Esther
8He also gave him the copy of the writing of the decree that was given out in Shushan to destroy them, to show it to Esther, and to declare it to her, and to urge her to go in to the king, to make supplication to him, and to make request before him, for her people. 9Hathach came and told Esther the words of Mordecai. 10Then Esther spoke to Hathach, and gave him a message to Mordecai: 11“All the king’s servants, and the people of the king’s provinces, know, that whoever, whether man or woman, comes to the king into the inner court without being called, there is one law for him, that he be put to death, except those to whom the king might hold out the golden scepter, that he may live. I have not been called to come in to the king these thirty days.” 12They told to Mordecai Esther’s words. 13Then Mordecai asked them to return this answer to Esther: “Don’t think to yourself that you will escape in the king’s house any more than all the Jews. 14For if you remain silent now, then relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Who knows if you haven’t come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” 15Then Esther asked them to answer Mordecai, 16“Go, gather together all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day. I and my maidens will also fast the same way. Then I will go in to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.” 17So Mordecai went his way, and did according to all that Esther had commanded him. 1Now on the third day, Esther put on her royal clothing, and stood in the inner court of the king’s house, next to the king’s house. The king sat on his royal throne in the royal house, next to the entrance of the house. 2When the king saw Esther the queen standing in the court, she obtained favor in his sight; and the king held out to Esther the golden scepter that was in his hand. So Esther came near, and touched the top of the scepter.
Snow that falls so thick the sky disappears behind it warms the heart of anyone who watches and fills it with a sense of plenty. Step outside after a night of snowfall and the whole world lies white, as though covering everything on earth were the snow’s appointed duty. As it softly blankets the land, it seems to be telling us to cover the weaknesses of others, to cover them again and again, and to hold them close. The one who pours out love on us like that heavy snow, until we are satisfied, is Jesus Christ. Following his example, we must learn the wisdom of knowing how to sacrifice ourselves, and we must strive to cover the weaknesses of our brothers and sisters in the faith.
Esther is the one who gladly sacrificed herself to cover the weakness of her own people. The events of her story took place between the first return from exile, led by Zerubbabel in BC 538, and the second, led by Ezra in BC 458. Her husband, King Ahasuerus of Media, was a mighty ruler whose realm stretched across the vast lands from present-day Pakistan to Ethiopia. By the grace of God, Esther had become queen and was enjoying a life of comfort.
The Jews now living in Shushan were those who had stayed behind in a foreign land, even though Cyrus, moved by God, had issued a decree permitting the captives to go home. Since they had lived so long among the Gentiles, some of them would have built up great wealth, and some would have gained power. For people who had spent so many years in what had become a second home, leaving everything behind to go back to Jerusalem cannot have been easy. God protected the people who returned to their homeland, but he also protected the lives of those who remained abroad. Jerusalem was the place God’s people were meant to return to, yet he guarded equally those who had put down roots in a land not their own.
The story of Esther shows us in detail the love of God, who protects his chosen people wherever they live, so that the wicked cannot harm them. Esther, a Jew, became queen by God’s wonderful providence: he knew beforehand what Satan was planning and set this in motion to bring those wicked plans to nothing. The name Esther is a Persian name meaning “star,” and her Hebrew name is Hadassah.
Esther had an older cousin, Mordecai, who was like a parent to her. Mordecai was of the tribe of Benjamin, the same tribe as King Saul, and strangely enough his name means “worshiper of Marduk,” the god of Babylon. Yet he held a rare faith in God. A man who loved God deeply, he took in the orphaned Esther and raised her with love, as if she were his own daughter.
Esther 3:1-2
1After these things King Ahasuerus promoted Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, and advanced him, and set his seat above all the princes who were with him. 2All the king’s servants who were in the king’s gate bowed down, and paid homage to Haman; for the king had so commanded concerning him. But Mordecai didn’t bow down or pay him homage.
King Ahasuerus favored Haman, and for that reason he ordered everyone, whatever their rank, to kneel and bow down to him. In Media and Persia, nations that worshiped many gods, bowing to Haman meant acknowledging him as a god. Mordecai belonged to the people who serve the one true God, so he refused to bow, as a sign that he would not treat Haman as divine.
Haman was an Agagite, and Agag was the king of Amalek whom Saul had defeated in battle. Agag was taken captive, but when King Saul’s heart was drawn to the plunder, Samuel rebuked him, saying that to obey is better than sacrifice, and put Agag to death. As a descendant of that Agag, Haman bore a grudge against the Jewish people and was always watching for a chance to take revenge. Amalek had opposed Israel right after the exodus, and God had commanded that they be utterly destroyed; but because Israel did not fully obey, Amalek went on troubling Israel. To such a man as Haman, Mordecai would neither kneel nor bow. Haman was so incensed at this Jew who refused him homage that he plotted to kill not that one man alone but the whole Jewish people. When Haman offered ten thousand talents of silver in return for destroying the Jews, King Ahasuerus put his seal on the decree.
Haman sent the decree bearing the king’s seal to the 127 provinces of the Persian Empire. It declared that on a single day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month Adar, the Jews could be stripped of their property and their lives, men and women, young and old alike. Now, when that day came, they were to die for one reason: they were Jews. On the surface it looks as though the Jews faced annihilation because Mordecai defied the king’s command and refused to bow to Haman.
But seen spiritually, this was Satan seeking to wipe out the people of God; historically, it was the descendants of Amalek with a hidden plan to destroy them. Indeed, everything that happens in the world is a scheme that Satan, who opposes God, devises to kill God’s people. God knew this scheme, and to stop it he set Esther on the queen’s throne beforehand, so that the plan was thwarted before it began.
God saved the lives of the Jews through Mordecai’s wisdom and Esther’s obedience. In the beauty of Esther and the faith of Mordecai we can see that God puts to use the faith and gifts his people possess. And if there is someone like Mordecai, full of wisdom, standing beside an Esther, God’s purposes can be worked out in the world.
The people who heard that Haman’s decree, ordering every Jew killed on the appointed day, had reached each province must have been stunned, because when that day arrived, they would have to die for no other reason than that they were Jews. They would go to their deaths without knowing why, only because a king of this world had decreed the death of every Jew.
Cyrus, who overthrew Belshazzar king of Babylon and founded the Persian Empire, had given the Jews the opportunity to return to Jerusalem, and those who did not go back now found themselves in grave danger because of Haman. Like Lot’s wife, they had probably stayed in the foreign land because they could not bring themselves to abandon the possessions they had piled up in the world. Yet God had raised up Cyrus to bring their captivity to an end, which meant they ought to return to Jerusalem. We, too, are to enjoy freely the grace God gives us in this life, and when God calls us home, we must let go of everything and return.
In the Garden of Eden God warned Adam that if he sinned, he would fall into eternal death. Even so, Adam was taken in by Satan’s deceit and sinned. If there were no righteous one to rescue us from this death, all humankind would have to go into the fire of hell; and sadly, there was not a single righteous person on earth.
Into this world, where not one person was righteous, came Jesus Christ, the Savior who took on a human body and atoned for our sin. People were able to overcome death because Jesus sacrificed himself, bearing the cross so that we would not fall into death. Just as Jesus died for the forgiveness of sins, the Jewish people, whose lives hung by a thread like a candle flickering in the wind, needed someone with the faith to say, “If I perish, I perish.” This is because the Holy Spirit works salvation through such faith only when there is someone who dies to the world, to human nature, and to the lusts of the flesh for the saving of souls.
Friends, you must offer your faith so that God can work. Because Jesus gave his own life, the work of salvation could be completed; because Esther staked her life and gave herself, the Jewish people were able to live. In the same way, only when you offer a devotion that comes from the heart can God take it up as his instrument and work to help you. Even when he means to rebuke your enemies, if you are living just as they live, he has no good instrument, and so he cannot judge them. I hope you will remember that God can work on your behalf only when you give him a good instrument with which to rebuke them.
Esther 4:16
16“Go, gather together all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day. I and my maidens will also fast the same way. Then I will go in to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.”
The king had so many enemies that Mordecai had once overheard, by chance, a plot to assassinate him. To protect the king’s person, therefore, anyone who came into his court without permission was put to death. Esther knew all too well that not even the queen was exempt, and going in to the king must have weighed heavily on her. When Esther did not go to the king even though all the Jews faced death, Mordecai rebuked her: she must not imagine that, while every other Jew died, she alone would survive because she lived in the palace. If she kept silent while God’s people were dying, God would save his people through some other turn of events; but she, who had the power to stop this and yet held back out of fear, would perish. She was to remember that she, a Jew, had been able to become queen because God knew the Jews would be in danger on a day like this, and he had put her in that place to save them.
The Bible tells of someone who met eternal death, just as Mordecai warned. One man had the power to stop Satan’s plan, yet because he could not bring himself to decide, he came under judgment forever: Pontius Pilate. When the chief priests and the Jews sought to kill Jesus, Pilate could easily have stopped them, since he knew that Jesus was without sin. Pilate’s wife urged him not to put Jesus to death, but he did not want to lose the authority he held, and he sent Jesus to his death. Because of that sin, it is still said to this day that Jesus was put to death under Pontius Pilate. Yet it was not by Pilate alone; Jesus was put to death by the Jews as well, who craved only the glory and knowledge of this world.
God says that those who have the opportunity to proclaim the truth and the power to do good, yet will not obey for the sake of their own advantage, are wicked. If Esther had done nothing out of fear while all the Jews faced annihilation, God would have delivered the Jews some other way, but Esther would have been rejected by God, by Mordecai, and by her people.
Since King Ahasuerus had not called for Esther in thirty days, she needed courage to go and see him, because to come before the king uncalled meant death. Even so, Esther asked Mordecai and her people to fast with her for three days on her behalf. As Jesus gave himself over to the cross to save sinners, so Esther took courage and cast herself into the very midst of death, and only then could she save God’s people.
Satan must have done all he could to fill Esther with fear so that her fast would fail. Jesus, too, had a human body, and his prayer before the cross that this cup might pass from him, if it could, likely came from that same frame of mind. Jesus felt fear as well, for he had both a divine and a human nature. Had that fear made him refuse the cross, people could never have escaped eternal death. But just as he willingly bore the cross because the whole human race had to be saved, Esther, who had to save her own people, fasted and pleaded for God’s grace.
All the Jews became one in fasting and prayer. Brought there as captives and living for several decades in a Gentile nation, they had probably drifted away from faith in God and from caring about him. But however much time passes, God’s people cannot in the end live mixed in with the Gentiles, and the fact that they are a chosen people does not change. Jewels and stones may lie mixed together for a long time, yet in the end they are sorted into jewels and stones; in the same way, the chosen people can never become one with the people of the world.
Among the Jews there would have been some who had abandoned God and lived like Gentiles, and some who had devoted themselves to the kingdom of Media and Persia. Others may have thought only of God and lived by faith. Yet regardless of their faith or their circumstances, all of them were to be killed for one reason alone: they were Jews. This was because being a Jew could not change; there was no escaping it. This event shows that when God’s people strive to become one with the world, the effort is in vain. When Haman set out to kill the Jews, however loyally someone served King Ahasuerus, they had to die because they were a Jew. This is how the world is: once you have lost your value to it, it casts you off without mercy.
Esther could well have refused Mordecai’s request. Because she had become queen while hiding that she was a Jew, she could have saved her own life even if the Jewish people died. But such a choice would have meant abandoning God and the lives of his chosen people, and as it would have been a wicked decision, Esther could not make it. Now two paths lie before her. Depending on which she chooses, Esther may die, or she may live on alone, though it means betraying her people.
If you stood at this crossroads, which would you choose? Would you gladly lay down your life for Jews whose faces you had never seen? Or would you hold on to the queen’s throne to keep the wealth and glory you had built up, even if your conscience troubled you a little? In this way the world keeps opening before you the road of faith and the road of unbelief, and waits for your choice. But Esther chose death to save the people of God. This is the very resolve God desires from his people.
Matthew 10:39-40
39He who seeks his life will lose it; and he who loses his life for my sake will find it. 40He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives him who sent me.
Those who give themselves up for the will of God are the ones who are alive. In the world, the only way to save your own life is to side with the world and persecute Jesus Christ and his church. But God has decreed that only those who set their hope on heaven will live forever, and because that law never changes, those who labor to live for the world will not receive eternal life.
Now Esther has laid down her life of her own will for the sake of God’s people. If the king did not hold out the golden scepter, she was as good as dead. She knew all this, yet after fasting three days and nights she went in to the king. Esther’s courage came from a faith that rises above death, and she could summon that courage because all the Jews stood with her in fasting. As a result, the great scheme on which Satan had spent all his cunning came to nothing.
A fast offered to God with the whole heart like this has power to accomplish much. Fasting is a resolve to humble ourselves utterly before God. Since it is how we lay our most desperate and earnest requests before him, a true fast means denying ourselves completely and resolving to depend on God alone.
Esther 5:2
2When the king saw Esther the queen standing in the court, she obtained favor in his sight; and the king held out to Esther the golden scepter that was in his hand. So Esther came near, and touched the top of the scepter.
Outwardly Esther may have worn her royal robes and adorned herself with perfumes and myrrh, yet because she had fasted in mourning before God, with a repentant heart, in sackcloth and ashes, she must have been radiant in spirit.
The king knew that Esther’s life lay in his hands, but he did not know that she already stood before him as one who had died to herself. Looked at from the other side, Esther could die at the king’s word, but because she had already died in God, she had nothing to fear. Although Esther stood before him without permission, the king found her so lovely that he promised to grant whatever she wished.
We must stand before the world as Esther did. We are to go out into the world boldly, with ability and authority; but only when we see ourselves as frail people who would perish at once unless God helped us can our faith remain humble.
When Esther laid down her life and made her decision, she regained the king’s love, and the crisis became instead the occasion of Haman’s judgment. This is the story behind Purim. The church that lives in a world racing toward the last days is a target of persecution. At such a time, just as Esther stood boldly before the king with the faith that says, “If I perish, I perish,” we too must stand by faith upon the rock.
King Ahasuerus (Astyages), who could do as he pleased with Esther’s life, was so taken with her beauty that he granted her wish; in the same way, only when we shine spiritually with the light of Christ will the world hold back from attacking us at will. As Esther saved her people from the place of death, only when we stand upright in faith can we save precious souls. Haman set a day to wipe out the Jews, but God made that plan fail and restored the Jews instead.
I have seen God work in a delightful way. Esther, of course, carried the dignity of a queen, but through her fasting God made the beauty of a woman frail in body shine all the more. As his way of saving the Jews, God used the heart of love. A man’s love for Esther was itself God’s instrument. As long as God’s children stand firm in faith, he uses the kings of this world to save his own people.
For God to work, Esther’s fast was absolutely necessary. That is, even to receive God’s help, Esther had to offer a good instrument; only then could God use it to save the Jews. The reason we must live by faith every day is to offer God an instrument through which he can work. May you keep this in mind: even when God longs to come to our aid, if we do not live by faith, he cannot help us, because there is no instrument for him to use. To put it simply, when my child gets into a fight with another child, if my child has always lived well, I trust my child and can speak up for them and settle the matter without hesitation. That is because my child’s good conduct is the very instrument with which I can resolve the trouble.
When Esther gave herself up, she was able to rescue her nation, and when the Jews repented before God, all their lives were spared. Esther saved her people, and the Jews kept the Feast of Purim every year. Letting go of worldly desire is never easy, but if you make your decision in faith, the Holy Spirit will take that faith as his instrument and help you.
For the people of the kingdom where we live by dying, simply to set our hearts on the world is already wrong; so when we do our best in faith in the circumstances given us, God will give us his special grace. We must change first before we can receive God’s help, and we must be born again first before God can gladly give us earthly blessings. If God approves our faith, then just as Esther used the queen’s throne as a holy calling, the places and the authority we hold in society become instruments for God’s work, a holy calling of their own.
May you, like Esther, enjoy the honors the world offers, give yourselves to the saving of souls, and set your hope on eternal life as God’s holy people.