Esther 8:10-14 – “Mordecai”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹⁰And he wrote in the name of the king Xerxes and he sealed [it] in the ring of the king and he sent writings in the hand of the ones running in the horses of the ones riding the steeds of the royals, the sons of mares. ¹¹which the king gave to the Jews who [were] in all of a city and a city to be assembled and to stand upon their life, to exterminate and to kill and to destroy all power of people and province, ones opposing them, little children and women and their plunder to plunder, ¹²in a day of one in the all of the provinces of the king Xerxes, in the thirteenth of the month of the twelfth, it [being] the month of Adar. ¹³A copy of the writing [was] to be given [as] a law in all of a province and a province, one revealed to the all of the peoples to being the Jews ready ones to the day of the this to be avenged from ones [being] their enemies. ¹⁴Ones running ones riding the steeds of the royals went out, ones being hurried and driven in the matter of the king and the law was given in Shushan the citadel.

This is definitely a passage that calls for some serious pondering. I believe this is another one of those places in the Bible where we’d all better “put it in our pipes and smoke it.” What it is saying will challenge what I would maintain is a very immature, unstudied understanding of what Christianity is even all about.

What do I mean? Look at Mordecai’s edict in a modern translation: “By these letters the king permitted the Jews who were in every city to gather together and protect their lives—to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the forces of any people or province that would assault them, both little children and women, and to plunder their possessions,…” Practically every commentator I read took offense at this. How unchristian! Believers should not be “taking vengeance!” Jesus would never sanction such an edict! “To destroy, kill and annihilate…!” Aren’t we supposed to “turn the other cheek?” Aren’t we supposed to love our enemies?

A close attention to the edict only makes it even more offensive. It includes the words, “little children and women,” but in Hebrew, it is unclear whether the words refer to the “little children and women” as being those being protected, or if it is authorizing the Jews to kill not only men, but their “little children and women” too! The NIV goes so far as to translate it as “any armed force…that might attack them and their women and children.” They make it appear to definitely refer to the Jewish women and children and those protected. I would suggest they choose this translation precisely because it is so offensive to our modern ears to think it could ever be right to sanction the killing of women and children. However, the fact remains, as I said above, the Hebrew isn’t clear which is referred to. For now, I’ll just say I think it specifically does mean they could kill their enemies’ women and children. I’ll explain below, but for now I’ll leave that hanging in all its offensiveness.

Further, the edict allows the Jews to “plunder their possessions.” So, we should understand the edict as allowing the Jews to not only murder their enemies, but that includes their women and children, and then goes so far as to allow them to plunder those enemies’ possessions. Once again, everyone cries, “How unchristian!” “What a vindictive decree!” “No godly person could ever participate in such evil!”

I will say again, I believe such objections arise from what is a sadly immature, unstudied understanding of faith. Ours is a godless, Bible-ignorant generation where even the supposed spiritual leaders play at faith but never enter into an intimate knowledge of the heart of God. Let me point out first of all, how similar Mordecai’s decree is to Haman’s. He uses nearly identical words throughout. The “to exterminate and to kill and to destroy” are exactly Haman’s words. Also the sanction to include the “little children and women” comes directly from Haman’s decree, along with the license to “plunder their possessions.” What is Mordecai doing? I would suggest he’s fighting fire with fire.

I would suggest, rather than being “unchristian,” he’s being very wise. Jesus Himself observed that oftentimes “the children of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the children of light” (Luke 16:8). Mordecai cherishes no fantasies about the “inherent goodness of man.” He instead is keenly aware the Jewish people live in a world of vicious, hateful, greedy people, who, given the slightest opportunity will happily kill anyone anywhere if only it can make them richer. It was bad enough that Haman gave people the freedom to kill the Jews. However, when he added “and to plunder their possessions,” he not only appealed to their hatefulness, but now he’s tapped into their greed! Kings and leaders all down through history have used this exact ploy to motivate people to evil. During the Spanish Inquisition, one of the incentives for people to “rat each other out” was that, if you were the one to accuse someone and they were found guilty, they got executed and you received their estate! All of a sudden you’d have people looking for any excuse to accuse anyone!

So what does Mordecai do? He throws it right back in their faces. Haman has evil men salivating over the prospect of plundering the Jewish homes, then suddenly those same Jews are given the right to plunder their possessions! “Woah now, that wasn’t supposed to be part of the bargain!” Even the license to kill their women and children – Mordecai is throwing it right back in their faces. “You want to kill Jewish women and children? Now they have the official license to kill yours!” I will say unhesitatingly that what Mordecai is doing is being very wise. He’s not dealing with “nice” people. He’s dealing with murderous, greedy people and he has the good sense to know the only language they understand is power.

Unlike Haman, note that Mordecai is not just nursing some personal grudge. Mordecai has been placed in a position of leadership. He is now responsible to protect the people under his care. Now, suddenly it is true of him that “he does not bear the sword in vain” (Romans 13:4). Unfortunately today we live in a world of leadership so wimpy and weak-willed that it’s almost impossible to see even the most vicious murderers executed. Rather than protecting their citizens, this world’s leaders end up protecting the criminals! Is that good leadership? Is that “Christian?” I think not. I would suggest we could use a few Mordecai’s in our world today and those very men ought to receive the support of “Christian” men and women, not their criticism! Personally, my hat is off to Mordecai. He’s doing his job. He is a strong man who isn’t afraid to show that strength. Would to God that’s the kind of men today’s church turned out.

Can I say the fundamental error here is the failure to distinguish what applies to us as Christian individuals and what applies to those in leadership? Yes, it is true, in my personal relationships, I have no business nursing grudges, taking vengeance, or in any way hurting others. Jesus’ rule of thumb was “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” However, the minute you move into leadership, it's time to “put your big boy pants on.” Read again Romans 13:1-8. Speaking there of government, Paul makes it very clear, it is the responsibility of government to punish evil and reward good. It is the primary responsibility of government (which I believe includes all leadership) to protect those under their care. If my neighbor thinks it’s okay to walk in my garage and steal my lawn mower, it’s not my place to go beat him up. I call the police. It is their job to make my neighbor “be nice.”

I would suggest it is the pits of folly and Bible-ignorance to think governments should be subject to the same rules as us individuals. It is ludicrous to think governments should “be nice,” should “turn the other cheek,” should never actually take up arms. In an evil, murderous, greedy world, they’d better!  Someone must protect the law-abiding citizens. Someone had better create a world where evil-intentioned people are actually afraid to be evil! The unrighteous ought to live in fear of what the righteous will do to them if they’re ever caught. And, again, it is the responsibility of government (and from there, all leadership) to provide exactly that protection.

I could go on and on elaborating on this subject. I’d like to discuss how right it is for a soldier to aim his gun at an enemy’s head and pull the trigger. I’d love to discuss how right it is for a father to shoot the brazen criminal who thought he could enter their house and harm his family. This thing heads in a thousand different directions. However, suffice it to say simply that I not only will not criticize Mordecai, I applaud him. Rather than being “unchristian,” he is being the very kind of strong man that God would have him to be.

Would to God we had more Mordecai’s in our world. When and if necessary, God help me to be that kind of man.

Esther 8:9 – “Translators”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁹And the scribes of the king were called in the time of the that in the month of the third, it [was] the month of Sivan in the third and twentieth in it, and it was written according to the all of which Mordecai commanded to the Jews and to the satraps and the governors and the princes of the provinces which [were] from India and until Cush, seven and twenty and one hundred provinces, province and province, according to the writing of it and people and people according to their language and to the Jews according to their writing and according to their language..

Another observation from verse 9: It is interesting to me how Mordecai’s edict was written “to each province in its own script and to each people in its own language,” and, of course, that included “each of the 127 provinces from India to Cush.”  One group of people I have always admired is the Bible translators. I can’t help but note the similarities here. In our text, we have a very important and urgent message from the king. Of course, the king could have taken the posture that this is the Persian empire, therefore everyone will simply have to learn Persian, but he didn’t. Obviously, the royal mindset was that their messages were so important, it was imperative that they actually be translated into every language of every people throughout their empire.  They very deliberately wanted people to be able to read and hear those messages in their own language.

When it comes to the Bible, of course, we have a very important and urgent message from the King of kings. There was a time in church history when the Catholic Church had dictated that the Bible could not be translated into anything but Latin. John Wycliffe got himself posthumously declared a heretic and his bones exhumed and burned specifically for his work of translating the Bible into English. He died in 1384. It was in 1517, just over 130 years later, that Martin Luther posted his famous 95 theses on the Wittenberg Chapel door and sparked what became the Protestant Reformation. By 1534, he had translated the entire Bible into German. Had Luther not been protected by Frederick of Saxony, he would have probably been burned at the stake for such sacrilege.

More recently, we have had the “King James Only” movement of those who maintained the Bible could not be translated into any other English but the 1611 King James. No one got burned at the stake, but anyone who had anything to do with any other translation certainly got themself “black-listed.” I was always favorable myself to the King James as it was the Bible I was raised on and nearly all my verse memory was in King James. It’s still the Bible language in my head. Yet, knowing the original text was written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, I was very aware that, no matter what, if people were to have a Bible in their own language, it would have to be translated.

The King James was actually a very excellent translation. To this day, as I work through my own translations of the original languages, I often check to see exactly what the King James fellows did with it. I am constantly amazed at how faithful they were to the original text. In my heart of hearts, I wish we still used it. However, I am also painfully aware that it is not written in modern English. The English language of 1611 was something very different than what we speak and write today. For those of us who were “teethed” on the King James, that is not so much of a problem, but for those who were not, they can pick it up, read it, and have absolutely no idea what it means.

I once had a young woman ask me about a particular problem she was having. My mind went immediately to a Bible verse that spoke directly to her problem. I read it to her and looked up, expecting to see the light in her eyes, but instead what I saw was a completely blank face. It spoke directly to her problem. It was right there in what I thought was plain English, but it was as if I’d read it in French or Spanish. She totally didn’t get it. I asked if she was okay with other translations (since at the time the King James Only movement was raging) and she was okay with them, so I read the same verse to her from an NIV Bible. Then when I looked up, I was looking into the eyes of a young woman who “got it.” I kept a stock of inexpensive NIV Bibles, so I gave her one. The next Sunday, she walked into church with eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. She excitedly told me how she had been reading that Bible all week and she actually understood it! That bright light in her eyes never diminished as long as I knew her.

What happened? She actually got to read the Bible in her own language. That event only cemented in my mind the determination that every people in every nation have the right to have a Bible in their own language, even if it meant the difference between the English of 1611 and that of our current day. 

One thing I should inject here is to say that I do not believe the NIV Bible is anywhere near the quality translation as that of the King James. I am constantly disappointed to see what the NIV translators have done with various passages. When it comes to faithfulness to the original text, there are other better translations available today, such as the New American Standard or English Standard Version. However, I can never get away from the plain, simple fact that the NIV did an excellent job of actually translating the Bible into modern English. The fact is it is easy to understand.

If you want to appreciate the challenge of Bible translation, just go back up and read my “fairly literal” translation of any passage. What I have tried to do is, as close as possible, to just translate word for word into English. And what do I get? I get a translation that is very difficult to understand. Mine is a translation which is very faithful to the original text…you just can’t understand it! You see, the work of a translator is not just to be faithful to the original, but also to express the text in the modern language of whoever will be reading it. In order to do that, you must make decisions how best to express it, being forced to add words, to turn it into sentences punctuated the way we do, even to express tenses and other grammatical devices which simply are not there. It is a very difficult balancing act and my hat is off to anyone who tries.

Which brings me back to my whole point: the king’s edict needed to be translated into the languages of the people. How much more important are the words of the King of kings? Every people group, in every nation deserve to have a Bible written in their own language so they can easily understand it. My hat is off to all the good people who have spent their lives trying to accomplish exactly that.

It will always be true, “When you know the truth, the truth shall make you free,”…but that truth has to be expressed in a language you can understand.  Translating the Bible into a people’s language is precisely a work to “set them free.” Like the young lady, one can only hope and pray, those Bibles do get into the hands of people who want to hear, who want to understand, and whose hearts will be “set free” by its message.

May the Lord bless those who take the message of the King of kings, who deliver it “to each province in its own script and to each people in its own language,” and who, as in our text, go out as “the couriers, riding the royal horses, went out, spurred on by the king’s command.”

Esther 8:9 – “Unimportant?”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁹And the scribes of the king were called in the time of the that in the month of the third, it [was] the month of Sivan in the third and twentieth in it, and it was written according to the all of which Mordecai commanded to the Jews and to the satraps and the governors and the princes of the provinces which [were] from India and until Cush, seven and twenty and one hundred provinces, province and province, according to the writing of it and people and people according to their language and to the Jews according to their writing and according to their language.

I have been studying clear through verse 14, however, I do want to record a thought from what I see in verse 9 itself. Incidentally, it might be fun to note that this is the longest verse in the English Bible. The verse divisions are not inspired, of course, but it is certainly odd that whoever was making the decisions here didn’t at least break this once in the middle. But then, looking ahead, apparently the same person decided that chapter 9 should have thirty-two verses while chapter 10 gets only three. Odd. And, for whatever it’s worth, Rev. 4:20 is actually the longest verse in the original languages.

However, back to our verse: It begins “And the scribes of the king were called…” Think about it. Here are these fellows called “scribes.” Somehow or another, as a young person, they ended up trained to read and write. We’re told that the majority of the people in the ancient world were illiterate, and therefore, those who did learn to read and write could end up doing that as their profession. The fellows here in verse 9 no doubt have wives with children and homes to maintain. They’re real men with real lives just like you and me. These particular men somehow ended up in the employment of the king himself. So this is their job—to do whatever writing and recording and probably reading the king needs them to do, whenever he needs them to do it.

And so, on a day like any other day, “the scribes of the king were called.” These are probably the same guys we saw in 3:12, when Haman was issuing his decree and “the scribes of the king were called.” This leads to my point. These guys get called to write an evil decree one day, then called again on another day to write another undoing it. They’re just doing their job. They’ve probably written the text of many decrees all along the way. When they’re called, they come, then they write down whatever they’re told to write down, write out however many copies are needed, then they go home to mow their grass and attend their daughter’s dance recital, eat supper, go to bed, and get up tomorrow and do it all again.

We don’t know their names. We know absolutely nothing about them. As far as they know, they’re just living their lives, plying their trade, and this day is no different than any other.

What they do not realize is that they are actually participants in a grand eternal plan. Little could they have ever dreamed we’d be sitting here reading about them 2,500 years later in a culture on the other side of the world. Little could they have ever dreamed their work would be recorded in the very Word of God! And yet, here it is: “And the scribes of the king were called…”

Most of them, no doubt, are living in this “world without God.” If you asked them, I’m sure they think that’s all there is. This is my life. I live it the best I can. I go to work. I take care of my family. I was born. I will die. And there you go. That’s it. Perhaps they would acknowledge “the gods,” but, like most people, it is unlikely they’d really believe it was all the work of a single great, good God who “rules in the lives of men and nations” and is guiding all the events of our world according to His plan.

Is their situation not exactly the same as ours? Does it not appear to us too that we live our lives, we do our best, we go to work, we take care of our families, we’re born, and we die? And it appears “that’s it”? In a world without God, are we not just biological accidents that arbitrarily appear somewhere in time and space, only to soon disappear back into that same oblivion we came from? Will it matter 2,500 years from now whether you or I lived? Will it matter whether I worked hard to do good to others or whether I was a notorious serial-killer? If it’s really true, “that’s it,” then the idea anything matters is nothing less than an idealistic delusion. “And the scribes of the king were called…” So what? Our text even identifies the very date, the 23^rd of the month of Sivan. This is apparently the year 474 B.C. and, according to John Whitcomb, it would be our June 25^th. But then, who cares?

How much different to live in a world with God! Because God is very real, what happened to these guys on this very specific day actually got recorded for all eternity. It did matter. There was a sweep of enormously important human history happening that very day, and these guys were called to be a part of it. They didn’t know it. They couldn’t possibly see it, but it was true nevertheless, and why? Because there is a God and to Him everything matters!. It is the dignity of human beings that we get to be a part of His great eternal program. One could say, “That’s just as true of animals.” Yes, but the animals get no choice in the matter. That is precisely where the dignity comes in. It’s our choice.

In a world that might seem meaningless, faith gives us the eyes to see that, in spite of appearances, our lives do matter. No one around us is a biological accident. People matter. What I do matters. It is my choice, but those choices I make matter. I can either see my good God above it all and sincerely try to be a willing and positive part of His plan, or I can ignore Him and do as I please. I can be a Haman or I can be an Esther, but one thing is for sure: It will matter. In Jesus’ day, there was a Peter and there was a Pilate. Peter may have been a constant bungler, but at least he was trying. Pilate just goes down in history as the man who callously ordered the execution of a man he knew to be innocent, and a man who turned out to be God Himself.

It mattered.

“And the scribes of the king were called…”

It mattered.

If I may be allowed to belabor my point just a little longer, for those of us who do want to have faith, who do want to see God above it all, who do want to see that my life is a part of a great eternal plan, may I digress to point it out again, “And the scribes of the king were called…” What are these guys doing? Their job. Their job matters. What they do at their job matters. My fear is that we believers can read this and even note it, then think it still only applies if we’re doing something “important.” I somehow need to be a Billy Graham or a Mother Theresa or at least be doing something “important!” No. Your job matters. What you do all day every day matters.

For me, this isn’t the 23^rd day of Sivan in 474 B.C. It’s December 18^th of the year 2021 A.D. Just one more date on the calendar. It’s a Saturday. I plan to just be here at home, to do a few projects, fix a few things, help Joanie do some cleaning. Does that matter? Yes. Do I necessarily get to see what it matters? No, probably not, but I can head into this day assured that all I do matters.  

And for me, what matters most is whether I’ll be a willing part of God’s plan, or not.

I have my marching orders: “Love God and love people.” All day today, that will be my choice, wherever I am, whatever I’m doing, but whatever it is, it will matter.

“And the scribes of the king were called…”

Meaningless? Hardly.

God give us the eyes to see You above all of this. Give us eyes to see that all we do is important, that every other person around us is someone You love and that You would have us love them for You. Maybe that is our job, or maybe it’s changing a baby’s diaper, but may we live knowing it matters.