Esther 4

Esther 4:10

ESTHER’S .–Esther 4:10-17; Esther 5:1-3. GOLDEN TEXT.–So will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish.–Esther 4:16. TIME.–About B. C. 477. PLACE.–Shushan or Susa, the capital of Persia. HELPFUL .– Esther, chapters 1 to 4:1-9. Also 5:4 to the close of the book; Mark 6:21-26. LESSON .–1. A Great Danger; 2. A Devoted Woman; 3. A King’s Favor; 4. A Great Deliverance. . The book of Esther belongs, to the writings of the Captivity. Ezekiel, Daniel and Esther were all written beyond the Euphrates, but Esther after the seventy years had ended and a portion of the race had returned to Palestine. A large part of the people never returned but continued to observe the Jewish law, as nearly as it could be kept in a foreign land, and were always spoken of by the Jews of Palestine as the Captivity. They continued to be a numerous people down to the time of the Savior, and there are proofs in the Epistles of Peter that the same apostle who first offered the gospel to the Jews of Jerusalem, and the Gentiles of Cæsarea, also offered it to the Jews of the Captivity. The book of Esther differs in some respects from most other portions of the Scriptures. The name of God is not once named in it, Jerusalem is not spoken of, and it is devoid of religious teaching, but seems to be a true and reliable account of a great peril to the Jewish race and of the means providentially provided for their preservation, a preservation that has been annually commemorated ever since, even to the present time, in the feast of Purim. The author is not known; some have conjectured that it was Mordecai, but this is uncertain. The capital of the world had changed with the Persian conquest from Babylon to Susa, or as it is spelled in the Scriptures, Shushan. Babylon had lost its pre-eminence and was only the capital of a province. Not only does the book of Esther belong to the Persian capital, but the customs are all in harmony with what we know of ancient Persia. Of Esther we know nothing except what is related in the book. King Ahasuerus has been satisfactorily identified with the vain glorious, voluptuous and capricious Xerxes, who led two millions of men to attempt the conquest of Greece. The name Ahasuerus means etymologically the same as the Greek word Xerxes; in the third year of the reign of Xerxes he called a great council of his governors to take steps to carry on the war against Greece; in the third year of the reign of Ahasuerus he made a great feast to which the governors of 127 provinces were invited; in the seventh year of Xerxes he returned to Susa from his Grecian expedition and abandoned himself to pleasure; in the seventh year of king Ahasuerus he chooses Esther for queen out of a large number of beautiful virgins who had been gathered for his harem.

The characters also correspond well. The man who chastised the Hellespont because a storm arose, put to death the builders of a bridge of boats across an arm of the sea because it was broken by the fury of the waves, ordered his uncle to death because he gave him wise counsel, and offered a reward to a man who would invent a new pleasure, is just the kind of a man who would order his queen to expose herself, in a fit of intoxication, decree that a subject race should be murdered to please a favorite, or hang that favorite with his change of mood. On the other hand the resolution of Esther to peril herself, and to die, if need be, for her race, lifts her high in the rank of noble women, even if her character is somewhat sullied by her revengeful spirit-towards the sons of Haman. 10. Again Esther spoke unto Hatach, and gave him commandment unto Mordecai. In order to understand this lesson all the preceding chapters ought to be read. Esther, an orphan, raised by Mordecai, a Jew, and probably an inferior officer of the Persian court, had, by her singular beauty, been chosen for queen. At this time the chief minister of the king was Haman, of Amalekite ancestry, an ambitious and cruel man. All the courtiers and servants fawned upon the great man and showed him every kind of honor, except Mordecai. He, a stern Jew, probably remembered the ancient enmity of the Amalekite race, and perhaps also he was so confident of advancement through the queen’s influence, that he cared little for the good will of Haman. The latter, to take vengeance upon Mordecai, induced the king to consent to the slaughter of the Jews and the confiscation of their property, promising him ten thousand silver talents.

At this time we know that the royal treasury was depleted by the great expenses and disasters of the Grecian war, and this fact induced the king to consent more readily. Mordecai, ascertaining the plot, appeared in mourning at the king’s gate, and when Esther sent to know the reason, informed her and requested her to secure from the king the reversal of the murderous decree. Up to this time the king knew nothing of the race of Esther nor her relationship to Mordecai, a not surprising circumstance when it is borne in mind that he had many hundred wives and concubines. Esther, in her reply to Mordecai’s request, tells him of the difficulty of approaching the king.

Esther 4:11

11. There is one law of his to put him to death. The person of a Persian king was held to be sacred, and none could intrude on his privacy under peril of death, unless invited. Even then etiquette required subjects to crawl prone upon the earth, concealing even their hands in their sleeves. Herodotus, the Greek historian who visited Persia, notes this custom and the penalty of intrusion into the king’s presence. Esther declares that this law applies to every one, man or woman, even the queen. Except . . . shall hold out the golden sceptre. All the ancient representations of the Persian kings show them holding a long, tapering staff, the golden sceptre, the emblem of power. If one came into the royal presence and the sceptre was extended, it implied mercy and favor; if it was not extended, it was a signal of death. I have not been called in unto the king these thirty days. Even the queen only saw the king at rare intervals. Court etiquette did not allow her to seek him, and it was only at long intervals, amid a crowded harem, that she was bidden to come to the royal presence. Thirty days had passed since Esther had seen him and a long interval might pass before she would be invited again. With the free and easy ways of Western life and the social equality of women under Christianity, we find it hard to imagine the repression and isolation of the sex in the East.

Esther 4:12-13

12, 13. Think not that thou shalt escape in the king’s house, more than all the Jews. In order to strengthen the indecision of Esther, and to overcome her timidity and womanly reserve, Mordecai assures her that the decree involves her as well as the rest of her race. The king may not be aware of that fact, but her jealous rivals in the king’s household have doubtless learned it, and means will be taken under the decree to get rid of her. Not only for the preservation of the race, but for self-preservation, she must act.

Esther 4:14

14. Then shall enlargement . . . arise . . from another place. Mordecai’s message conveys the idea that God, in his providence, has exalted Esther and placed her near the king, in order to be the deliverer of her imperiled people. If she shall prove faithless to her high trust and shrink from the responsibility God will find some other way for their deliverance, for they have not yet accomplished their destiny, but Esther and her father’s house, including Mordecai, her cousin, but father by adoption, shall be destroyed. Mordecai knew well that he was destined to death by Haman, his great enemy, and that he must die unless his wicked schemes were thwarted. He predicts that Esther will be involved in his own calamity because she did not make the effort in her power to save her race. Though she was queen, and he only a servant of the king, he speaks with all the freedom of a father.

Esther 4:15-16

15, 16. Fast for me, and neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. Esther had made up her mind. She would intrude herself upon the king and ask the salvation of her race, even if she perished. Conscious of her danger in breaking the law, filled with anxiety over the effect of confessing that she belonged to a captive race, she asks a rigid and solemn fast for three days, accompanied by prayer in her behalf, and proposes to keep the fast herself with her maidens. She felt that her success depended upon the favor of God and shows that she had profound faith in prayer. At the close of the fast she would leave all to God, would seek the king’s presence, and would succeed or die. There is something peculiarly pathetic in her words, “And so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish.”

Esther 4:17

17. Mordecai went his way. He had waited at the gate for Esther’s decision. When he heard it he was satisfied, and went his way to have all done that she had requested. He did not confer with her in person, or see her, but through a chamberlain (Eunuch) which class were the only males admitted to the king’s harem.