avails me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate"


Hebrew text of Esther 5:13 with bold acrostic letters spelling God's name. Caption reads "Esther 5:13 acrostic." Simple, monochrome design.

The acrostic is the final letters of the words which spells out YHVH, Yehoveh, in reverse.


It is written in Esther 5:4 "And Esther answered, If it seem good unto the king, let the king and Haman come this day unto the banquet that I have prepared for him."


Hebrew text from Esther 5:4 in acrostic form. The image has white background with black letters, with English text "Esther 5:4 acrostic" below.

The acrostic is the initial letters of the words which spell out YHVH, Yehoveh, running forward.


It is written in Esther 7:7 "And the king arising from the banquet of wine in his wrath went into the palace garden: and Haman stood up to make request for his life to Esther the queen; for he saw that there was evil determined against him by the king"


Hebrew text displaying Esther 7:7 acrostic, centered on a white background, with the words "Esther 7:7 acrostic" in black below.

The acrostic is the final letters of the words which spell out YHVH, Yehoveh, running forward.


It is written in Esther 7:5. "Then the king Ahasuerus answered and said unto Esther the queen, Who is he, and where is he, that durst presume in his heart to do so?"


Hebrew text from Esther 7:5 acrostic, with highlighted letters in black forming a word. Simple white background, serif font.

The acrostic is in the final letters of the words which spell out, I WILL BE (a.k.a. I AM), in reverse.


Google Translate interface showing "אהיה" translated as "I will be" in Hebrew to English, with language options visible.

Flow of the letters

You have noticed that some of these flows are forward and some in reverse.


1) Menucan 1:20 (Gentile)(Reverse)

2) Haman 5:13 (Gentile)(Reverse)

3) Xerxes 7:5 (Gentile)(Reverse)

4) Esther 5:4 (Jew)(Forward)

5) Scribe 7:7 (Jew)(Forward)


The pattern looks obvious to me.


Equidistant Letter Sequence (ELS)

As mentioned earlier, the workings of the ELS has been explained and used in the post QUEEN ESTHER AT NUREMBERG so will not be expanded on here. You will have to read that post if you require more information. It may be that there is a flow pattern with the ELS as with the acrostic but it is not obvious to me so I won’t speculate.


It is written in Esther 1:3: "In the third year of his reign, he made a feast unto all his princes and his servants; the power of Persia and Media, the nobles and princes of the provinces, being before him:

An ELS spacing of 8 to the Hebrew results in the pattern for Messiah.


Google Translate webpage showing Hebrew word "משיח" translated to "Messiah" in English. Tabs for languages include English, Spanish, Hebrew.

It is written in Esther 4:2–3: "And came even before the king’s gate: for none might enter into the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth. And in every province, whithersoever the king’s commandment and his decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews, and fasting, and weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes."


An ELS spacing of 8 to the Hebrew results in the pattern for El Shaddai, The Almighty.


Google Translate page showing Hebrew text "אלשדי" translated as "El Shaddai" in English. Hebrew script at the top.

It is written in Esther 4:17: "So Mordecai went his way, and did according to all that Esther had commanded him."


An ELS spacing of -8 to the Hebrew results in the pattern for Yeshua, running left-to-right.


Hebrew text at the top. Below, Google Translate interface shows "ישוע" (Yeshua) translating to "Jesus" in English.

Conclusions

So there it is. The Name of God is contained in the Book of Esther. Expositors who have consistently shown they have grunt postulate that Israel was in disobedience at the time because only a smidgen of them returned from Babylon but He had made Promises that he couldn’t renege. He couldn’t condone their disobedience so had to keep undercover while protecting them. They didn’t actually return until June, 1967 — but that’s another story.


Please feel free if you want to contest this conclusion. But come with evidence and not just opinion or you won’t get a response. The amount of LORE masquerading as LAW on this site is depressing.



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3 Comments


Anne
Jun 06

Oh I love this....... I call these hidden messages , God's treasures...... I just finished reading Esther just now and wanted an acrostic for her name, for my journal and found your site ....... Recently I was thinking about how Jesus is now our High Priest in Heaven, not of the Aaron line but after the order of Melchizedek'..... But I discovered that Aaron's wife Elisheba, the mother of the High Priests was herself a daughter of Judah..... And Jesus himself, through King David, was of the line of Judah ....And that Elisheba her name means God has sworn or God has made a vow, and in the book Hebrews in the New Testament, it says that Jesus is mad…

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Jane Isley
Jun 14
Replying to

Thank you for sharing all of this, your joy in Scripture really shines through, I love that!


I’m not the author of the article, so I can’t speak for his intent, but I can share what I take from what you’ve written. The connections you’re tracing and Jesus as our High Priest are beautiful. I love when the layers of Scripture open up like that and you start to see how intentional God has been across generations.


The way the royal and priestly lines intersect in unexpected places really does point to how Jesus fulfills both roles perfectly, King and Priest, just as you said. Thank you for bringing such a rich insight into the conversation.

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Darlene
Mar 30

Thank you. I recently heard about God's name in Esther from Lance Walnau so I decided to find out a little more. This was very interesting. I appreciate your commentary. It is very enlightening and encouraging to see God's name in Esther after years of being told it isn't there. God bless you.

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