Article 2017-04 - Esther: Queen for Such a Time as This
Chapter 31: Esther: Queen for Such a Time as This
Introduction
In the remarkable story of Esther we see that, although God’s people may forget Him, He does not forget them. Even if God allows crises in the lives of His people, He controls the outcome. Before a crisis starts, God has already put His missionaries in place to save. He orchestrates people and happenings to execute His plans with exactness. Often God reaches more than one goal in one certain occurrence, and although He may not speak, or even when He is not mentioned by name, He still acts.
Scripture reference
And I will certainly hide my face on that day because of all their wickedness in turning to other gods (Deut. 31:18)
… let the girl who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti … Now the king was attracted to Esther more than to any of the other women, and she won his favor …So he set a royal crown on her head and made her queen … (Esther 2:4,17)
The story
Many Jews had returned to Palestine with Zerubbabel and Joshua. Eventually the temple in Jerusalem had been rebuilt and worship was restored. It functioned again as a house of prayer for all nations. But there were Jews who had not left the – now Persian – empire. They had become comfortable and their businesses blossomed. Judah and Jerusalem were vague memories for some and mere ancestral stories for others. There was still some cultural religious consciousness, but this could hardly be described as living faith. This religious laxity was the main reason that they didn’t care for their country, city, temple or even for God. They had become secularized and sought welfare to such an extent that there was no more place for God, except in the hearts of the few. We meet some of them now in the Persian capital of Susa, near the palace of king Ahasueros, also called Xerxes.
In Susa lived a Jew, Mordechai, and his gorgeous cousin Hadassah, whom we know as Esther. The girl had lived with him since she was small because her parents had died. Being older than she was, he had been a father to her. Mordecai was a man of authority and well respected among the Jews of Susa. One day Esther was summoned to participate in a beauty contest: the most beautiful girl of the Persian empire would become the new queen. The former queen had been sent away because of her disobedience to the king. Esther, along with numerous other girls, had no choice as to go along with the king’s decree. She did as she was told and followed the king’s men to the palace. Mordecai had urged her to hide her jewish descent. She trusted his judgment and said nothing about it.
It did not occur to the girl that she had been selected by a King, greater than Ahasueros, for a service to Him, of which she had no clue yet. Neither had her cousin Mordecai, although he believed that no coincidences exist for people who serve God wholeheartedly – as he had done since his youth. He probably prayed for Esther that God’s will would be done in her life and that she would trust God, as he had taught her.
One day Esther was elected to become Persia’s new queen. The king had been smitten with her beauty.
In those days Mordecai discovered a conspiracy to murder the king and he sent an urgent message to Esther. ‘Bigthan and Teresh plot to kill the king,’ the sealed note read. ‘Urge the king to arrest them at once!’ Esther told her royal husband, the men were arrested, tried, found guilty and hanged. The story was recorded in the king’s chronicles.
Then dark clouds appeared over Persia. God’s old enemy decided that, although he had been unable to stop the first Jews from returning to Palestine, he could try to eliminate the rest of them, still in Persia. He found a perfect man to execute his plans, named Haman. The devil manipulated the king to elevate Haman and then created tension between Haman and Mordecai. And so the plan of hell for the remaining Jews started to be executed. The devil did not understand that a heavenly plan was ready to resist him.
The king made Haman one of the most important men in Persia. Everybody honored him and bowed down. Except for Mordecai, who refused to bow for any man. When Haman found out that the rebel was a Jew, he plotted to commit genocide to eliminate the whole race. Ahasueros went along with Haman’s satanic plan without questioning its legitimacy and of course not knowing that Esther was a Jewess. And so the villain received carte-blanche to execute his destructive plans. Letters were sent. Fear descended on the Jews everywhere. Tears were cried and prayers expressed by those who may not have prayed for a long time. Eleven months to go. Mordecai sent Esther a letter to enlist her help.
Scripture reference
Mordechai … urge[d] her to go into the king’s presence to beg for mercy and plead with him for her people … he … answer[ed] ‘Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?’ (Esther 4:7,8,13,14)
The story, continued
Mordechai pleaded with her to not ignore this crisis. He stated that God can help His people one way or another, but that she should not think that even she would escape this ordeal, unless she would act with determination. He always said not to believe in coincidence. He explained again his belief that God had put her in that position, in time to counter this crisis. It was for this reason that she was where she was. He urged her to not let her people down, or she would die in the process herself. He begged her to use her influence with the king to neutralize that criminal, Haman, and to do it quickly.
Scripture reference
Then Esther sent this reply to Mordechai: ‘Go gather together all the Jews … and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish’ (Esther 4:15,16)
The story, continued
Esther responded to Mordechai’s urgent note. She asked for prayer and fasting, after which she spoke the brave words: ‘If I perish, I perish’. Mordecai engaged the Jews in prayer and fasting, which was easy since none of them wanted to die. Esther risked her life by approaching the king unbidden. When he granted her his favor she worked out her plan to save her race. She invited both the king and Haman for a banquet that very night, but did not yet utter her request. Was it female psychology, that dictated that the effect would be much more devastating if she could postpone the climax for one more day?
In the mean time Haman got ever angrier with Mordecai because the latter refused to bow down for him. He complained at home, and his family and friends counseled him to erect a gallows for Mordecai, to hang him the next day.
That was the turning point. Now it was God’s time to protect His key-players. He did so by hiding behind many more ‘coincidences’. That night the king couldn’t sleep. His chronicles were read to him, about the failed attempt on his life. ‘Has that Mordecai been rewarded?’ he asked. ‘No Sire, he was not,’ his chamberlain answered. ‘Then we’ll see to that, first in the morning. Send in the first counselor that enters my court tomorrow!’
The first that came in, plotting to kill Mordecai, was Haman. He was sent to the throne room. Of course the king spoke first. ‘Haman, what should I do to someone I would like to honor in a special way?’ Haman beamed. Who else could the king mean but him? he thought. ‘Well, Majesty, dress him in your robe, let him ride your horse through the city, and have a man cry out that this is how the king honors his best people!’ The king thought for a moment, while Haman waited eagerly to receive the honor. But that turned out differently. ‘Haman, that’s a good idea,’ the king said. ‘Do this to Mordecai…’
Haman paled, his mouth dried and stammering his compliance he retreated and executed the most humiliating assignment he ever had. Then he went home, told the story and heard from his wife, that if this is how his plan to kill Mordecai had turned out, Haman would lose his battle altogether. It the same night. At the queen’s banquet, she confronted Haman in front of the King, who had no trouble to execute a culprit after he had earlier promised her half of his kingdom. And so Haman was executed, Mordecai saved and elevated and the Jews granted the right to self-defense. With that they were saved.
The Jews probably experienced a revival, because later two more groups left Persia for Palestine, the first under Ezra and the second under Nehemiah.
Comment
In the book of Esther God does not speak, at least not in words, as He used to do through His prophets. His name is not even mentioned. This was reason for some to think that the book doesn’t belong in the Bible. Yet, if we recognize the spiritual principles of distress and salvation and the roles God’s people play in them, it is not hard to also recognize gospel truths in this beautiful story. Esther is the example of any missionary who has a hard time accepting he or she really is one. Without Esther’s interference, the second half of the book of Ezra and the whole of Nehemiah might not have been written, because the Jews would have been eliminated by Haman’s genocide. Esther, early in her royal career, learned not to love her life, but to be prepared to lay it down for her people. This displays true missionary service.
The book will have more spiritual significance for us when we understand how the role players are representatives of Real, heavenly Characters such as Father Son and Holy Spirit, as well as of the true and the false church, and the devil. Such representations can of course never be precise in detail, and apply only in part.
In the book of Hebrews we learn that ‘the law’, that is the Old Testament assembly of rituals, words and people, are only a shadow of the good things that were at that time yet to come. Therefore, we legitimately seek New Testament spiritual significance also in Old Testament Bible characters. When we regard the book of Esther in that way, it shows much more spiritual depth than we may have thought!
Scripture reference
The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming – not the realities themselves (Hebr. 10:1)
The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him – the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord … (Is. 11:2)
Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne … (Rev. 1:4)
Type in Esther
King Ahasueros is the type of God the Father, very rich and the ruler over the greatest kingdom of the world, graciously extending his scepter towards the one whom he loved and had elevated to royal position.
Queen Esther, his wife, type of the true missionary Church who understood her role to save the people with which she had been doomed to die, earnestly interceding, fasting and pleading with the king.
Queen Vashti had refused to obey the king’s rightful demand to display her beauty in front of the representatives of the nations. She typifies the false church that lost its missionary zeal to be an example for the nations. In this sense she may also be seen as a type of Israel, being banned into exile for her disobedience.
The Seven Counselors to the king are a type of the Holy Spirit, also called the Seven Spirits of the Lord.
It is not hard to discern in Haman the type of Satan who once occupied an important position in the heavenly Kingdom but turned against his Master’s top creation – mankind – for sheer jealousy, because he wanted to rule and be worshiped himself.
The victim of Haman’s jealousy was Mordecai – type of Jesus Christ – who beat his adversary in the end and inherited his position as second man at the royal court. It was he who inspired Esther to save the Jews. Mordecai became Esther’s sender reminding us of Jesus’ words: ‘As the Father has sent Me, I am sending you’.
Esther and Mordecai ruled under supervision of the king after the evil one had been done away with. Similarly Christ and the Church will rule after the devil has been locked up.
Discussion & dialogue
- Discuss how people in your churches, as clearly chosen by God for salvation ministry as Esther was, can be helped, motivated and facilitated to execute their God-given missions to the unreached and least-reached people groups in the world
- Discuss which key character-trait of Esther’s was the one without which Haman would have succeeded
- Which 6 of the 10 themes feature in Esther, and how? (Answer is in the Teacher’s Guide)
