Untitled Sermon (10)

What type of story is Esther?

It was most likely written while Jews were living in Persia. It is written in historical-biblical narrative. That is, it is a story written written about real people and places from a biblical point of view.

Questions the book poses

Esther demonstrates God’s providence care for His people and calls God’s people to remembrance of His care.

Who do you hold loyalty to?

Jews are called to give allegiance to the king

Haman wants everyone in Persia to give allegiance to him even when Mordecai refuses

Esther has to understand her position to the king even as she is the queen

-”her natural desire to conform and obey was confronted by the need to save her people from death” (Baldwin)

“The author presented the conflicted claims and indicated that obedience to king and husband had to give way before the overriding importance of life for God’s people” (Baldwin).

What we see in the end is that it is possible to give loyalty to those God gives authority while also giving full authority to God.

What do we do when it seems like God isn’t answering?

This book is valued by many Jews because as they have suffered throughout more than 2000 years they have Celebrated Purim as a reminder that they have a future and God is working even when it isn’t overt, when it is indirect, when He doesn’t seem like He is answering our prayers.

It shows that we have hope even through the most difficult challenges. When those who are Jewish read this book they are filled with excitement and hope because it reminds them of God’s deliverance of His people even when others have hatred towards them.

In this story we have Haman who is a practical atheist. He doesn’t believe that God can deliver the Jewish people. He has power, money, and he is filled with self-importance. In his mind he controls history, he has no one that he has to answer to.

While on the other hand Mordecai see’s these events as orchestrated by God on behalf of His people. God is really in charge.

Esther 4:14 “If you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will come to the Jewish people from another place, but you and your father’s family will be destroyed. Who knows, perhaps you have come to your royal position for such a time as this.””

The book will answer these questions for us. It will show us how God uses circumstances to humble and to encourage, and how what seem like “coincidences” are often part of God’s plan.

Setting the stage

We get a picture of a different world then ours in the Persian empire.

Ahasuerus or Xerxes that means

His name means “he rules over men/heroes”

Controls a vast empire and live in the city of Susa. He controlled territory from Pakistan all the way to Egypt.

He had “glorious wealth, magnificent splendor, and was great”. He was known as a great builder.

He throws this grand fest and he showed off all that he had for half a year. He was trying to show just how great he was. While all of his people are searching for food he is throwing a party.

At the end of this party he finished with a week-long banquet for everyone, not just all the officials.

We get a picture of royal splendor everywhere, beauty all around. Everyone was drinking to their happiness.

Essentially we get a picture that he is very full of himself and his power

In another place was a feast for the women. The name “Vashti” just means “desired one” or “sweetheart”

-But she doesn’t like what was told to her, so she didn’t listen to her drunken husband.

-Most likely she was asked to be displayed naked.

-He was going to display her like property with just her crown

-What we see is that a female presence is a threat to his power and he doesn’t like that.

-What we already start to see is that Xerxes does not make his own decisions. He relies on others. This is what allows for men like Haman to come into the picture.

-It becomes a political spectacle. “She has acted wrongfully against all of us! She will allow other women to disrespect their husbands!”

-We also see the danger in opposing the king.

Yet the queen defies him

-This already shows us another idea of worth and definition of leadership

But after awhile Xerxes misses having a great wife and he wants to find another.

Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther 7. The Queen’s Punishment and the King’s Decree (1:19–22)

First, the reader now knows that a new character is needed to replace Vashti. The anticipated character is Esther, a Jew. Second, it will be a woman. Like Miriam, Deborah, Ruth, and others before her, the new character in this story will emerge as a heroine of her people. Third, God is present implicitly, but not explicitly. Already the reader anticipates that Xerxes as a Gentile will be superceded by God’s sovereign choice of a new queen, even the Jew Esther.

The narrative is now ready to introduce us to a new character. Vashti has courageously entered and exited. She has prepared the way for one to replace her and to exceed her courage.

Esther

She enters into the story with hesitancy. The cousin of Mordecai. She is of low status as someone without parents, she is vulnerable, she has no power.

We see there is a selection process, all the women are giving the best beauty treatments. Each is brought in to the king, each is saved for the king whenever he wants them, only one of them becomes queen.

She “gained favor” by being modest and wise, everyone oves her.

Mordecai

A Jewish man that served the king. Mordecai is proud of being Jewish and of His God.

Even so, he was scared about the prejudice that might be taken against Esther for being Jewish.

God is preparing a way

Esther: An Introduction and Commentary (Reid) vii. Queen Esther’s Loyalty to Mordecai (2:19–20)

Passive verbs are mainly used in relation to Esther, suggesting that she is not responsible for the situation in which she finds herself. Instead, she makes the best of her precarious environment and is received favourably by those in whose hands she is placed. At the start and at the end of the section, Esther’s Jewish heritage and her relationship to Mordecai are stressed. The two main characters operate in a Persian context but the emphasis is plain: this story is about Jews and Jewish history, not Persians and Persian history. It’s about Jewish faith and its survival in a pagan world.

Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther 4. Esther Chosen as Queen (2:15–18)

Throughout the narrative of chap. 2, the hand of God is understood to be the force behind the development of the story. The author was in no way claiming that the events herein were from human hands but that the course of events was understandably at the direction of a power larger than this story. The first readers of Esther must have been amused at the reading of the text as they realized this important truth. The people were oppressed. Since there was no chance for a Jew to become king, Esther was brought into the royal court to become queen. As Joseph was introduced to the court of the Pharaoh and Daniel to the court of Nebuchadnezzar, Esther came to the court for a similar purpose. Joseph’s leadership meant food for his famine-stricken family and their eventual prosperity. Daniel’s leadership led to a new status of acceptance of Jews in Babylonia. Esther’s leadership would yield similar results. The common element in all three is that it was God who brought about these results.

And after this we see the stage set even more. Mordecai saves the king.

Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther 2. The Plot to Kill the King (2:21–23)

Esther has been introduced as the new queen, and Mordecai has a place of high standing in the gate. Vashti has exited almost as fast as she entered, yet she will be remembered throughout because any reference to Esther as queen will make us recall whose place she took. Xerxes is consumed with power yet powerless as sovereign events unfold.

IV. HAMAN’S PLOT TO DESTROY THE JEWS (3:1–15)

Side note about feminism

Esther: An Introduction and Commentary (Reid) Additional Note: Feminist Interpretations of Esther 1

The danger with feminist interpretations is that main themes can be ignored by virtue of a special focus. It is important that the first chapter of Esther should be understood as providing the setting for the story. The chapter does not necessarily highlight the book’s theme; it sets the scene for that theme to emerge. In the end, this chapter is more about Xerxes’ court than it is about either Vashti or Esther, for it is the way Xerxes exercises his reign that is ultimately the threat to the Jewish people and the focus of the story.

For this reason it is prudent not to contrast Vashti and Esther as both traditional and feminist interpreters have sometimes done. In this epic about Jewish survival against the odds, both women take a stand that sets in motion a string of events so unlikely that God’s providence is assumed. It is the Persian court that makes both their contributions remarkable. As Bush states:

Vashti’s refusal to be shown off like a common concubine before the tipsy hoi polloi of the citadel of Susa reveals a sense of decorum and self-respect that places her outside of the mocking characterisation that the narrator has given the rest of the royal court.

Vashti’s refusal to obey the king is a comment on Xerxes rather than on the patriarchy of the society he represents. As such, it weakens Xerxes’ honour and power, which the story in turn capitalizes on through Esther’s own role. So like Vashti,

Esther like virtually all biblical heroines, finds her place in Scripture not as one who has effectively changed—or even challenged—the social order. Rather she has contributed, through bravery and intelligence, to the divine purposes for Israel.

In this sense Vashti and Esther do not champion the feminist cause. They champion the purposes of God that allow Gentile and Jew, the privileged and the orphan, women and men, to contribute to the outworking of his salvation for his people. The crisis in the story centres not on male/female power but on Persian power versus Jewish vulnerability. When times are particularly critical, it seems that God chooses to work in unexpected ways by reversing roles and redistributing effective power. The author did not intend to bring a feminist perspective but a theological one, and this original intention must be allowed to instruct our reading of the text today.