Think of
your favorite story. A fairy tale? Little
Red Riding Hood? An epic
fantasy? Lord of the Rings? An
American classic? Wizard of Oz? I have a suggestion for a favorite story,
one that would appeal to literary scholars and middle school readers alike: the
story of Esther, a book in the Bible we don’t read in church very often.
Esther is set in the 400’s, the 5th
century BC, in the city of Susa, one of the four capitals of the ancient Persian
Empire. In 586 BC, the Babylonians
defeated God’s chosen people, the ancient Jews.
The Babylonians destroyed the city of Jerusalem, leveled the great
temple Solomon had built, and then enslaved the young, educated class of
Jews. They were taken into exile.
Within the next century, the
coalition of the Media-Persian Empire overthrew the Babylonians. Ancient Israel did not become independent
under Persian rule, but they did enjoy greater freedoms. The story is detailed in the Biblical books
of Ezra and Nehemiah. Ezra
re-established the Law of Moses in Jerusalem.
Nehemiah oversaw the rebuilding of the city. God promised his people when they were taken
into Babylonian exile that they would one day return. Ezra and Nehemiah tell of that return.
However, many Jews, heeding the
words of the great prophet Jeremiah, forged a life for themselves in Babylon. They found that even though the temple was
destroyed and they were displaced, no longer living in the land God had
promised to Abraham, they could still be the people of God. The Judaism that developed in that exile
community is closer to the way Jews live out faith today. Esther is the story of Jews who stayed in
Persia.
The book itself has been the subject
numerous debates over the centuries.
There are no miracles in the book of Esther. There’s no king in the line of David. There’s no prophet. There are no messianic hints. And God is never mentioned. Why is this in the Bible?
Also, is Esther a historical account
or a fictional account? I can’t answer
that question. There may have been an
ancient Jew named Hadassah, who took the Persian name ‘Esther,’ who through
remarkable circumstances rose to prominence in the circles of Persian
royalty. Something like that might have
happened in history. There are no
Persian records of a Jewish slave rising to the status of queen, but strange
things happen in history. Whether she is
a historical figure, the story as it is written in the Bible is clearly intended
to be a farce.
This is the story.
It opens with the Persian King
Ahasuerus. He was actually called
Xerxes, but the writers of Esther call him Ahasuerus, which in Hebrew sounds
like “King Headache.” King Headache holds
a banquet for 180 days. One hundred eighty days. That’s some party! Throughout the revelry, the king wants to
display all his wealth and splendor to his guests, including his wife
Vashti. She refuses to prance around the
stage so that the king can be made to look good. In an act of brazen independence, Vashti
defies the king. His advisors tell him
Vashti must be disposed of because if other women see her defiance, they will
think they don’t have to listen to their husbands (1:15-17). Note this!
King Headache does not make any decisions anywhere in this story. He’s presented as being all-powerful, yet
throughout the story, he does what others tell him.
Vashti’s act of feminism leads to
her divorce, and the king needs a new queen.
All the young virgins of the kingdom, from all the exiled peoples are
taken into a harem. These women will go through 1 year of beauty treatments. A year! Extreme exaggeration is the clearest
indicator of what kind of story this is.
A 6-month orgy in the king’s palace?
Is that even possible? Who’s running the kingdom? A year’s worth of beauty treatments? Absurd!
Included in this group of women recruited is
Esther. While she is going through her
treatments, we meet other characters.
Mordecai, a Jew from the tribe of Benjamin, is her uncle and is the one
who raised her from early childhood. We
learn that this Mordecai discovers a plot to assassinate King Ahasuerus, “King
Headache.” He saves the Persian King’s
life. This hero’s great act is never
recognized by the king.
Hamen is an Agagite and is part of the king’s
royal court. He wants to acquire as much
power and glory for himself as he possibly can. He manipulates the king into
seriously stupid decisions.
So we have Mordecai the hero and uncle of
Esther, and we have Hamen, the ambitious one who will do whatever it takes to advance
himself. The rivalry between the tribe
of Benjamin and the Agagites goes all the way back to 1 Samuel 15. There, the Lord commanded Israel’s first
King, King Saul, of the tribe of Benjamin, to kill all the Amalekites. Saul did but disobeyed God by sparing the
Amalakite King, King Agag. Saul ended up
dying in shame as a failed king of Israel.
Now here we are in Esther, centuries later, and a descendant of Saul,
Mordecai, faces a descendant of Agag, Hamen.
Hamen struts around the city like a peacock,
expecting everyone to take notice and bow in obeisance. Mordecai will give him no such
deference. Hamen becomes enraged that
this Jewish exile refuses to rise for him.
While this is happening, Esther has risen to the top of the harem and
has been selected queen. Yet, King
Headache did not know she was Jewish. She, Hadassah, had taken the Persian name
of Esther.
In his fury at Mordecai, Hamen convinces the
king to make a law – a law that cannot be revoked. The “lot” (or dice) was cast; also called the
“Pur.” On the 13th day of the
12th month, the month of Adar, all Jews everywhere would be
completely destroyed. Haman wasn’t going
to just get revenge on Mordecai. He
would kill all Jews for Mordecai’s insolence.
Haman volunteers 10,000 talents to cover the costs of the Jewish
extermination (3:9). By the way, that’s
more money than the entire Persian Empire would take in in taxes in an entire
year; another example of the preposterous proportions that show this to be a
tale to be a satire. An additional
example is the stake on which Haman plans to impale Mordecai. Besides annihilating the Jews, Haman plans to
impale Mordecai on a gallows stake. He
builds it 7 stories tall. Whoever heard
of a gallows 7 stories high? That’s
taller by far than any of the buildings of ancient Persia.
King Headache sealed the letters that made
this decree an irrevocable law. Of
course, he did not know he was sealing the fate of his new queen he loved so
much.
Then the dopey king can’t sleep. Restless with insomnia, he has his royal
attendants read to him the records of the court. They read the account of Mordecai saving him
from the assassins. He asks, what reward
has been given to this Jewish hero. When
he is told that nothing has been done for Mordecai, he feels this wrong must be
corrected. But, remember, King Headache
has no original thoughts. So he asks
Haman what should be done for one the king wishes to honor (6:6). Haman assumes the king wants to honor him, so
he says the honoree should be paraded the streets in royal robes. King Headache loves this idea. He tells Haman to make it happen for
Mordecai.
There’s Haman running alongside the horse
ridden by Mordecai, his hated enemy.
There’s Haman proclaiming’s Mordecai’s greatness (6:10).
Shamed, he is more determined than ever to
bring about Mordecai’s ruin along with the absolute destruction of all Jews
everywhere. Mordecai has told Esther,
she must do something. So she tells him
to have all the Jews fast while she breaks the rules. No one is supposed to go the king unless
invited in by the king. She goes to him
unbidden. She could be killed for such
an act. But King Headache isn’t that
decisive. And he’s completely smitten
with his beautiful young Jewish queen.
He offers to give whatever she asks.
She asks that he and Haman join her for a banquet – the king, the queen,
and Haman.
They all happily oblige. We pick up the story in Esther chapter 7.
1 So the king and Haman went in to feast with Queen
Esther. 2 On the second day, as they were drinking wine, the king again said to
Esther, “What is your petition, Queen Esther? It shall be granted you. And what
is your request? Even to the half of my kingdom, it shall be fulfilled.” 3 Then Queen Esther answered, “If I have won your
favor, O king, and if it pleases the king, let my life be given me—that is my
petition—and the lives of my people—that is my request. 4 For we have been sold, I and my people, to be
destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated. If we had been sold merely as
slaves, men and women, I would have held my peace; but no enemy can compensate
for this damage to the king.”[a]5 Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther, “Who is
he, and where is he, who has presumed to do this?” 6 Esther said, “A foe and enemy, this wicked
Haman!” Then Haman was terrified before the king and the queen. 7 The king rose from the feast in wrath and went
into the palace garden, but Haman stayed to beg his life from Queen Esther, for
he saw that the king had determined to destroy him. 8 When the king returned from the palace garden to
the banquet hall, Haman had thrown himself on the couch where Esther was
reclining; and the king said, “Will he even assault the queen in my presence,
in my own house?” As the words left the mouth of the king, they covered Haman’s
face. 9 Then Harbona, one of the eunuchs in attendance on the king, said, “Look,
the very gallows that Haman has prepared for Mordecai, whose word saved the
king, stands at Haman’s house, fifty cubits high.” And the king said, “Hang him
on that.” 10 So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai.
Then the anger of the king abated.
With the problem of Haman resolved,
Esther sets about the work of saving her people – God’s chosen people. Because the decree to exterminate the Jews is
irrevocable, all that can be done is issue another decree, one allowing them to
defend themselves. This they did. Esther 9:5 says, “So the Jews struck down all
their enemies with the sword, slaughtering and destroying them.”
Slaughter
and destroy are not necessarily words that come to mind when we open the
Bible looking for good news from God.
Take these words in the scope of the entire story not just of Esther but
of the Jewish people. Egyptians in Moses’
day enslaved them. Assyrians in the days
of the Northern Kingdom tried to completely wipe them out through displacement
and intermarrying. Here in the story,
this Agagite, Haman planned a complete genocide of the Jewish people. And the earliest readers of Esther, the first
community of Jews to the read the story as scripture were being severely
persecuted by the Ptolemies in Israel in the second century BC.
Throughout their history, the chosen
people of God have been threatened, displaced, exiled, buillied, and
murdered. Remember that word I mentioned
– Pur? Hamen cast his lot. He rolled the dice to kill the Jews. And his intent for destruction ended in his
death and celebration by the people he sought to wipe out. The story of Esther is the source of Purim, the
only Jewish festival not mentioned in the Torah, the Law of Moses. The
Jewish Study Bible says,
Purim is a
carnivalesque holiday, replete with mock reenactments of the Esther story,
partying and excessive drinking, carnivals and masquerades, and a general sense
of frivolity uncharacteristic of Jewish festivals. The Talmud encourages one to get so drunk
that one cannot distinguish between [cries of] “Cursed be Haman” and “Blessed
be Mordecai.”
[The book of Esther] sets
the tone for the Purim holiday, “days of feasting and merrymaking” and initiates
customs like sending gifts to friends and neighbors and presents to the poor.[i]
Having faced destruction so many
times in their history, the Jews, our forefathers in faith, see the threat as a
time for God to show Himself true to his promises. And so, to commemorate God’s provision, they
have a supreme party in which they remember rescue from genocide.
Of course in the 20th century, the
greatest of historic threats to Jews came in the form of the Holocaust in Nazi
Germany. At Auschwitz and the other
death camps, the book of Esther was strictly forbidden, and Jews would recite
it to each other from memory. God may
not be mentioned in the book, but the Germans understood the story’s
power. Esther declares that God will always deliver
His people and God’s people will never vanish from the face of the earth.
Esther must be read in relation to other books
of scripture. Alone it cannot
stand. But, when seen as one chapter in
the grand narrative of creation-sustenance-salvation, it is a key work for all
believers. Christians especially read
Esther with an eye toward the Gospel and the eternal salvation we have in
Jesus.
As Paul writes in Romans 8,
I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor
angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all
creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our
Lord.
In the midst of natural disasters
like Hurricane Florence, it can be hard to see God from here. In the middle of an impossibly toxic politic
environment, as was displayed this past week in the Supreme Court nominee
hearings, it’s hard to believe God is among us.
When we see the suffering in some of the poorest, most war-torn places
like Yemen and Syria, we ask, “Where is God?”
Maybe you’re dealing with your own individual crisis that threatens your
faith.
Facing certain death, Esther fasted
and prayed and acted. The Apostle Paul
promised in word inspired by the Holy Spirit, nothing can separate us from the
love of God that we have in Christ.
Allow these stories to penetrate
your heart. God is at work in your life, sometimes behinds the scenes, but
always to your benefit. God loves you
and has His hand on you. Seek Him and
trust Him.
AMEN
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