The Book of Esther: God's Will Be Done

General thoughts

Part history. Part

The only book of the 66 books in the canon that does not mention God.

And yet his presence is undeniable

Certainly has a large amount of true Jewish and Persian history

But it goes beyond being just an historical account

Its a compelling biography of a Jewish woman named Esther

But it is also a critical chapter in the story of a nation’s relationship with its God

Is in many way a treatise on ethics and the opposition of good and evil

But it goes beyond ethics and gets at the roots of Christian theology

At its deepest level it is a testament to God’s faithfulness and the indomitable nature of his sovereign will.

God’s Will

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Kinds of Will

Decretive Will - God’s decree as to what will happen. Found in covenants. Found in his promises. Through his sovereign will and his omnipotence, he can bring to pass whatsoever he chooses. This will is not dependent on human acceptance. This will leads to the desired result regardless of human behavior. The consequence is always what God intends for the consequence to be.

Secret and Revealed

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Secret and Revealed

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Preceptive Will - God’s expression of what he expects for us to do. This will does require the free will cooperation of humanity. Gods preceptive will does not vary. It is always morally the right choice so does not change from season to season. Our choice to align with his preceptive will does not reflect on God nor does it change him. It does however determine our righteousness and change us. God would never choose for you to go against this type of will but he will permit you to and therefore permit the consequences of that choice. We have the ability to violate God’s preceptive will but we do not have the right to do so.

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Origins of the Book

Dispositional Will - God’s expression of what would bring him joy and what would grieve him. This will is how he hopes we will choose to behave but are not rules which can be obeyed or broken. For instance, God’s will is that we should be obedient to him and not do wicked things. However if we choose the wicked path, he will punish us. He is grieved by the punishment but finds joy in the maintenance of justice. The dispositional will tells us about God’s attitude and helps us to know him in a very personal way. God’s dispositional will may cause him to act in ways that do not bring him joy but are in accordance with his holy character.

Origins of the Book

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Origins of the Book

Origins of the Book

Origins of the Book

We have hard limits for the penning of this book

The earliest would have been towards the end of King Ahasuerus’s reign around 465 BC

The latest would have been around 70 AD which is when the Jewish historian Josephus makes reference to the book.

Most experts in textual analysis look at the idiom, grammar, dating customs and even the complete lack of reference to Greek culture as strong support of an actual date between late 400’s BC to early 300’s BC (450-350BC approximate)

This makes it approximately 2400 years old today.

The book is set during the Medo-Persian Empire which followed the Babylonian empire of King Nebuchadnezzar, the conqueror of the Kingdom of Judah and the destroyer of Jerusalem. It was followed by the Greek empire with the conquests of Alexander the Great.

King Ahasuerus (Xerxes) ruled from the capital city of the Persian empire in Susa, which would be located in present day Iran. He ruled from 486-465 BC.

Although King Cyrus had released a large contingent of Jews to return to Jerusalem in 539 BC, there was still an immense population of Jews living in Persia at the time of this story about 75 years later.

King Ahasuerus was known to be an ambitious ruler who could be cruel and vicious towards external enemies but was generally kind to those who had been assimilated into his empire. However any hint of subversive activity he dealt with with a heavy hand.

Esther Chapter 1

This Chapter introduces us to King Ahasuerus and sets up the events which are to change Esther’s world

The King is a perfect example of someone enamored with the things of this world. He is all about sensual living. The enjoyment of power, women, alcohol, rich food, opulent wealth.

Moreover he reveals his perspective that women are little more than property who have no higher purpose beyond complete obedience to their husbands. Quite ironic because this entire book will prove to be about a woman who is so much more than that and yet she never fails in that role.

Queen Vashti is interesting in that her refusal to play the submissive wife is what God uses to further his plans for his chosen people as we shall see. In our day an age, it is easy to see Vashti as powerful, and strong, and self determining. We would like our daughters to be like her in her strength of refusing to be turned into an object to be ogled. And yet to the audience for which this was originally written she would represent a huge social and cultural sore thumb.

In his response to Queen Vashti, we see a rather weak image of a ruler. He is clearly someone more concerned with his public image than with right or wrong treatment of people. This characteristic will matter as the situation with Esther develops.

So the chapter begins with the most powerful man in the world at the beginning and ends with a divorced King, defied by his wife, issuing drunken and unenforceable edicts to save face in front of his subordinates. Thus we have King Ahasuerus. This lack of judgement also fits with the known historical figure. He is well known to have gotten to big for his britches and getting whipped by the Greeks despite superior numbers when he decided to take him on.

Esther Chapter 2

This chapter introduces two new characters. We have Mordecai, an exiled Jew from the tribe of Benjamin and his cousin whom he is parenting following the death of his Uncle and Aunt. This is Hadassah, or as she was known in Persian, Esther.

Esther immediately evokes our sympathy. She is an orphan living in exile in a land where Jews were second class citizenry. Her prospects were not great with the exception that she was bestowed with great physical beauty of both form and face. Here again the careful reader may see God’s hand at work much as it was in the downfall of Vashti.

Our story opened in the 3rd year of Ahasuerus’s reign and the careful reader will note that we are told that we are now in the 7th year of his reign. A full 4 years the King has spent as a bachelor. The text almost suggests that he is feeling lonely, that he misses Vasti and regrets having been hoodwinked into making a decree that he couldn’t revoke without losing face. Again his own pride keeps him unhappy.

Now in that 4 years something big happened in what we know of the historical reign of King Ahasuerus.

486BC - Came to power

486-484 - Crushed revolts in Egypt and Babylon making a name for himself.

483 - Great Banquet in the Book of Esther and the marriage to and divorce from Vashti

483-480 - Preparation for and invasion of Greece

480 - Fleet and Army are defeated and Ahasuerus retreats to Susa

479 - We find a depressed, brooding, bachelor King in Chapter 2 of the Book of Esther

His chief advisors recognized the need to get the King back on his feet. Knowing his taste for lascivious living, they suggested essentially the first season of The Bachelor.

This worked as the King was again far more interested in seeking his own satisfaction than pursuing the affairs of state. So he sets forth in auditioning hundreds of young virgins from throughout the realm.

In the casting the net to catch young virgins, Esther was caught up and brought to the Palace.

Immediately Esther is singled out as something special by the head eunuch. This is extraordinary in a harem or the most prized women from throughout the realm. This special favor provided her with lots of special perks which no doubt made her one of the front runners.

For many this would have gone to their head. This was a rags to riches story and we are told that regardless of the outcome the remainder of her life would be spent in the palace living a life of luxury. Yet in Esther we see many of her noble traits come forth.

She remains obedient to Mordecai and keeps her nature as a Jewess private

She keeps Mordecai updated on how she is doing so that he does not worry when it would have been very easy for this teenage girl to just forget he existed.

She is respectful to people in positions of authority such as Hegai. In fact, despite having it made for life, she remains teachable and allows Hegai to direct all of her decisions rather than thinking she has all of the right answers.

She is blessed with a personality which other people find delightful. We might presume that this harem environment where everyone was competing for the King’s hand might be a place that was rather harsh and tend to bring out the worst in people. Yet, we are told that Esther found favor in the eyes of ALL who saw her. Clearly there was something very special in how Esther interacted with other people that drew them to her.

In many ways she is the complete counterpoint to King Ahasuerus

Once again we can leave things as coincidence or we can see God directing a string of unlikely events to bring a faithful virgin whom he chose into a position where her faithfulness and all of the character traits with which he had endowed her would assure that his will would be done on Earth. In some ways, Esther herself could be viewed as a proto-Mary in this respect.

The contest is drawn to a conclusion the moment Ahasuerus spends his night with Esther. He immediately calls for her to be crowned as the Queen. Notably we hear the first noble emotion from Ahasuerus in that he is said to have loved Esther and was kind to her.

Esther’s influence on the King is also immediately evident. When one sat at the king’s gate, it reflected one who was serving as a judge or magistrate on the behalf of the King. This appointment was surely as favor of Queen Esther to the man who had cared for her through all the years before her good fortune.

As a judge, Mordecai had access to much of the court intrigue. Information he would not other wise have had. Through this access he learns of an assassination plot. He conveys this information to Queen Esther and then the Queen warns her King. An investigation ensues and the villains are found guilty and put to death.

Is it coincidence that Mordecai treated Esther with love and affection? Is it coincidence that a Queen was rejected and an orphan girl became Queen of Persia in her place? Is it coincidence that despite being a commoner with no significant parentage, all of Persia’s upper crust is smitten with her? Is it coincidence that she showed her gratitude by having her benefactor appointed as a judge which permitted him to learn of a plot? Was it coincidence that uncovering and reporting that plot put the most powerful man in the world in the debt of two Jews? More importantly, was it coincidence that the King completely overlooked thanking his informant at that time? This last thing will prove very important.

Esther Chapter 3

Now the author brings us to meet the antagonist in this story. In the beginning of this chapter one of the Persian nobility by the name of Haman is elevated to the rank of Prime Minister, second only to King Ahasuerus himself.

It is important to note that Haman was identified as an Agagite. This is a reference to King Agag in 1 Samuel. He was one of the Kings of the Amalekites.

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Saul was an ancestor of Mordecai, as both were from the tribe of Benjamin. It was Mordecai’s lineage that destroyed the royal house that would have included Haman. Mordecai and Haman were mortal enemies before either of them were ever born and the original audience would have known that and sucked in their breath the moment he was identified as an Agagite.

Both irony and injustice. The King is saved through the selfless efforts of two jews, Mordecai and Esther. In response, Mordecai is immediately overlooked and forgotten and the King advances a sworn anti-semite to second in command of the Persian empire.

King Ahasuerus commanded that all of his servants were to bow and pay homage to Haman but Mordecai refused to do so despite the steady urging of his colleagues. (Very similar to Vashti’s refusal to comply with the King’s command because it violated a deeply held belief.)

Initially, Haman was enraged at Mordecai simply as someone that refused to honor him, but when he learned that Mordecai was a Jew, he allowed the personal affront of Mordecai to blossom into venom towards all of the Jews living in Persia.

Once again we see someone of principle being taken to task for putting their principles ahead of the ego of someone in a position of authority.

Haman does not go to the King with a concern that the King’s command is being ignored by one of his own magistrates. He does not even address the infraction. Instead he goes with his own personal vendetta, fueled by the rage sparked by Mordecai’s refusal to submit to him. Just as King Agag had no appeal against God’s will, Haman intends to eliminate any appeal to the King that the Jews might hope to have.

Interestingly, Haman turns to the Pur to determine the most auspicious date for the extermination of the Jews. This hearkens back to the Urim and Thummim of the Israelites and many other similar traditions amongst middle eastern peoples. It was much like rolling dice until God gave you the role that indicated his preference. In this case, the Pur provided a long delay between the authorization to exterminate the Jews in Nisan (the first month) and the actual extermination date as selected by the lot falling to the month of Adar (the twelfth month).