Esther 1:1-2:23 | Where is God when those in charge are wrong?
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Good Morning Emmanuel Family!
We are so glad you are here today.
There is an account of God’s people, the Israelites, in Exodus 31-33 when Moses is up on Mt. Sinai meeting with God receiving the ten commandments.
Receives 2 tablets written with the finger of God...
Moses was taking too long
People make golden calf
God cuts the meeting short
Moses descends and finds the people worshipping this idol
As the story unfolds in 33 - God says get your stuff and go to the land I promised you
The land is awesome
You will have everything you need
But I am not going with you
The people mourn, and Moses replies with these words:
15 And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here.
16 For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?”
In essence, Moses says, “We don’t want your stuff, if we can’t have you!”
“Your blessings aren’t enough, we want to know your presence.”
“We want your presence, more than your presents.”
How very different is that from our present attitude often, right?
We often want God’s blessings, and are ok if He just stays out of every thing else.
Health, wealth, happiness - Great.
God leave the way I live in those blessings alone.
Moses is articulating an amazing, yet convicting, truth here.
Moses desired God’s eternal companionship more than his own temporary comforts.
Even if he had all of his needs met in the land of promised plenty, there would still be a void without God.
Have you ever been there?
You are surrounded with people, but feel all alone.
You are going through the motions of religion, but a relationship with your Creator is missing?
You are experiencing hardship, and as you pray it seems like your prayers are bouncing off the ceiling?
You are trying to do what is right, but nothing seems to be working out...
We tend to begin to question, right!?!
Where is God?
Does He not know what is going on right now?
Does He even care?
This morning we start a five week series in the book of Esther. And throughout the book of Esther, we notice something very strange - it never mentions God. This is why we have titled this series, Where is God…
If you would like to join me there.
It is in the OT, so if you open your bible in the center, you will likely land somewhere in Psalms. If you go backward, toward the front, two books, you will land in Esther.
Historically we break the OT into 5 groups:
1. Law (Genesis - Deuteronomy)
2. History (Joshua - Esther)
3. Poetry (Job-Song of Solomon)
4. Major Prophets (Isaiah-Daniel)
5. Minor Prophets (Hosea-Malachi)
Over the next 5 weeks we are going to be pulling out the final book in the section of History, the book of Esther.
The Setting of the Book
Esther is a fascinating book, for many reasons, but as I mentioned earlier, it never mentions the name God.
In fact, many people early on struggled to accept the book as canon in both the Christian Scriptures and in the Hebrew Scriptures (Tanakh).
Esther never mentions God. There is much moral promiscuity. There is a questionable festival not prescribed in the Pentateuch. And the vengeful attitude that surrounds the book has been offensive to some.
Even as late as the Reformation, Martin Luther said the book was too aggressively Jewish and had no Gospel content.
However, long before Christ, the jewish community recognized it as belonging with the other holy scriptures of the OT.
The historian Josephus viewed it as the last book to be written in the Jewish Canon.
The jewish scholar Aquila included it in his translation in AD 130.
It was widely held as canon, within the Christian church, long before the council of Carthage in 397 AD.
AUTHOR
The book is written anonymously - although some believe it was Mordecai (the cousin of Esther) who wrote the book.
DATE
The setting of the book is around 486-464 BC. during the reign of (Ahazu-erus - English) (Ahash-ve-rosh - Hebrew), (Xerxes - NIV). This takes place about 100 years after the Babylonian exile when Persia replaced Babylon as the ruling power. As Ezra and Nehemiah inform us, many of the Jews who were taken captive during the Babylonian Captivity had returned to Jerusalem. But some remained back from returning - the story of Esther includes some of those who stayed back.
CHARACTERS
King Xerxes, Former Queen Vashti, Haman, Queen Esther, Mordecai
PURPOSE
It is a narrative book in the line of Jewish History and explains the origin of the Feast of Purim - which is derived from the persian word “pur” meaning lot - which is tied to Haman casting a lot (rolling dice) to determine the day to carry out his plan to exterminate the Jews.
To help us better understand the big picture, we will take some time this morning to watch the introduction video to Esther by the Bible Project:
Watch Video
That is the setting of the next five weeks.
Much like a play that divides a story into scenes, we have chosen to look at this story in five scenes that surround questions of God’s presence in various situations.
Chapter 1-2 - Where is God when those in charge are wrong?
Chapter 3 - Where is God when evil surrounds me?
Chapter 4 - Where is God when trusting Him is hard?
Chapters 5-8:2 - Where is God when wrong is called right?
Chapters 8:3-10 - Where is God when I need rescued?
Now, as we begin this study we look to:
The Opening Scene
Now, we aren’t going to take the time to read both chapters. I want to encourage you to do that before you come on Sunday.
But we will recap and look at key points each week.
And in Scene 1, of chapters 1-2 this is what we see:
King Xerxes (Ahasu-erus) who rules 127 provinces (we will look at that significance here in a moment)
The king sets up a huge party for 180 days with all sorts of important people to show off how awesome he is.
The queen at the time throws her own party - and is presumably having a great time too.
About 7 days in, after the king had drank too much, he instructed Queen Vashti to leave her party and come to his, so that he could show off how pretty she was to all his friends
If you raised your kids on veggie tales, I know it’s hard to imagine the bible stories outside of that poetic liscence - but the Bible is a little different than the cartoon.
If you haven’t seen it, the king asks vashti to make him a sandwich - thats a little easier for kids to get than the beauty contest and debachery that was really happening.
Regardless, vashti refuses and the king gets really mad
The king and his bad advisors are concerned that all wives will refuse to submit to their , the king signs an edict into law to banish Vashti and that all woman are to honor their husbands.
Nothing like an edict to command love and affection, right?…
So the king signs the law, vashti is banished and a new plan is put in place to find a good submissive queen.
Actually, the king settles down and misses Vashti and to abate his depression, his workers devise a plan to bring in a bunch of prospective queens.
Now, I said it before, but Esther is not a book on good moral conduct to follow. The crazy drunkenness, rage, defiance, and promiscuity that follow are not things that should be condoned.
However, God works His plans and promises in spite of terribly immoral things that sinners do.
Back to the Story...
They mail letters to every province, that all the beautiful young ladies who aren’t yet married are to come to the king’s palace.
Again, some details we are skipping this morning because of the mixed company we keep, but it’s a pretty immoral plan.
Enters Mordecai and Esther.
Mordecai holds some type of official position, which is why he lives within the citidal of Susa instead of the city of susa. The citadel is a fortified area for the seat of the governement - much like the kremlin for the city of Moscow.
He is a cousin to Esther and takes her into his home when her parents pass away some years before.
When they read the letter, Mordecai gives specific instructions and Esther moves in with all the other singles.
They take a year to get ready to meet the King with various beauty treatments and await the night they meet with him.
Esther receives the favor of the guy in charge, is given special instructions for her night with the King.
And it works! She receives the favor of the King.
She is chosen as Queen. A party is thrown. The king grants a remission of taxes for a time and everyone is happy.
Except for a couple of the kings eunuchs, Bigthan and Teresh, who actually plot against the king and devise a plan to kill him.
Mordecai overhears the plan, passes it on to Esther, who passes it on to the king in Mordecai’s name, and it is written down in the book of Chronicles (Historical Record Books). The two are caught and hung and the scene ends.
It’s kind of a whirlwind!
A few things to note in Esther 1-2.
Notice with Christopher Ash in his commentary of Esther these details of the text:
The empire of this story is Inescapable and invincible- v. 1
1 Now in the days of Ahasuerus, the Ahasuerus who reigned from India to Ethiopia over 127 provinces,
127 provinces - this area is huge - its the entire known world at this time (except for greece) it spans from India to upper egypt.
Think about it - horse back is the fastest way to travel at this time, and it would seem like the entire empire was even more massive than what it seems even on this map
the massiveness of this empire made it seem like there was nowhere to hide.
Which is likely why the king was throwing such a big party.
It was inescapable, and invincible.
And so Xerxes gathers all the important people to, look at v. 4
4 while he showed the riches of his royal glory and the splendor and pomp of his greatness for many days, 180 days.
The king was very interested in making sure everyone knew that he was really great! And he planned 180 days (6 months)
And so he pulled out all the stops and made everything as nice as possible.
Look at vv. 5-6
5 And when these days were completed, the king gave for all the people present in Susa the citadel, both great and small, a feast lasting for seven days in the court of the garden of the king’s palace.
6 There were white cotton curtains and violet hangings fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rods and marble pillars, and also couches of gold and silver on a mosaic pavement of porphyry, marble, mother-of-pearl, and precious stones.
He has rolled out the red carpet (at least the cotton curtains) so that everyone may stand in awe, but not everyone is awed...
the pomp of this inescapable and invincible kingdom is shown to be arbitrary. As Queen vashti says no to the King!
Xerxes is furious!
And his advisor steps in:
(A side note that it is really important to have good people who can speak into your life - Memukan is not one of those).
As Ash puts it: Memukan—a shrewd adviser—soothes the King’s damaged ego. ‘Don’t take this personally, your Majesty. This is not a personal problem, but an Empire-wide problem, a cosmic danger. The entire fabric of the World is threatened by Vashti’s refusal to bow her will to the will of the Empire. If the Empire cannot command the wills of wives, chaos and disorder will go viral. All our wives, all the wives in the Empire, from India to Cush, will follow Vashti’s destabilising example. You must act fast and act firmly. Issue an Executive Order, valid for all time and in every place, that Vashti (no longer “Queen Vashti”) is never again to enter the King’s presence.’ And so—ironically—Vashti is forbidden from doing what she herself had refused to do!
Christopher Ash, Teaching Ruth and Esther: From Text to Message, ed. David Jackman and Jon Gemmell, Teach the Bible (Ross-shire, Scotland; London: PT Resources; Christian Focus, 2018), 167.
So that’s what they decide to do. They mail letters to all the provinces giving these instructions.
And as you move into chapter 2, we can’t help but see three key aspects of God’s people living in such a corrupt world empire.
1. Our fallen world is often exploitative.
As you read through vv. 1-4 of chapter 2 you will find the King and his hirelings treating others as if they do not matter.
As they round up all the eligible women, there is no regard for their lives.
I was thinking about that and wonder how many marriages happened faster than planned because of that decree…
This is simply to please the selfish king.
It is important to note, that not only were young women exploited, but the young men were too. It is reported by Herodotus that 500 boys were taken from babylon to assyria every year to serve as eunuchs.
Everything surrounds the pleasures of one person (and the people who were close by)
Our fallen world is often exploitative. It is not an excuse, but it is a reality. Rulers rise and fall, and and the lives most everyone else are seen as merely existing for their benefit.
2. God’s people are often exiles.
As you peruse vv. 5-7 we learn of Mordecai and the reason why this story has anything to do with the rest of the bible
Look with me
5 Now there was a Jew in Susa the citadel whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jair, son of Shimei, son of Kish, a Benjaminite,
6 who had been carried away from Jerusalem among the captives carried away with Jeconiah king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away.
7 He was bringing up Hadassah, that is Esther, the daughter of his uncle, for she had neither father nor mother. The young woman had a beautiful figure and was lovely to look at, and when her father and her mother died, Mordecai took her as his own daughter.
The link to the rest of the scriptures ties in Mordecai as a Benjamite. And he is here in Susa post captivity.
Peter reminds us in 1 Peter 1 that we are but strangers and pilgrims in this world.
And where Mordecai is sitting, in the invincible/inescapable world empire of persia, he is not home.
This story reminds us that the world system that we live in is:
1. Often Exploitative
2. We are Often exiles.
At some point, the people of God recognize that this world is not our home. We are just passing through.
But while we pilgrim through,
We recognize the third aspect of living in the fallen world empire:
3. God’s People are often exposed
As the competition for the crown progresses through vv. 8-20 we can’t help but see the vulnerability of Esther and everyone else in the story. It is a shame what takes place, and we certainly don’t use Esther as a moral model for our young daughters. However, as we see the story unfold, there is a lot of irony.
Although in the fallen world empire we are experience exploitation and are exposed as exiles, God is in the background faithfully working his plans and promises.
As one writer puts it, ‘The world-ruler banishes a wife he cannot control, only to take on later a new one who controls him completely’ - but that’s a story for another Sunday.
Christopher Ash, Teaching Ruth and Esther: From Text to Message, ed. David Jackman and Jon Gemmell, Teach the Bible (Ross-shire, Scotland; London: PT Resources; Christian Focus, 2018), 181.
So we see this inescapable, invincible world empire that often exploits the exposed exiles of God’s people.
And we stop for a moment and reflect on the story and can’t help but think, “What in the world is going on?’
No wonder people were scratching their heads as they were comparing this with other sacred writings.
There is nothing, even slightly moral going on in the opening scene of this story. This can’t be meant to relay God’s inter workings among the history of His people!
This is simply wrong.
You have kings casting out queens because she refused to show up when beckoned (or make a sand-which - who knows!)
You have decrees going out mandating submission of wives to husbands.
You have other decrees confiscating eligible singles as simply chess pieces in a plan to appease one man.
Those in charge in this story are wack! Where is God?
Good question!
Where is God when those in charge are wrong?
Well, in this scene, it is hard to see. However, as the story unfolds we will recognize Him faithfully working His plans and promises.
The author is purposefully not mentioning God here. And although it may seem that God is either disinterested or aloof to what is going on, He is actually neither.
The blessing of being born when we were is that we have ample historical evidence that God is faithfully at work in the world, especially when the world is functioning unfaithfully.
Have you ever felt like God was no where to be found when it came to your situation with those in authority over you?
Perhaps it was when you were a kid, and your parents weren’t what they should have been.
Maybe it was a coach or teacher that was unfair?
Perhaps you find yourself in a college classroom being pressured into saying that you believe something that contradicts your biblical convictions.
Perhaps you question bosses now, or team leads, who only are looking out for themselves. Corporations that employee hired hands who are seemingly only a number not an individual with a family to feed. Or as a Christian professional you are asked by your boss to do something unethical.
Maybe you struggle with governmental authorities and the balance of submission and retaining liberty.
Have you asked the question, How did that person get to be in charge of me?
All of us could share stories of how someone else’s sin, especially leaders, has affected us.
We all have experienced, at some degree, what it means to live in a world system that is similar to our story here in Esther.
But let me encourage you with a couple of subtle details already in our story. Already thee seems to be an invisible orchestrator behind the scenes who has set up a young woman now as queen and an older man to save the king from being assassinated.
Friend, be encouraged that God is working behind the scenes, in what is often experienced as weakness and humility to accomplish what He wants to do most.
Similarly to the details leading up to the resurrection of Christ, that we celebrated last week.
The disciples were experiencing a similar situation of seeming inescapable and invinsible power in the world system of their day. And as they stood exploited and exposed watching their Savior hang on a cross to die and be buried - all hope seemed lost!
However, God worked through the seeming weakness and humility of Christ’s death to accomplish His ultimate plan of redemption toward us!
God is always at work, faithfully fulfilling His plans and promises.
Here in Esther, you have a lot of wonky things going on in levels of power and authority and as we consider what is going on, we can gather help from the Scriptures in how to approach similar situations.
As we read a few moments ago from Romans 13 and Daniel 2, we gather a few guiding principles when it comes to a biblical theology of authority.
1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.
2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.
20 Daniel answered and said: “Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, to whom belong wisdom and might.
21 He changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding;
22 he reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him.
1. God is in control even when I can’t see Him.
2. God is good although this doesn’t feel good.
3. God is worthy of my trust.
Questions to Consider in Community
Read ahead - Chapter 3