Esther 1:1 -- 2:4

Introduction:

-While we don’t know who authored this book

-This account takes place after the Exile of the Southern Kingdom of Judah

-So remember that God promised to bless His people if they kept the Covenant

-But if they went astray and worshipped other gods, God spew them out of the land, and they would live in captivity to other masters

-Israel was unfaithful over and over to God, so eventually God uses Assyria to take the Northern Kingdom of Israel captive, and then uses Babylon 140 years later to take the Southern Kingdom captive

-The people of Judah are in captivity to Babylon for 70 years

-And then, the Medo-Persians come and conquer Babylon

-And Cyrus the Great releases the Jews to go back to their homeland and rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple, just as God had promised

-According to sholarly estimations, the events of this book take place around 50 years after this decree by Cyrus

-So right off the bat, what this means is that the Jews that this story centers around are the ones that chose not to go back to Jerusalem

-Why did they not go back?

-Was it that they had grown comfortable in Persia?

-Did they enjoy the luxury of Shushan and weren’t interested in going back to a ruined Jerusalem?

-Was it that they were not all that interested in worshipping Yahweh anymore?

-We’re never told the reason

-But at least one thing that this account answers is this: will God still be faithful to His covenant people, even if they are in a foreign land?

Main theme

-Now, let’s go to the back of the book real quick and see where the author is going with all of this

-Remember, we want to read the parts of the narrative in light of the whole

-If we don’t know where the author wants to lead us, we can end up jumping on certain sections or verses or phrases and make poor application

Esther 9:1 NKJV

Now in the twelfth month, that is, the month of Adar, on the thirteenth day, the time came for the king’s command and his decree to be executed. On the day that the enemies of the Jews had hoped to overpower them, the opposite occurred, in that the Jews themselves overpowered those who hated them.

So as we read this account, this is where the author wants us to end up

-This is the account of how God turned a potential day of destruction for the Jews into a day of triumph

-He flipped the whole situation upside down and gave them victory instead of annihilation

Back to Introduction

One more interesting thing to note about this book as we jump into the narrative is this: God is never mentioned one time in this entire account.

-Not once

-there is no mention of the Temple, or prayer, or of seemingly anything explicitly religious

-Now, I want you to be asking this: why is that?

-Be thinking about that as we look at our passage this evening

Vs. 1-4

-So this account takes place in the reign of Ahasuerus, more commonly known to us by his greek name, Xerxes

-As we look at this text here, what is the author trying to do?

-What image and idea is he trying to impress upon us?

-The author is showing us all the pomp and splendor of this king

-Look at all the impressive words and phrases

“reigned over 127 provinces”

-That’s a lot!

“from India to Ethiopia”

-so most of the know world

“his reign”

-has a feast for his princes and nobles

-wants to show them “the riches of his glorious kingdom and the splendor of his excellent majesty for 180 days”

-The writer is impressing upon us the pomp and splendor of this king

-but I think the most important phrase here is this:

“when King Ahasuerus sat on the throne of his kindgom”

-Why do you think it’s phrased that way?

-I mean, is the verse 2 even needed?

-Couldn’t the author have cut out most of verse 1 and verse 2 and it still have made sense?

Listen to it without that verse and a half:

“now it came to pass in the days of Ahasuerus . . . that in the third year of his reign he made a feast . . .”

-Doesn’t that make perfect sense?

-So why does the author put that there?

-Why does he want us to think about reigning and sitting on a throne?

-Keep that in mind and we’ll come back to it

The king throws a huge feast for all his officials and servants

-I mean he goes all out

-And he does all of it why?

-To show of his riches

-To display his majesty

-To wow everyone with his kingdom

-that’s the purpose

Vs. 5-9

-Notice that the description of pomp and splendor continuing

-I mean, the author really spends a lot of time describing this feast

-This feast encompasses all these nobles who came to Shushan

-And it lasted 7 days!

-In vs. 6, the author describes the decorations!

-There’s blue and white and purple

-There’s silver, marble

-Couches of gold and silver!

-Alabaster, turquoise, more marble

-They’re drinking out of gold vessels with all of them being unique!

-And here’s the rule on drinking: get as much as you want!

-Get completely wasted if it suits you!

-Queen Vashti is also having a feast going on for the royal women

-And all of this is to show off the majesty and pomp of King Ahasuerus

Vs. 10-12

-Now we get into the actual plot

-You don’t really have a plot until there’s conflict

-Now, notice how the author slows down here

-The original feast was 180 days

-And the author wants to slow the narrative down and focus on this particular day, and really, probably just a small time period on this day, so it must be important

-So, according to verse 10, they’re now at the last day of this 7 day feast, after the 180 day feast

-And the king, who is drunk, commands his seven eunuchs to bring Queen Vashti in all her royal attire to the people, because she was very beautiful

-Now, while the reason is not told why she refused, it doesn’t seem all that hard to think of a few possible reasons

-Namely, being brought before a bunch of drunk men and her drunk husband to show off her beauty

-But as we’re reading this for the first time, we might gasp in shock

-Because flat out refusing the King in a time and culture like this is generally not a good life decision

-And not just turning him down in a private setting, but openly defying him in front of anyone and everyone who’s remotely important in his kingdom

-And not shockingly, the king is furious

-So what’s going to happen?

Vs. 13-22

-Now here’s where the irony really starts in all this

-You and I as the reader are supposed see the humor and the irony of this pompous king

-He throws a 187 day party for all the officials of his kingdom to show them what an amazing and wealthy and powerful and glorious king he is

-And his own wife flatly refuses when he summons her to make an appearance!

-And so the irony heightens when he gets angry and hurt, like a little child, and then turns to his advisors, and asks “. . . what do I do now?”

-He’s so powerful, he’s got almost unlimited resources and absolute authority to do what he wants

-And yet, he’s angry because he got embarassed

-And he doesn’t even know how to take care of this situation

-And what you’ll see is this is exactly how the author portrays the King throughout the entire book

-He’s kind of a gullible idiot who rarely ever makes decisions for himself, but just kind of does whatever others advise him to do

-It seems he’s very easily influenced by anyone and everyone around him

-So he turns to these 7 wisemen and asks: “what do I do?”

-And one of them steps forward and says: “this is a big problem, not just for you, but for all the men in your kingdom!

“I mean, our wives are gonna run rough-shod over us because of this!

“There’s going to be contempt and fighting and wrath all over the kingdom within families!”

“So, here’s what to do king: let’s make a big royal decree out of it

“so, not taking care of this in-house in a discreet way, but we want this to be a decree that goes out all over the kingdom!

“let’s send out a decree everywhere that lets people know that Vashti is never coming before you again

“AND that she is being removed from her office as queen”

“And what this is going to accomplish is that it will show all the wives in your kingdom that this is a big deal and it will cause them to honor their husbands”

Vs. 21

-So the king does it!

-He’s drunk, he’s angry, and he’s like: “Sure! that will teach her a lesson!”

Vs. 22

-The irony is so rich here!

-He literally tells every man “be master of your own house!”

-When it was his wife who disobeyed him

-Don’t you see the irony and the humor that the author is giving us here?

-Notice what happens next though:

2:1-4

Vs. 1

-Some time later, we’re not sure how long, but the King kinda comes down from his drunkenness and hissy fit over the whole thing

-And he wakes up one day and realizes: “I have no queen”

-It’s almost like in his fit of rage he didn’t really think through all the ramifications of what he was doing

-And then it hits him that he’s a king without a queen

And so what does he do?

-True to character in this account, he gets an idea from someone else

Vs. 2-4

-And so begins the search for a beautiful young woman to be his queen

-And we’ll pick up the account here next week

Application

-Now, as we turn our thoughts toward application, this is where we can, and often do, get really tripped up in our OT studies of God’s Word

-Maybe the application would be not to be pompous and proud like the king

-Or maybe your application if you’re a husband is that you shouldn’t be mean towards your wife

-You should be more forgiving, unlike Ahasuerus

-Or maybe if you’re a wife, you think that you should try to be more submissive to your husband, unlike Vashti

-Even though her husband is pretty awful, God still wants us to be submissive to our husbands

-Or maybe you think the whole books is about the courage of Esther

-How she goes to the King at the risk of your life

-And you need to be willing to lay down your life for your faith

But is that really what the author is wanting us to come away with?

-Is the author’s purpose really to help us in our marriage? or to be more humble? or to be more courageous

This is where we really have to ask questions and seek to be discerning with the text:

-And the big question now that we need to think through as we seek to draw out application is this:

WHY?

Why these 26 verses?

-Why does the author put these in here?

-Why not just pick up the story with Esther and Mordecai?

-Why do we need all of this description of the pomp and majesty?

-Why all the big deal about describing the king and his party?

-Why devote so much time to the kerfuffle between the pagan king and his wife?

-Why does the author portray the king as someone who has so much pomp and influence, and yet is kind of a buffoon who is far often the one being influence than the one doing the influencing?

And furthermore, what do we do with the nagging question about why is God never mentioned in this entire account?

And as we begin to think through the narrative as a whole, and how it’s about God providentially works to protect his people from destruction, and instead give them triumph, we begin to see some of the answers to our questions come into view

-The reason that God is never mentioned in this book is intentional

-It’s an ingenious literary device

-He’s never mentioned in the book one time, because that’s how life can often appear to us

-When difficult, or hard, or tragic, or even catastrophic things seem to be happening — whether on a personal level, or the family level, or the community level, or the national level, or maybe even the global level — it often seems like God is absent

-It can seem to us at times like God is not even in the situation

-He doesn’t know, or He doesn’t care

-We often cry out in our hearts: “God, don’t you see what’s happening?? Why aren’t you working??”

**And what this book unequivocally shows is that God is present, and is working, far before we are even aware that there is even a problem**

-At this point in time, there is no national threat to the Jewish people

-Their people-group is not under whole-scale attack

-As a matter of fact, the person who is their ultimate enemy in this book, Haman, is not even on the scene yet

-And yet God is working, through seemingly unrelated circumstances, to place His deliverer right where He wants her

-And when we realize this, the answers to the other questions seem to fall into place

-Why all the attention given to this rift between a pagan king and his wife?

-Because God uses the argument between a pagan, pompous king and his pagan wife and a dinner party, as well as the paranoid advice from some counselors, to work His eternal purpose in saving His people

-If you were to pick one place you’d think God wouldn’t be present, it would be at a 187 day feast full of drinking and probably sensuality in a pagan empire

-And yet God is there

-And God is providentially orchestrating all things to praise of His glorious grace

**tell the story of my home warrany**

-What about you?

-What are the things going on in your life that God is silently working in?

-Your annoying and difficult situation at work

-the hardship in your family

-the health difficulty that you or a loved one is dealing with

-The pipes bursting at your home

“God where are you at? Why aren’t you working?”

-Or sometimes we fail to realize that God is working silently and providentially in the normal, everyday circumstances of life

-When we think He’s silent or absent: He’s not. He is at work in concrete ways, working ahead of time for His glory and the good of His people

And if you don’t get anything else from this book, I hope this truth gets ministered to you:

-That God is never ceasing to work on behalf of His people

-And I hope that fills you with hope in every circumstance in your life

-I hope it excites you to think of all the amazing things God is doing, even in the hard parts of your life

We’re going to unpack this idea all through our study of this book, but one specific outworking that I want to talk about that our text brings out is God’s sovereignty as opposed to the supposed sovereignty of political leaders

-Why does that author make such a big deal about Ahasuerus and his pomp and power and majesty?

-Why talk so much about his reign? about the vastness of his kingomd?

-Why the mention of him sitting on his throne?

-And I think the point of this is to contrast this king with the True King

-And King Ahasuerus sits on his throne according to verse 2, but the author shows how not in control he actually is

-He can’t even get his wife to come to dinner

-Our world seems to be run and dominated by powerful political figures and rulers

-Putin, President Biden, Xi Jinping

-People in the House and Senate

-Judges, magistrates

-We hear their speeches, we see their decisions and laws being made

-We hear of conferences of high-powered leaders

-But we don’t seem to hear much about God in the news

-We don’t physically or tangibly see Him at conferences

-And yet He’s the one who is in complete control

-The king’s of the earth, even with all their authority and power, cannot control even the smallest things at times

-Nebuchadnezzar was one of the most powerful rulers ever, and yet he ate grass like a cow

-Alexander the Great ran out of territories to conquer, and yet he died in his 30’s without an heir

-the list could go on and on of the great political figures who have come and gone

-but God remains on His throne

-when I was studying this, I made a T-chart of the contrasts between King Ahasuerus and God

King A — is prominent in this story

God — is never mentioned

King A — tends to be generally clueless

God — is all-knowing

King A — is easily influenced

God — has already eternally decreed what He desires

King A — is often surprised at what is going on

God — is never surprised

King A — is completely self-seeking

God — is loving and works for the good of His people

King A — is whimsical

God — is unchanging

King A — is easily manipulated

God — works all things according to the council of His will

So be encouraged by this account brothers and sisters

-There is no ruler or magistrate that God does not sovereignly rule over

-We can trust Him and be thankful in all areas of our lives