Seeing the invisible God - Part 5

God is nowhere and everywhere in the Old Testament book of Esther, says Carla Lindsey. Part 5 of 5.

Do you remember the stories from your childhood? Perhaps they were stories of goodies and baddies, of princes and princesses. Stories that ended with, ‘and they lived happily ever after’. Have you ever heard the story of someone’s life and it’s left you floored—what they’d been through, you had no idea. Stories are powerful things. Stories stick with us. Stories can make concepts easier to understand.

Jesus knew that. He used stories (called ‘parables’) to explain complex theological ideas. Much of the Bible is in narrative form—a story. It’s the story of how God through Israel and through the church sought, and still seeks, to reconcile with his creation. This story is not written by a single author, but by around 40 authors over 1600 years.

Esther’s author is unknown, but they knew how to tell a good story. They used humour and irony. They used surprise and tension to draw readers in and keep them guessing. They gave clues God was there, but didn’t mention him directly. And now, we will see how everything is resolved—and discover why the author was writing to begin with. It’s not a happily-ever-after ending. It’s not a perfect ending at all, but we do see God’s people triumph over their enemies. The good guys win!

The story so far

A quick recap. Haman, the Prime Minister of Persia, hated the Jews and had, with King Xerxes’ approval, issued a decree for their annihilation. The queen, Esther, was a Jew but had kept that secret. On hearing about the decree, Esther’s guardian, Mordecai, convinced her to plead with Xerxes for the lives of her people. Even though approaching the king could cost Esther her life, she decided to use the position she was in and approach the king. Xerxes was only too keen to hear what she wanted from him, but instead of making her request, she surprised everyone and invited Xerxes and Haman to a banquet instead. At the banquet she still didn’t make her request. Instead, she invited Xerxes and Haman to yet another banquet.

Before the second banquet, Haman, who loathed Mordecai, had built a gallows (or some kind of structure) for Mordecai to be executed on. But in an ironic twist, instead of executing Mordecai, Xerxes had Haman honour Mordecai publically. Mordecai was the Jew Haman hated most, so Haman was mortified! But as Haman was still recovering from the shame of having to honour Mordecai, it was time for the second queen’s banquet. And so we pick up the story ...

Poetic justice?

Haman had been feeling so important; after all, he was invited by the queen to a private party, but was now humiliated.

Xerxes was eager to know what the queen wanted from him and why she kept putting off asking.

Esther was nervously getting ready to make her request. She’d had two opportunities already to ask, but for some reason she held back.

At this dinner party it would be now or never. How would the king take the news that Esther was a Jew? Would he show mercy to her and her people? His track record indicated he had little regard for human life. Perhaps he wouldn’t care? Perhaps he would side with Haman? And so the king and Haman went to eat with Esther for a second time. Over the wine the king asked her again, ‘Now, Queen Esther, what do you want? Tell me and you shall have it.’ (Esther 7:1-2).

Finally Esther held back no longer. In a most respectful way, she told the king she and her people had been ‘sold for slaughter.’  They were going to be exterminated. Xerxes was furious and demanded to know, ‘Who would dare do such a thing?’

I wonder if Haman was sitting on the edge of his seat thinking, ‘Hmm, I wonder who it could be?’ He would soon find out. The one who would do that was … Haman! As Esther unmasked her enemy’s identity, she also unmasked herself. She was a Jew and Haman was the hater of Jews. Haman faced the king and queen with terror (7:7). Terror here could be translated, ‘dumbfounded.’ He did not see that coming!

When the fuming king left the room, Haman begged the queen for mercy, throwing himself down on the couch where the queen was reclining. That just made things worse. When Xerxes came back, he thought Haman was molesting Esther. Esther has been criticised for not setting the king straight on this. But even if she had, it probably wouldn’t have made any difference. Haman’s fate had already been decided.

Haman’s head was covered. He was a condemned man. Xerxes had Haman executed on the very structure that he had built for Mordecai to be executed on. Poetic justice? After all, Haman got to experience what he had prepared for his enemy.

But wait, there’s more

And that’s where the story ended when we heard it in Sunday school. The bad guy was dead, the people were safe, and the king and queen lived happily ever after. But the book of Esther has another three chapters. The story is definitely not over!

Xerxes gave Haman’s property to Esther and took the royal signet ring back from Haman and gave it to Mordecai.

But the danger wasn’t over. The decree to annihilate the Jews was still in force. It hadn’t been revoked. In fact, it couldn’t be revoked. That was the way Persian law worked. What the king said stood forever. Kings could not just change their minds, because that meant admitting they were wrong. And kings were too proud to do that. After all, they were practically gods—superhumans who didn’t make mistakes.

But they did make mistakes and this was one. So the king was stuck. Since Xerxes couldn’t revoke his decree, the next best thing was to write another decree to counteract it. And that is what he did (or at least he had others do this for him). Xerxes, as he had done many times earlier in this book, let other people decide what should happen. He instructed Esther and Mordecai to write their own decree in whatever fashion they liked and then to stamp that decree with his royal seal.

And so, two months and 10 days after the original decree, the royal secretaries were summoned to write again. Mordecai dictated a letter that was translated into every language in the empire and sent out via the same efficient horseback courier system used to spread news of the original decree. These letters explained that the king would allow the Jews in every city to organise for self-defence. If armed men of any nationality in any province attacked the Jewish men, their children, or their women, the Jews could fight back and destroy the attackers; they could slaughter them to the last man and take their possessions (8:11). In other words, the people who wanted to attack the Jews still legally could, but the Jewish people had permission to fight back. It would at least be a fairer fight.

Finally the day for Haman’s decree to be carried out arrived. The blood bath began. Five hundred non-Jews were killed that day in the citadel of Susa, including 10 of Haman’s sons. The Jews had the upper hand. Mordecai was becoming an important person to the king, so the officials sided with Mordecai to score points with the king.

Interestingly, the author tells us three times that the Jews took no plunder. Taking plunder was something they were entitled to do. But their motivation for fighting was self-defence, not greed.

A twist in the tale

And here is where the story of Esther takes a strange and rather unsettling twist. It seems that 500 dead in the city and the single day’s fighting wasn’t enough for Esther. Toward the end of the day, Esther, who seemed like such a sweet girl, went to Xerxes and asked that the decree be extended for another day. She asked this, firstly, so that the bodies of Haman’s sons could be hung. The sons were already dead, but in the Persian world, to have their bodies hung on display would send a clear message. Secondly, she wanted another day of fighting.

Why? We are not told. Perhaps Esther had more information. Perhaps she knew what was going on in the provinces and that they needed another day. But some say Esther was simply vindictive. She had been given mercy and responded with violence. She had the king where she wanted him—perhaps the power gone to her head?

Esther’s behaviour reminds us that the Bible’s heroes are not perfect. They do not always act as we think they should. They do not always act with love and grace. That’s because they were real people. Their stories are told warts and all. And God used them warts and all!

Xerxes granted Esther’s request for an extension to the decree. And after the second days fighting the death toll was 75,000. That is a big number! It is also a debated number. Was it really that many? Perhaps this is a symbolic number? Some translations of the original text have smaller numbers. The Septuagint has 15,000 and the Lucianic text has 10,107. Maybe something got lost in translation. Or maybe it was 75,000? History shows that such massacres happen. In 90BC, Mithridates had at least 80,000 Romans killed. In 1258AD Hulagu sacked Baghdad, killing 800,000–1,000,000. Not to mention the massacre of six million Jews in the not too distant past.

The point is that the Jews were kept safe, while many of their enemies died. The Jewish people saw this as reason to celebrate. And most likely this is why the story of Esther was written. By the time this book was written, Purim (commemorating these events) had been celebrated for many years. The story had probably been passed on orally from one generation to the next, but the writer felt it was now time to preserve it in writing. This was a story not to be forgotten!

We have a clue that preserving the story was the writer’s motivation from the last half of Esther chapter nine. Here, the writer spells out what they are celebrating and why they celebrate in a particular fashion. He includes two letters, one from Mordecai and one from Esther, encouraging the people to celebrate Purim.

This was a story that must not be forgotten. The Jewish people must always remember how God had saved them and how he had placed a young woman in the right place to be his agent in their salvation. This was not a story that ended with ‘happily ever after’, for even after this deliverance there would be Greek oppressors and then the Romans and more to follow them. Perhaps that was why the Jews needed stories like this. To remind them to look back and see what God had done in the past. To remind them that God had always been there, even when they couldn’t see him.

It does us good to remember this too. Not to live in the past, but still to look back from time to time. To remember what God has done, the times when it seemed like he wasn’t there and yet, with a different perspective, we see that he was. We all have a story. Stories are more effective than sermons. We need to not only remember the past, but celebrate it and pass our story on.

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by Carla Lindsey (c) 'War Cry' magazine, 17 October 2015, pp 20-21.
You can read 'War Cry' at your nearest Salvation Army church or centre, or subscribe through Salvationist Resources.

Points to ponder

Where do you need to speak up on behalf of for others?
    
What do you need to celebrate about God’s activity in the world and in your life?
      
What stories do you need to pass on?