Welcome. Our subject for today is the Book of Esther. This book is interesting because it is the only book in the Bible that does not directly reference God. This does not mean that God is not present. In fact, God is present throughout the events of the Book of Esther as she rises in station during her life, and ultimately becomes the instrument of salvation for God’s people.

The book starts with a king giving a huge party to show off his wealth and power. This king is known as Ahasuerus, though many consider him to be the king also known as Xerxes. There are others however, that consider this man to be Darius instead. We’re not going to concern ourselves with this detail but instead will focus on his actions. For convenience I will be referring to Ahasuerus as Xerxes because it is easier to pronounce.

Back to the point, Xerxes is throwing this huge feast to celebrate his wealth and power. His parties last well over a hundred days as we see in verse 4 of chapter 1. These parties were also thrown by the Queen Vashti for the elite women as well.

The first thing we can see by this is that Xerxes is not a humble man by any means. He is apparently quite prideful and full of himself. He wants to flaunt his wealth and power, and does so through these feasts.

We are not supposed to be prideful. In fact, we are supposed to humble our hearts before God. Pride is a good indication of one’s state with God, as we see in (Psa 10:4) The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts. So the prideful man does not seek after God, instead he is more interested in himself, as Xerxes was, celebrating their own egos instead of celebrating God’s glory.

(Pro 11:2) When pride cometh, then cometh shame: but with the lowly is wisdom. Shame could also be called foolishness, and anytime you get a person that is full of pride, you are likely dealing with someone who will act the fool as well. (Pro 16:18) Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. Pride is so dangerous that it can and often does lead to ruin.

So we see that old Xerxes here was either a full time fool, or acting the part with gusto for a large chunk of time.

One day during the partying, Xerxes calls for Queen Vashti to come before him so he could show how beautiful she was to everyone. Vashti refuses, however, and sends Xerxes into a rage.

Let’s stop for a moment and consider what is going on in this scene. There is likely a reason why Vashti refuses to come before the king in the manner he has requested.

(Est 1:10) On the seventh day, when the heart of the king was merry with wine, he commanded Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, and Abagtha, Zethar, and Carcas, the seven chamberlains that served in the presence of Ahasuerus the king, (Est 1:11) To bring Vashti the queen before the king with the crown royal, to show the people and the princes her beauty: for she was fair to look on.

Let’s take note here, the king is said to be ‘merry with wine’ which I believe is the Bible’s way of saying he was three sheets to the wind drunk. The queen here is said to be ‘fair to look on’ which I think is another way of saying the queen was extremely beautiful, a complete hottie, if you will.

So the king is proud of not only his lands and wealth, but also of his extremely beautiful bride. When the king gets drunk, he apparently thinks about his queen, and orders her to appear before him with the royal crown. Now take note, it says that she was to appear before the king with the crown, but it doesn’t say anything about her appearing with anything else, say like clothes.

I think Xerxes got drunk, got stupid, and commanded the queen to appear before him and all his good-timing drinking buddies completely nude save for wearing the crown. Back when I was young and wild, I knew people like this, that would encourage their women to expose themselves in some manner.

Of course the queen, being a queen and all, refuses such an offensive request. Of course there are consequences for her refusal. The king loses his cool, and is just furious. When he asks his advisers what should be done, they immediately call for harsh punishment, afraid that the queen’s actions would embolden women across the realm to rebel against their husbands.

The punishment for Vashti was to be stripped of her crown and most likely banished in some sort. Because of her refusal to be part of the foolishness the king was immersing himself in, she lost her status and position in the empire. This opens up a hole however, one that God will fill and use to protect His people.

Chapter 2 begins by telling us that the king ‘remembers’ Vashti, and what he had done to her. I think this is telling us that he is wishing he still had a queen at this point, maybe even hinting at some regret for his action.

(Est 2:2) Then said the king’s servants that ministered unto him, Let there be fair young virgins sought for the king. The king had the needs that all men have, and he’s now single again, so his servants decide to find him a new bride so that he can be happy and so the land can have a queen once again.

The Jews are still in bondage at this time, having been taken up by Babylon, and ending up here with Xerxes. No matter how you cut the cake, the Jews are under the jurisdiction of this king.

So the call is put out for all the young, beautiful virgins to come see if they are worthy of being the new queen. All the girls come pouring out, and this is where Esther is introduced.

It should be noted that Esther is not the original name we are given for this woman in the Bible. (Est 2:7) And he brought up Hadassah, that is, Esther, his uncle’s daughter: for she had neither father nor mother, and the maid was fair and beautiful; whom Mordecai, when her father and mother were dead, took for his own daughter.

So we see that Mordecai takes care of Esther because she has lost her parents. Mordecai makes his living by working in the palace itself and he is probably aware of certain royal trends such as how the king and his ministers looked on people of other races like the Jews among other prevailing opinions.

When the decree to find a new queen comes out, Mordecai urges Esther to go and present herself before the king. Mordecai tells her to keep her heritage secret, and Esther does so.

She goes and lives in the waiting quarters for the women, to perform the rituals of purification so they can be presented to the king, and she makes great friends with the guy that is in charge of the women. He treats her well and looks out for her.

When it came time to go to the king, a maid was allowed to take whatever she needed in way of ornaments. She then, assuming the king liked her, spent the evening with him, and was then taken to the house of the concubines because she had become his wife, although it was a ‘lower’ wife position and not Queen, which was reserved for his primary wife.

Mordecai tells Esther to not reveal her race, nor to take anything with her on her presentation to the king beyond what the house manager recommended. Since the house manager guy was her good friend, he apparently recommends that which pleases the king, and so Esther is sitting pretty when it’s finally her turn.

(Est 2:17) And the king loved Esther above all the women, and she obtained grace and favor in his sight more than all the virgins; so that he set the royal crown upon her head, and made her queen instead of Vashti.

Now we see that God has raised Esther all the way from being an orphan to being the Queen. Now Esther is in a position of power, and this will ultimately be of service to God’s people.

(Est 2:21) In those days, while Mordecai sat in the king’s gate, two of the king’s chamberlains, Bigthan and Teresh, of those which kept the door, were wroth, and sought to lay hand on the king Ahasuerus. Now we have a pair of fellows that are plotting against the king. Our old buddy Mordecai finds out about this plot, and turns the information over to Esther.

Esther then gives the information to the king, and tells him that she believes the information to be true, she validates Mordecai’s testimony. On this evidence the king holds a trial and finds the two guys guilty.

They are sentenced to death, and the event, including Mordecai’s role, was recorded in the historical records of the kingdom.

After this, another member of the king’s court was promoted to a position of power. This man, Haman, was put into a position above most everyone else, and the entire staff of the king’s court bow down to him as he goes by as ordered by the king, but Mordecai refuses to bow down to Haman.

Of course Haman is furious that Mordecai will not bow down, even when the king had decreed it. Haman found out that Mordecai was a Jew, and that is why he would not bow because of the commandments of God. (Est 3:6) And he thought scorn to lay hands on Mordecai alone; for they had showed him the people of Mordecai: wherefore Haman sought to destroy all the Jews that were throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus, even the people of Mordecai.

It wasn’t good enough to smack down Mordecai by himself, no, instead Haman decided that he would destroy all Jews in the kingdom. So now we have a real problem, another enemy of the people has appeared.

Haman goes to the king and tells him that the Jews are just bad folks in the kingdom and that they were not obeying his commands and just talked a whole lot of smack against the Jews to the king. Haman declares that they should be destroyed, and asks the king permission to do so.

Because Haman is so respected and high ranked, the king gives him permission to do what he saw fit about this Jewish ‘problem’. How very sad is it that this situation has arisen so many times in the history of the world, isn’t it?

The royal decree is scribed and issued that all Jews should be brought to perish on a certain date and time. The decree was actually posted before the time too, giving people advanced warning about what was to happen.

Of course everyone is freaking out and is sad and in mourning. Mordecai sits in sackcloth, a symbol of mourning and refuses to come out of his wailings even after Queen Esther sends him clothes.

Esther also sends a servant out to Mordecai to find out exactly what is going on and all the details of the matter. They get the details and take them back to Esther. Of course Esther is also freaked out and sad, so she, through her servant, asks Mordecai what she should do.

There was a problem though: (Est 4:11) All the king’s servants, and the people of the king’s provinces, do know, that whosoever, whether man or woman, shall come unto the king into the inner court, who is not called, there is one law of his to put him to death, except such to whom the king shall hold out the golden scepter, that he may live: but I have not been called to come in unto the king these thirty days.

Esther had not been called to the king, and she did not expect to be called anytime soon, and she is pointing out the fact that no one may approach the king without being summoned without facing the possibility of death. If the king did not want to talk to you and did not hold out the scepter, you were dead. So you were gambling on the king’s good graces if you appeared before being summoned.

Esther tells Mordecai this, and he tells her that the Jews would be delivered “from another place” i.e. that God would deliver His people one way or another, but that her and her father’s house would be destroyed if she held her peace and did not move to help the people.

Mordecai then points out that she might just be queen at this time in history to be a part of the solution to this very crisis. (Est 4:14b) …and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?

Esther sees this point, and decides to do what is right. She calls for Mordecai to gather the Jews in the area and fast for her for three days. Mordecai of course complies. This is another indirect point about God, I believe. They fasted and prayed to God, of course, to assist her in her mission to avert the destruction of the Jews. She has asked them to appeal to God to be with her, I believe that is what is meant when she asks them to fast “for” her.

After her fasting, Esther gathers herself up and goes for it. She stands outside in the courtyard, and the king is happy to see her, so he holds out the scepter, and gives her permission to speak, and of course spares her life for boldly approaching the throne.

Esther then tells the king that she wants to hold a banquet in his honor, inviting both him as king, and Haman. At the party the king asks Esther if there is anything else she wants, telling her he would give her all the way up to half the kingdom. Esther requests that the king and Haman come the very next day to another banquet she wished to hold for them.

(Est 5:9) Then went Haman forth that day joyful and with a glad heart: but when Haman saw Mordecai in the king’s gate, that he stood not up, nor moved for him, he was full of indignation against Mordecai. Haman restrains himself, full of pride over the honor the queen had paid him, and was to pay him again the next day.

In light of this passage, let’s remember that Esther has not revealed her heritage yet, and Haman clearly doesn’t know that Mordecai is a relative of the queen. If so, he might have reacted differently.

Haman gets home and tells his family about what had happened. Not only had he been seated above all the princes of the kingdom, but the queen did not allow any other man in her banquet with the king except for him. He was paid a great honor in being invited, and even more so because he was requested to be present at the next day’s banquet as well.

All of this was not good enough for old Haman, because the sight of Mordecai, who still refused to grovel and bow to him, just drove him nuts. So Haman’s wife tells him that he’s a man of power, and that he should build a set of gallows and convince the king to hang Mordecai. Haman was eager to get his revenge, so he thinks it’s a great idea and has the gallows built immediately.

But that night, the night between the first and second banquet, the king could not sleep. So to get himself in the mood for bed, he called for the book of chronicles of the kingdom to be read to him. I think he probably did this because of his vanity, because he wanted to hear again how great he and his kingdom was, but there is the possibility that history just made him sleepy.

No matter what the reason, the king realizes that Mordecai had not ever been properly rewarded for stopping the plot against the king. At this very same instant, Haman was approaching the king’s outer chambers to try to convince him to hang Mordecai on the gallows.

The king asks who is in the court and calls Haman in. He then asks Haman what he would suggest if the king wanted to greatly honor someone. Well Haman, in all of his arrogance, thinks that the king wants to further honor him, so he answers with the things he would want to experience.

(Est 6:8) Let the royal apparel be brought which the king useth to wear, and the horse that the king rideth upon, and the crown royal which is set upon his head: (Est 6:9) And let this apparel and horse be delivered to the hand of one of the king’s most noble princes, that they may array the man withal whom the king delighteth to honor, and bring him on horseback through the street of the city, and proclaim before him, Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honor.

The king looks at him and tells him to go do everything he had just said to Mordecai to reward him for foiling the plot a while back. I imagine Haman’s jaw hit the floor, and his anger then must have flared into the stratosphere. But Haman is no fool, and he knows not to test the king, and so he goes and does what he is ordered to do.

Remember, we still have the royal edict against the Jews where they are going to be destroyed at this certain coming date, so we still have genocide looming over God’s people.

Haman, having his commitments, goes to the second banquet that Esther has held with the king. Once there, the king again asks Esther what she desires and offers her up to half the entire kingdom.

Esther tells the king that there was an evil man amongst them that intended harm against her and her people, and she points out Haman. The king flips and storms out. Haman begs for his life, but when the king returns, Haman’s face is covered, a practice that indicates that one has fallen out of favor with their monarch.

Old Haman had the gallows built for the neck of Mordecai, but when his request for mercy was denied, it was instead his neck that found the noose. So now we have the great enemy of the Jews being taken out of the picture, and we see that God has looked after not only Esther, but especially Mordecai, as he refused to compromise his beliefs. He stayed true to God, and God saw him through.

The house of Haman is then granted to Queen Esther, who then brings forth Mordecai and explains who he is to her, and she grants the house of Haman to him, making him great amongst all the people, and in a position of power and honor.

But there is still a problem, we have the royal decree to slaughter the Jews on this certain day. The problem becomes that in this kingdom, the word of the king is law. He cannot even take it back once it is scribed. If he speaks it, it is binding. So they cannot just call the whole deal off, another solution must be found.

That solution was to issue another edict proclaiming that Jews, on that day slated for their destruction, were allowed to gather and arm themselves and smite any that came up against them. Basically the king gave them the right to arm and defend themselves.

This was a highly unlikely scenario anyway, considering that Haman had fallen, and that Mordecai, a Jew, occupied a position of power, along with Esther, the queen. When two of the three most powerful people in the nation are Jewish, you’re probably going to be smart enough not to attempt anything against the Jewish people.

And so it was that on the day that was intended to be for the destruction of the Jews, instead it became the day of destruction of the Jews’ enemies, and they held the day afterwards as a banquet and feast day.

So as you see, God moved Esther from the point of a poor orphan all the way up to being the queen of one of the most powerful empires on the face of the earth. She was able to bring her people from the brink of genocide to actually being the victors against their enemies. God used Esther for great things, He can use you too. Until next time, God bless.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 24th, 2009 at 5:19 pm and is filed under Uncategorized | . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.