The Bible Recap - Day 266 (Esther 1-5) - Year 4

Episode Date: September 23, 2022

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Hey Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble and I'm your host for the Bible recap. I want to give you a heads up that today's podcast might not be the best for younger ears. I'm going to talk openly about what's happening in the text here. This story has an important theme and a beautiful ending, but there are some horrific stops along the way, so use your own discretion. Esther is generally regarded as historical narrative, but one other thing to note is that it's the only book in the Bible that doesn't mention God's name. Maybe you didn't even notice that in our reading today because we see him in the shadows of every

scene, working things out and keeping with his plan and his promises. We opened in the capital of Persia, the empire that toppled Babylon while the Jewish exiles were living there. Ah-Suerus is king. We first met him in Ezra 4 just a few days ago. He was one of the kings who got a letter from the angry locals during their letter writing campaign to stop the rebuilding of the temple. He's not a follower of Yahweh, he's just a regular pagan king and a pagan empire. In history, he's typically referred to as Xerxes I. At this point, he's three years into his reign, which makes it approximately 483 BC. He throws a massive six-month party, presumably for himself, and invites everyone to see how rich and awesome he is. If you don't like it when people celebrate their birth week or birth month, you probably wouldn't like King Ahashuerus.

His wife, Queen Vashdie, was a real looker, and as the grand finale for his self-serving Suarez, he once had to come out and take a lap in her crown, and possibly nothing else. If ancient Jewish commentaries are correct, it seems King A wants to parade his naked wife in front of all the men at his banquet. Even if these weren't the specifics of his request, Boschty refuses to come, which is an affront to his ego and his throne. He calls a staff meeting to find out what kind of punishment he's

allowed to hand out to her, and his advisors say that they are personally offended by her response, because now their wives will feel like they can do whatever they want to. If these Persian men can't earn the respect of their wives by treating them well, they'll legislate it. They brainstorm and decide to write a law banishing and replacing Voshti. In order to find Voshti's replacement, the King's advisors decide to throw a mandatory beauty pageant. They gather all the young beautiful virgins from the 127 provinces in King A's territory, essentially kidnapping them and forcing them to come to Susa to be in the King's Herum. To be fair, some commentators suggest this could be voluntary, but given how King A and his advisors seem to

view females, it's doubtful. What happened here is probably more along the lines of human trafficking of girls in the age range of 12 to 14. By the way, the king would have been roughly 40 years old at this time. The king's staff spends about a year preparing each girl, then they dress them up and make them look nice so he can decide which one he wants that night. Working A, choosing a new queen is an audition process where each girl spends the night with him and is sent away in the morning. Each girl spends the night with him and is sent away in the morning. Essentially what's happening is the king is systematically deflowering all the girls he's kidnapped over a period of years to decide which one he likes best. After their night with the king, they're added to his growing list of concubines while King A moves on to the next, devastating an entire generation of females in Persia.

Among those is a girl named Esther. She's basically been raised by her cousin Mordekai because her family were exiles back in the day and she's been orphaned at some point. Fortunately, cousin Mordekai is really protective of her and he has a good position despite being a Jew in Persia. He tells Esther to keep her nationality as secret because it will not go over well. Meanwhile in the King's Herum, four years after Queen Vostia's dismissed, the King finally chooses Esther for the night. That's almost 1,500 days and possibly 1,500 girls later. Esther exercises wisdom and humility and God grants her favor with the people

she encounters, including the King, who makes her his new queen. Not long after that, Mordecai overhears a bot to attack King A. He passes the word to Esther, who tells her new husband the bad news. The conspirators get hanged, and normally Mordekai would be honored, but instead, he's forgotten. This divine oversight sets the table for what's next. In Chapter 3, the King establishes a new second-in-command, Hamaman the Agigate, a descendant of the Amalakites, one of Israel's oldest enemies, but Mordecai refuses to bow to Haman.

Some commentators say this could be Mordecai's effort to honor God's commandments by not worshipping anyone but Yahweh, but probably not. Most think this is actually a bit of pushback from Mordecai because of the racial tension that exists between the Jews and the Amalakites. Kind of backfires, though, because now Haman not only wants to kill Mordecai because of the racial tension that exists between the Jews and the Amalakites. Kind of backfires, though, because now Haman not only wants to kill Mordecai, specifically, but all the Jews. Racism isn't just wicked and arrogant, it's irrational.

Haman decides to take action. He throws some dice to help choose the date when he should have all the Jews slaughtered. Then he gives a keynote presentation to King A in hopes of making his case. He says these outsiders are disobeying the law and have to be stopped. In order to make sure he gets a yes, he offers to pay for the execution himself, to the tune of 750,000 pounds of silver. In today's prices, this doesn't even seem possible. It's nearly $150 billion. That's more money than Jeff Bezos has.

That's how much payment values his ego, and that's how much he hates the Jews. The number may seem fake at first glance, but some commentators believe the text hints that he plans to steal the money from the Jews after he murders them. It's not entirely clear, but it seems like King A agrees to pay for it instead. They draft letters and send them to all the provinces on the day before Passover. Remember Passover? The day the Jews celebrate God's deliverance from their Egyptian slavery? And here, on the day before that celebration is set to begin, word goes out that the Jews in Persia will be slaughtered in just 11 months. It probably takes about three to four months for

the letters to reach all the provinces, but the people in Sousa know right away because they're local, and the whole town is thrown into a panic. Meanwhile, King A. and Hayman kick back with some cocktails in the castle like they hadn't just ordered a genocide. When word reaches Mordekai, he immediately goes into mourning. Esther tries to get Mordekai to downplay things so he doesn't lose his job, but instead he's like, no, I don't need to calm down, you need to step up, go in and beg the king to put a stop to this. Esther reminds him that there are rules against that. She has to

be invited in, and she's not even sure when that will happen. In fact, she hasn't even seen her husband in a month. Mordekai reminds her that her life is on the line too, and that this may be the very reason she's in this position to begin with. She seems emboldened by his rebuke slash pep talk, and she says, okay, we'll all fast for three days, then I'll see if he'll let me speak to him. The reality is, I'll probably either die because I go to him or I'll die because I don't, so I guess it's a risk worth taking. Esther makes her plan and leans into her strengths, beauty and poise and discretion. When the king invites her in, she returns the favor by inviting him and Heyman to dinner. He's loving it, and he offers her anything she wants up to half his kingdom.

She's clever, so she just asks them both to come to another feast tomorrow night. Heyman is feeling pretty special right about now, but the ego that soars when it gets praised is the ego that crashes when it gets refused, which is exactly what happens when Heyman sees Mordecai refusing to bow to him on the way home. His wife tries to console him by saying he should build a giant gallows for Mordecai, and that idea cheers him up, so he orders the gallows to be constructed overnight. Like I mentioned at the top of today's episode, God doesn't appear anywhere in the Book of Esther,

but he's working behind the scenes everywhere. My God shot today was in 414, where Mordekai says, if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, and who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this? Mordekai knows God has promised to preserve his people, and he trusts that God will be faithful to his word.

He lets Esther know that she may be the very tool God uses to accomplish his plans and fulfill his purposes. Despite being in mourning, despite being under a death threat, Mordekai leans into what he knows to be true about Yahweh. He's our only hope, and he's where the joy is. OK, Bible readers, it's time for our weekly check-in. How's it going? No matter when you're listening to this, even if you're quote-unquote behind in the plan,

I believe you're right on time. And no matter where you are in the plan, even here in the Old Testament, I want to remind you of something super important. Always be looking for Jesus. In John 5, Jesus says the Old Testament is all about Him. He doesn't just show up in a manger in Matthew, he's been here all along, even since Genesis 1. So keep looking for him, or prophecies of him, or pictures of him, and even for some surprise visits he makes to Earth in advance of his birth. So keep your eyes peeled.

He's there. The Bible recap is brought to you by Deep, discipleship and Bible study groups that meet in homes and churches around the world each week. you