Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:
1After the events of these, the anger of the king Xerxes abated. He remembered Vashti and what she did and what was decreed upon her. 2And the servants of the king, ones ministering to him, said, “Let them seek to the king young women virgins beautiful of appearance. 3Let the king entrust overseers in the all of the provinces of his kingdom and let them gather every young woman virgin beautiful of appearance to Shushan the citadel to the house of the women to the hand of Hegai, the eunuch of the king, one keeping the women to give their beauty treatments. 4and the young woman which is good in the eyes of the king, let her be queen instead of Vashti, and the word was good in the eyes of the king and he did thus.
Here we are again, in this godless world, reading about what godless people do and how they live their godless lives. Isn’t it interesting to note that God is love – and what would you expect to find then in a godless world, in a world where no one acknowledges Him or even pauses to consider what He might desire for them? Would you expect to find love? No. And what do we find? Monstrous cruelty. If people don’t want to live in God’s kingdom, there is only one other alternative. They think they’re living in “their” kingdom, but, by pushing God away, they make themselves the unknowing slaves of Satan, who is a murderer and a liar and a thief. Because of grace, the Lord may still send His sun to shine on the evil as well as the good – He may allow people to enjoy some glimpses of love and relationships – but on the whole, you cannot live a life of love without embracing the God of love. Without the God of love humans quickly devolve into lives of monstrous cruelty.
That is precisely what we see recorded. Monstrous cruelty. Here we have an oriental king who probably already has 300 wives and 700 concubines (like wicked Solomon), if not more. Because he is wicked and can’t commit his love to any single woman, now it turns out he needs more. How many more does he need? They are all agreed he only needs one queen. But how many girls must be brought into his harem, from which he can pick this one queen? “Let the king entrust overseers in the all of the provinces of his kingdom and let them gather every young woman virgin beautiful of appearance to Shushan the citadel.” What do you think? 100? 200?
The cruelty is almost unbearable to even consider. Here are all these beautiful young girls. Probably most have young men with their eye on them. No doubt their parents love them. Now, all of a sudden, because the leader of their nation is a wicked, selfish, perverted jerk, these girls are ripped away from their families, from the quiet happy life they had envisioned, and drug away to live in the king’s prison, his toy box full of beautiful girls. They’ll never come home again. They’ll never get to marry their sweetheart. They very likely will never spend 10 minutes with this king, much less have any chance of actually getting to bear children. Once they get drug away, essentially, their life is over. They will spend the rest of their lives locked up in the “house of the women,” nothing but toys in a toy box, waiting until this evil man wants to play with them. No real husband. No home to decorate. No children. No grandchildren.
And who is in charge of them? Hegai, the eunuch of the king. The eunuch. Of course we all know what a eunuch is. He is a castrated man. The word translated “eunuch” could at times simply refer to a man who served the king, however, and especially in this case, there is no doubt that Hegai is exactly that – a castrated man. And why? Well, for obvious reasons. What would anyone expect to get if they put a young man in charge of an entire castle full of beautiful girls? Since a wicked, selfish king like Xerxes wants to have a entire harem of beautiful girls, he instantly needs to worry about any man who would have any possible contact with them. And so what should he do? Draft some young men and have them castrated. Then he doesn’t have to worry about any unwanted babies. Isn’t that convenient for him?
But what about Hegai? Did he have a sweetheart? Did he want to marry? Did he want to be a husband and a father? Surely he did. But where is he today? Just another prisoner with nothing to do but, like all the poor girls, just live out his life and die.
All these young men. All these young women. So many dreams. But all shattered on the rocks of this one wicked, selfish man’s lusts.
Monstrous cruelty.
But, back to our story, this is the world Mordecai and Esther live in. They will, in fact, both get trapped in this very world of monstrous cruelty. If that were the end of the matter for them both, you’d think they might just as well commit suicide. Why even go on living? The answer of course is all wrapped in the name Jesus. Even in the cruelest of worlds, the Lord is still working out for us His promises of faith, hope, and love, and, as we live in this bubble of hope, He is using us to call others out of that darkness.
He calls us to remember that “at one time, we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another” (Titus 3:3). He tells us “Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may be blameless and harmless, children of God, without fault in a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine like lights in the world” (Phil. 3:13,14). Jesus came “to seek and to save that which was lost” and He’s still doing that today through the lives of Esther’s and Mordecai’s like you and me.
Right off the bat, can we openly admit that this world Esther lives in is one of monstrous cruelty? Can we all agree that we are not just being morose? We’re not exaggerating. We’re not just being negative. We are being realistic. This is the world we find Esther and Mordecai living in, and it is your world and mine as well. Ours may not seem this bad today (thankfully), but we’ll all need the faith of an Esther to go on living a life of hope and love as we, like her, face whatever this world dishes out for us today.
God help us. May He, through us, “spread everywhere the fragrance of Christ.”
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