God's preparations for the unknown future

Text Esther 2 Time 24/11/13 Place Childs Hill Baptist Church

We began the week before to look at the little Book of Esther. We began by saying that is quite an unusual book and drawing attention to certain of its characteristics.

Most obviously, the name of God is never mentioned - a strange thing - not because he is not in the book, of course, but to stress how he is always at work in the background. Then there is the fact that it is a very Persian book – set in that country and very much with that background central. Yet it is also a very Jewish book – in the modern sense. The word Jew comes up 40 times! Its chief hero is Mordecai, is called six times Mordecai the Jew and its villain, the classic anti-Semite Haman is called five times the enemy of the Jews. One writer says “There is no more stridently Jewish book in the Old Testament”.

We also noted its humour and its banqueting theme. There is another banquet in Chapter 2 and perhaps a little humour and we are introduced to the book's unusual heroes – Mordecai and Esther. The other point I made last time was that the book features unusual heroes in that they are fully immersed in their Persian culture yet maintain their Jewishness, sometimes in what seem to us odd ways. We mentioned Esther ending up in this pagan beauty contest which she wins in order to be married to an uncircumcised pagan.

Chapter 1 introduced us to the king at the time Xerxes (Ahasuerus is the Persian version). 1:1, 2 This is what happened during the time of Xerxes, the Xerxes who ruled (486-465 BC) over 127 provinces stretching from India (really what we now call Pakistan) to Cush: (just north of Ethiopia). At that time King Xerxes reigned from his royal throne in the citadel of Susa. We cannot help admiring his pomp and wealth and generosity and splendour and his power and greatness. However, by the end of the chapter Xerxes has shown himself to be weak and wicked and foolish. At the beginning of the chapter he is rich and powerful, high but generous. By the end he is reduced to drunken, spluttering anger as he can't even deal with a domestic spat without a massive over reaction. It would be a very dispiriting chapter really if it were not for the fact that it provides the background and setting for what is to come and that begins to unfold in Chapter 2 when the Jewish girl Esther becomes queen and her cousin Mordecai uncovers a plot to assassinate the King Xerxes – two vital components in the upcoming story.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Chapter 2 is the way these things happen such that they do not seem to be significant at all. And yet they shape the whole of the rest of the story.

To a certain extent we all see similar things in our own lives. Things can happen to us that seem fairly unimportant, humdrum even, and yet they can be full of future significance. I had a personal instance last week. I was looking through some old magazines in another connection when I happened to see a copy of the Evangelical Magazine of Wales for July August 1976. There was an article in it that I remember reading at the time (when I was 17). It was by Geoff Thomas who is now my father-in-law. It was one of the factors that influenced me to want to go to Aberystwyth University (which led eventually to me marrying my wife, etc).

Now here in Chapter 2 we have two events – Esther becoming Queen and, more briefly, Mordecai uncovering a wicked plot. They are not insignificant events in and of themselves but how very important they were to prove to be could not have been known at the time. It is only after the event that their massive significance can be seen. Such a fact should waken us up to the way God works. He does not wait for a crisis and then begin to act. No, he is the God who sees the end from the beginning and who is already at work long before we even realise there is any need for anything to be done. This should encourage us as we go about our lives, especially when some things seem dull and difficult or when things seem to make no sense or make no real impact.

1. Consider how God makes a woman a Queen and its later implications

1. Consider the wicked ways of ancient kings and their modern counterparts

So in verse 1 we read that Later when the anger of King Xerxes had subsided, he remembered Vashti. We suggested last week that this may have been done with some regret when he also remembered what she had done in refusing to come and be paraded as he wished and what he had decreed about her which was that she should be banished from his presence thus trapping himself with no way out. It goes on (2) Then the king's personal attendants who were plainly eager to carry on as if all was well proposed, Let a search be made for beautiful young virgins for the king. That's the trick – get his mind off Vashti and on to someone new! He also likes to feel that he efficient and thorough so they say to him Let the king appoint commissioners in every province of his realm to bring all these beautiful girls into the harem at the citadel of Susa. Let them be placed under the care of Hegai, (he gets a mention in the Greek historian Herodotus) the king's eunuch, who is in charge of the women; and let beauty treatments be given to them. Then let the girl who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti. The reason I said not much humour rather than none before is that the final sentence in verse 4 appears a little humorous at least - This advice appealed to the king, and he followed it.

So here the machinery of the entire Persian civil service is given over to what was no doubt an apparently efficient but let us be in no doubt an iniquitous enterprise. You have heard of the Thousand and one nights and the story of Scheherazade whose stories were so exquisite that the king had to keep listening rather than killing her, as was his custom, and how he eventually fell in love with her. The story, like this one, can even be told for children. However, what lies behind it is not fit for children to hear.

Eastern potentates would gather virgin women into a harem where they were well looked after by eunuchs (men who had been castrated and so were unable to engage with the women) and given beauty treatments and pampered to a great degree. Then, when the king chose, a virgin would be sent to him and he would sleep with her. The usual form was that she would then be taken as here to another part of the palace, where she would live out her days a virtual widow. Of course, if the woman pleased him she may be the true Queen as Scheherezade is said to have been and as Esther truly was.

Such things do not happen in quite the same way today, one would think but take the case of Swaziland. There were reports a few months ago that 45 year old King Mswati III was about to take his fifteenth wife. His new wife 18-year old Sindiswa Dlamini had taken part in a beauty pageant where girls danced topless for the king and his guests. There are plenty of examples of the rich and famous acting in very similar ways.

Now many a single man may imagine he would like to have eligible women paraded in front of him and take his pick but that is not the way God intended things to be. The whole idea of marriage is of a partnership. Yes women are to submit to their husbands but it is their right only to submit to who they choose to submit to and any abuse of that is to be resisted. That is why there are laws against it in many countries.

2. Consider how messy and difficult it is to live in a pagan world

So that is the situation and what do we find but one of God's people caught up in the whole thing. In verses 5-10 we are introduced to Esther and Mordecai. It begins Now there was in the citadel of Susa a Jew by this stage the word Jew is being used not just for people in the tribe of Judah but those of any tribe as here. This man was of the tribe of Benjamin, named Mordecai son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, someone from the same family as King Saul then. Verse 6 could be misleading as when it says he had been carried into exile from Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, among those taken captive with Jehoiachin king of Judah this cannot be taken literally as it had occurred in 597 BC over a hundred years before. It refers rather to how his ancestors had been carried off so that he is still in exile. Mordecai appears to be a Jewish form of the Babylonian name Marduka. We are told then that Mordecai had a cousin (not a niece) named Hadassah, the Hebrew word for a myrtle flower whom he had brought up because she had neither father nor mother. This girl, who was also known as Esther, her Persian name (meaning star – think of Estella – the myrtle flower is star like in shape) was lovely in form and features, and Mordecai had taken her as his own daughter when her father and mother died.

In verses 8 and 9 we learn that When the king's order and edict had been proclaimed, many girls (how many we do not know) were brought to the citadel of Susa and put under the care of Hegai. Esther also was taken to the king's palace (willingly or unwillingly) and entrusted to Hegai, who had charge of the harem. The girl pleased him and won his favour. Immediately he provided her with her beauty treatments and special food. He assigned to her seven maids selected from the king's palace and moved her and her maids into the best place in the harem.

A note is added in verse 10 Esther had not revealed her nationality and family background, because Mordecai had forbidden her to do so. Here we see what a godly girl Esther clearly is. She does exactly what her guardian Mordecai tells her to do.

Of course, people are uneasy with Mordecai and Esther in what they did. Why did Mordecai not do something to protect Esther? How was she so willing to live in pagan environment and eat pagan food? It seems to me almost impossible to say that they did wrong. They were not perfect people but they were good Jews trying to live out a godly life in a very pagan world. They are like us who are believers then. I know that some say we cannot live in this world as it is and we simply have to duck down and hide. In fact, if we look to God, he will enable us to live in all sorts of pagan environments – in education, in science, in the world of entertainment and sport, in the military or politics and in business and journalism – and indeed Christians do live and flourish in all those environments. Do not worry that you are in a pagan environment. Most Christians are. The important thing is to be godly in it. You may need to take what seem strange decisions – like not saying at first that you are a Christian – but God will lead you and if you look to him, he will use you despite the sometimes oppressive even dangerous environment.

3. A pagan world is full of danger and we are bound to be anxious but trust in the Lord

Clearly Mordecai was anxious for Esther. We read in verse 11 that Every day he walked back and forth near the courtyard of the harem to find out how Esther was and what was happening to her.

Some of you know that my son Rhodri has been studying theatre for the last four years. Every time he is in a new production I am anxious to know how it will all work out. He is in a play next month. I am hoping he has made the right decision to do it. I don't know. We will see.

We are given more background detail in verses 12-14 Before a girl's turn came to go in to King Xerxes, she had to complete twelve months of beauty treatments prescribed for the women, six months with oil of myrrh and six with perfumes and cosmetics. And this is how she would go to the king: Anything she wanted was given her to take with her from the harem to the king's palace. In the evening she would go there and in the morning return to another part of the harem to the care of Shaashgaz, the king's eunuch who was in charge of the concubines. She would not return to the king unless he was pleased with her and summoned her by name. Here the cruelty of the whole system comes out also its emptiness. The beauty treatments were designed to lighten the skin and remove blemishes as well as making them smell nice.

We then learn that (15-18) When the turn came for Esther (the girl Mordecai had adopted, the daughter of his uncle Abihail) to go to the king, she asked for nothing other than what Hegai, the king's eunuch who was in charge of the harem, suggested. And Esther won the favour of everyone who saw her. She was taken to King Xerxes in the royal residence in the tenth month, the month of Tebeth, a cold wet winter month in the seventh year of his reign. (Four years had passed since the Vashti incident). Now the king was attracted to Esther more than to any of the other women, and she won his favour and approval more than any of the other virgins. There is perhaps some humour here in that Esther was already beautiful without any treatments and taking with her nothing but what Hegai recommended clearly did her no harm. That latter detail also shows her wisdom.

So we read he set a royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti. And the king gave a great banquet, Esther's banquet, for all his nobles and officials. He proclaimed a holiday throughout the provinces (as with royal weddings in this country or perhaps it should be that he remitted certain taxes) and distributed gifts probably food with royal liberality.

So things turned out well. There is no guarantee of that. Esther could have been sucked into the luxurious lifestyle and forgot her heritage. She may not have been chosen as Queen. There are no guarantees. But Mordecai's anxiety was put to rest and all was well. We ought to be anxious for a Christian in politics or science or on TV. Think of a Dan Walker or a Euan Murray. Some will fall – remember Jonathan Edwards the triple jumper? But we must commit them to God in prayer and wait on him.

2. Consider how God uses a man to uncover a plot and its later implications

Finally, we learn about what happened to Mordecai himself in verses 19-23. It doesn't seem to fit the story but we will see later on how important this was.

We read in verses 19 and 20 that When the virgins were assembled a second time, Mordecai was sitting at the king's gate. But Esther had kept secret her family background and nationality just as Mordecai had told her to do, for she continued to follow Mordecai's instructions as she had done when he was bringing her up.

That seems a little strange – what does when the virgins were assembled a second time mean? Should it be “when various virgins were assembled? We do not know. When it says Mordecai was sitting at the king's gate does it mean something more than that he sat at the palace gate? It probably does. It probably means that he was made a magistrate or judge. Perhaps this was Esther's influence. The point of But Esther had kept secret her family background and nationality just as Mordecai had told her to do might then be that although people knew Mordecai was a Jew they did not necessarily connect him to Esther as they would have done if he had been brought into the palace itself.

In verses 21-23 we read that During the time Mordecai was sitting at the king's gate, Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king's officers who guarded the doorway, became angry and conspired to assassinate King Xerxes. Servants have often conspired to kill their master and that is how Xerxes apparently died eventually. But here we are told Mordecai found out about the plot and told Queen Esther, who in turn reported it to the king, giving credit to Mordecai. And when the report was investigated and found to be true, the two officials were hanged on a gallows. And then one important note - All this was recorded in the book of the annals in the presence of the king. This and the fact that no reward is given to Mordecai sets us up for what happens later when the King providentially recalls this incident and decides to give Mordecai a reward.

The lesson then is that we should all go about our lawful duties faithfully and well. Mordecai used his connection to Esther to do good not to boost himself. What he did eventually proved to be crucial. Whether our actions matter or not we must be honest and holly in the midst of a pagan generation. If we do that all will be well.