Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:
1And Mordecai knew all which was done and Mordecai tore his clothes and put on sack cloth and ash and he went out in the middle of the city and he cried out a cry great and bitter. 2And he came in even to the faces of the gate of the king because not to enter to the gate of the king in clothing of sack cloth, 3and in the all of a province and a province from a place which the word of the king and his law arriving, mourning great to the Jews and fasting and weeping and wailing. Sack cloth and ash was spread to the many. 4And the maids of Esther came in and her eunuchs, and they told to her, and the queen was deeply distressed, and sent clothes to clothe Mordecai and to take away his sack cloth from upon him and he did not take, 5and Esther called to Hathak from the eunuchs of the king who was caused to stand to her face and she commanded him upon Mordecai to know what this and upon what this? 6And Hathak went out to Mordecai to the plaza of the city which [was] to the faces of the gate of the king, 7and Mordecai told to him all which happened to him and the exact amount of the silver which Haman said to weigh upon the treasuries of the king in the Jews to destroy [them]. 8And the copy of the writing of the law which was given in Shushan to destroy them he gave to him to show Esther and to tell to her and to command her to go in to the king to seek favor to him and to seek from his face upon her people. 9And Hathak came in and he told to Esther the words of Mordecai, 10and Esther spoke to Hathak and she commanded him to Mordecai. 11“The all of the servants of the king and the people of the provinces of the king knowing that every man or woman wo goes to the king to the court of the inner, who was not called, the one of the law of him to kill, except from whom the king extends to him the scepter of the gold, he will live, and I have not been called to go to the king this thirty of day.” 12And they told to Mordecai the words of Esther, 13and Mordecai said to reply, “Esther, do not think in your soul to escape the house of the king from the all of the Jews, 14for, if to be silent you are silent in the time of this, relief and the deliverance will stand to the Jews from a place of another and you and the house of your father will perish and who knowing if to a time like this you have arrived to the kingdom?” 15And Esther said to reply to Mordecai, 16“Go, gather the all of the Jews found in Shushan and fast upon me and do not eat and do not drink three of days, night and day. I also and my young women will fast thus and in thus I will go to the king, which not according to the law, and if I perish, I perish.” 17And Mordecai passed over and he did according to the all of which Esther commanded upon him.
I’ve been studying this chapter for about a month now. My heart tells me it ought to be written in letters of gold. Here we find two people in literally their finest hour. Here we find Mordecai and Esther suddenly faced with an unthinkable tragedy and yet that very tragedy becomes only a setting to display what model human beings they are. There is much from which the rest of us can learn.
What do we see? First of all we learn that we believers are far from exempt to hardship and tragedy. There is always (and probably in all of us) the temptation to think that, if you know the Lord and love Him and try to do what’s right, that will mean He’ll somehow make your life easy. We know that other people may face horrific troubles and we know we too must face hardships – just not like really bad ones, right? Well, since our Savior Himself got cruelly murdered, you’d think we’d realize that, no, we aren’t necessarily exempt from any kind of hardship, no matter how unthinkably horrific.
In God’s world, both are true. He does let most of us enjoy a life of love and joy and peace and, even in what we might call the “minor” trials of everyday life, we find Him very present and overwhelmingly kind to us. Isaiah said, “Thou wilt keep Him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed upon Thee” (26:3). David said, “How great is Your goodness, which You have stored up for those who take refuge in You. In the shelter of Your Presence You hide them; in Your dwelling You keep them safe” (Ps. 31:19,20).
Yet Jesus warned us, “In this world you shall have tribulation” (John 16:33). We meet Mordecai in this chapter, “tearing his clothes, putting on sackcloth and ashes, and going out into the city, wailing loudly and bitterly.” Boy, do Mordecai and Esther have to face that “tribulation”! They remind us here in Esther 4 that we must all face troubles, but, at the same time, they teach us much about how we respond.
Can we first of all note it’s okay to grieve? After people get over the idea that God should exempt them from trouble, the next thing they think is that, if you really have faith, you’ll just smile at everything, trust God, and go on skipping through life. “All things work together for good,” right? So surely it must be wrong to suffer under trials. Yet it was the Savior Himself who sweat “as it were great drops of blood” and cried out “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me.” Paul said at one point, “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life” (II Cor. 1:8). It is an undeniable fact that, in the Bible itself, there is a book called, “Lamentations.”
Let us not for a minute think that Mordecai is somehow “lacking” in faith. We know the end of the story…but he does not. We know it by sight. At that time, he could only hope for it by faith. He and Esther live exactly where you and I do—in the present, and for them the present is very, very scary. Faith doesn’t mean you or I won’t feel fear. It doesn’t mean we’ll not grieve. It only means we’ll have a hope that under-girds all those fears and griefs.
We see Mordecai’s faith in his statement to Esther, “But, if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place…” How could Mordecai know that? How could he be so assured it was true? I would say, obviously, he knew his Scriptures and he knew all of God’s promises to Abraham and to the nation of Israel. I would further maintain we see his faith when he adds, “[But, if you remain silent]…you and your father’s family will perish.” What is this? It is Mordecai seeing the unseen God. While Mordecai clearly believes in the Lord’s sovereign protection over His people Israel, he also knows that same God loves His people too much to let them be lazy and cowardly. The true and the living God is immanently present with His people to do them good but also to always firmly guide them in the path of right.
We also see his faith in his immortal question to Esther, “Who knows but that you are come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” Once again, though living in this world of the unseen God, Mordecai believes in the sovereign overruling providence of God, that though this world seems to tumble along on its own stubborn, godless path, yet the Lord is carefully overruling man’s evil to bring about finally His good and loving plan. “A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps” (Prov. 16:9). Joseph had that same faith when he told his brothers, “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive” (Gen 50:20). God’s sovereign overruling providence is the truth which gives us Jer. 29:11: “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a future and a hope.’”
Right off the bat, as you and I would read this passage of Scripture, let us not forget that Mordecai and Esther do not know the outcome. Let us not minimize the terror and grief they face in the present. If for any reason, we would not see them as real people facing real danger, we will lose the hope their example offers. You and I face what look to us like real dangers every single day. Though ours may not be the complete annihilation of our people, yet we still feel the fears. Even in those “little” fears, we need the faith of Mordecai and Esther – to live in the present, not knowing the future, yet, like Moses, persevering because we see “Him who is invisible” (Heb. 11:24).
Haman is a man without God. Haman and Xerxes form a government without God. Yet, we find Esther and Mordecai as two people with God. Haman and Xerxes’ godlessness made them wicked, cruel, and insensitive. Let us go on and see what knowing God produces in our two heroes.
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