The Old Testament book before Esther is Nehemiah, which is an 8-letter word. Nehemiah is a book of the Hebrew Bible, also known as the Tanakh or Old Testament. It is the 13th book of the Bible and is named after its main character, Nehemiah, who was a Jewish cupbearer to the Persian king Artaxerxes I. The book tells the story of Nehemiah's mission to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and restore the city after the Babylonian exile.