Light Along the Journey

This week’s Bible study looks at the book of Esther, specifically the first two chapters. To approach studying Esther or any book, it’s helpful to consider its type or style, technically called genre. The book of Esther is historical story: it contains accurate historical facts, but it is much more than just a news briefing: it highlights plot twists, constructs parallels, brings out ironies, and masterfully interweaves other elements of good story-telling into one of the truly great writings of the ancient world. It is not prophecy or law or theology: in fact, God’s name is not even mentioned in the book.

So, we need to realize that Esther is not a theological tome to be dissected, but a story to be enjoyed, pondered, and applied to our lives. And that is indeed how God wants us to see historical sections of Scripture. Paul speaks of God’s purpose for historical narrative in 1 Corinthians 10 when he says, “Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did….they were written down for our instruction.” So, we need to ask what examples, what lessons, what principles about the nature of man and the nature of God are contained in this book that God wants us to understand.

Another important question to always ask is who the original audience was— who originally read the book and why? The Book of Esther was written to the Jewish nation to explain the origin of the feast of Purim. It still occupies an important position in Judaism, being one of only five books that are ceremonially read aloud every year by every orthodox Jewish family.

Finally, when you approach any passage from the Bible, you try to discern its purpose. “Why is this passage in the Bible? Why did God sovereignly choose this information to become part of His inerrant Word?” Now, obviously, we cannot fully know the mind of God in this matter, but at least framing our minds to seek out what God is trying to teach us in a passage is a sound foundation for study.

With that background, let’s plunge into chapter 1. The first eight verses describe a six month long party given by a guy named Ahasuerus, which is a Hebrew name corresponding to the Greek name Xerxes I. Now why spend eight verses just to describe a party given by one man, when the Bible only spends one verse to describe the party his wife gave in verse 9? I think that God wanted to make clear what kind of man this Ahasuerus was. When you try to picture who Ahasuerus was, just think Donald Trump. No, really, think about it. Guy with an ego the size of a planet, filthy rich, loved to let everyone know how rich and powerful and special he was, threw lavish parties, had a trophy wife, and get this: enjoyed firing people. And to top it off, both of them had major setbacks which left them with big chips on their shoulder. The Donald has had all his financial near collapses, and Xerxes had the Battle of Thermopylae: yes he was the king that got his 2 million man army’s butt kicked by 300 Spartans. That had to have left a nasty bruise on the old ego.

So, how does this story start out? Donald, err, Ahasuerus throws a six month long party celebrating…himself. At the end, he commands the trophy wife to come out and parade in front of his drinking buddies. Now, here is a crucial juncture, and one that we would do well to think about. Was this a righteous, honorable ruler? No, and God wants to make sure we understand that fact. Was he asking his queen to do something that offended her? Yes. So what was the Queen’s response? She said no. And here’s another interesting thing to note: the Bible doesn’t say why she refused. There’s all kinds of theories, but we don’t actually know. Whenever the Bible is silent on something, even a little thing, it means one thing: it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. She might have had a very “good” reason, or a petty one, but God didn’t put it in because he didn’t want us debating on the supposed merits of whether she had a “good” reason or not to disobey her husband and king.

See, here is where this whole “these things took place as examples for us” theme kicks in. The point of the story is not whether she had a “good” reason to disobey the king, but rather the point is that she chose to disobey. There is a basic Biblical principle of obeying authority, even evil authority, if it does not cause us to disobey God. Our natural man, however, wants to buck on this, just like the Pharisees tried to buck Jesus in Matthew 22:

Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle Jesus in His words. And they sent their disciples to Him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone’s opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin for the tax.” And they brought Him a denarius. And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said, “Caesar’s.” Then He said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” When they heard it, they marveled. And they left Him and went away.

Check it out: the Pharisees tried to draw Jesus into giving them a “good” reason to disobey evil Roman authority, but Jesus would have none of it. Queen Vashti’s response to her evil authority was ungodly, and even the ungodly king and his court saw it. And what was the consequence for Vashti’s ungodly response? “You’re fired!”

In fact, the Bible spends the rest of the chapter going into great detail of this very concept, and how Vashti was a poor example of obeying authority and that this example would affect not only her but many others. This whole concept of giving honor and respect and obedience to authority seems foreign and backward and simplistic and offensive to 21st century ears, but Jesus and the apostles clearly established it as not just cultural, but Biblical and God-honoring behavior.

If Chapter 1 of Esther looked like The Apprentice: Persian Edition, then Chapter 2 is definitely the very first season (like, from 2500 years ago) of The Bachelor. Here we had dozens, perhaps hundreds of women gathered from all over the kingdom obviously strictly for their physical beauty, and this young woman Esther who the Bible plainly states “had a beautiful figure and was lovely to look at” was among them.

But verse 9 says something very important in the Hebrew which is not obvious in English: Esther won the favor of Hegai, the administrator of this whole contest. This word favor is the Hebrew hesed, which is a very powerful & rich word in Hebrew that describes the covenant loyalty love, mercy, kindness, benevolence & devotion that God has for His people. Esther did not win the hesed of this powerful man just by her looks. It is evident that she won his hesed by listening carefully to his words (verse 15) and the words of her cousin Mordecai (verse 8 & 20).

So, verse 17 shows the result of God’s work—His blessing Esther with beauty, both of soul and body, His placing her “in the right place at the right time” and her heart responses of respect and obedience to authority. She gets five responses from Xerxes: First, she gets love, which in Hebrew is a broader word than mere sexual desire: the word is actually first used in Scripture in Genesis 22:2 to describe Abraham’s love for Issac. She gets grace, the word first used in Genesis 6:8 “Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord,” and she gets Xerxes’ hesed favor. She gets the crown, and lastly she gets a great feast.

So, just to make sure, let’s review the contrast: Vashti has feast, disobeys authority, loses crown, bummer. Esther obeys authority, gets crown, has feast, ends up saving the entire nation (read the rest of the book!).

So what does God want us to learn from the book of Esther? Not that she had a beautiful body, but that she had a beautiful heart, for this is what God looks on (1 Samuel 16:7, 1 Peter 3:3-4). Esther teaches us that God wants us to glorify Him by showing the difference between living in a imperfect, sinful world among corrupt authority figures with a human, self-centered heart versus a God-honoring, submissive heart. The Greek word hupataso (click the hyperlink to do a word study), submit, is used in the New Testament in multiple books to describe a believer’s response to authority. It is used to describe our relationship to God, to employers, to parents, to government, to husbands, and to other members of the body of Christ. The application is pretty clear: where in our lives do we need to have the heart of Esther to glorify God by submitting to authority?  Where can we advance His kingdom by giving up our own way?