Esther in rabbinic literature R. Shimon b. Yohai said that it was because, unlike Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they had bowed down to Nebuchadnezzar's idol. However, he explained that since they did not mean to show devotion, but acted only for appearances sake, so God decreed only the apparent destruction of the Jews, but would not permit Haman to carry it out. A second reason draws a distinction between Daniel, who abstained from Nebuchadnezzar's table and the Jews (with the exception of Mordecai), who attended Ahasuerus' banquet in Chapter 1. Mordecai called upon her to pray for her people and then intercede with the
Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament ("HALOT") is a scholarly dictionary of Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic, which has partially supplanted "Brown–Driver–Briggs". It is a translation and updating of the German-language Koehler-Baumgartner Lexicon, which first appeared in 1953, into English; the first volume was published in 1994 the fourth volume, completing the Hebrew portion, was published in 1999, and the fifth volume, on Aramaic, was published in 2000. The work was re-issued in 2001 as an unabridged two volume set. It differs from "Brown–Driver–Briggs" in being ordered alphabetically, instead of