Esther 8:3 – 6 “More Esther”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

³And Esther added and she spoke [intensively] to the face of the king and she fell to the face of his feet and she wept and she sought favor to him to cause to pass the evil of Haman the Agagite and his plot which he devised upon the Jews. ⁴And the king extended to Esther the scepter of the gold and Esther arose and she stood to the face of the king. ⁵And she said, “If upon the king it is pleasing and if I have found favor to his face, and the matter is proper to the face of the king and good I [am] in his eyes, let it be written to bring back the documents of the plot of Haman, son of Hamedatha the Agagite which he wrote to destroy the Jews who [are] in the all of the provinces of the king. ⁶Because how will I be able and will I see in the evil which will find my people, and how will I be able and will I see in the destruction of my family?”

In the last post, I started considering what we can learn from our brave, sweet, humble Esther. Probably what I see more than anything now is first of all that she is smart, then second she is a person driven by love.

We saw how smart she was even in approaching Xerxes the first time. Every step in her plan, every word she said made it easy for the king to see the evil Haman had implemented. Now we see those same smarts in action again. The first thing she did was to fall at his feet crying. I do not doubt for a second they were sincere tears, that she really was broken-hearted at the horrible threat hanging over her people. On the other hand, it is almost irresistible for a man to see a very beautiful girl crying. Being male myself, I can attest to how the mere thought of it melts my heart. There’s something in it that conjures from a man’s soul the white knight who suddenly must rescue the beautiful maiden in distress!

Once again I do not doubt Esther’s sincerity and I don’t think it is a matter that she is manipulating him. On the other hand, I am quite sure Esther is aware of the power her tears hold over a man. That said, she’s being smart to just let them flow. If anyone in the universe can awaken this indolent king’s heart, it will be the tears of this very beautiful, very sweet, humble young lady.

Then notice how she in no way implicates Xerxes in the crime. Technically speaking, he is the most guilty of all. He is the king. It’s his responsibility to rule. Even though it may have been Haman’s decree, and though Haman got it enacted by deceiving the king, yet he is the king and the thing went out with his name on it. One characteristic I believe is common to all good leaders and something I’ve tried to live when I was in charge, is Harry Truman’s old adage, “The buck stops here.” When I was the superintendent at A.E. Staley, when things went wrong at our plant, I didn’t blame my men. If it happened under my watch, then it was my responsibility. I might have needed to address a failure on one of the men’s part, but I’d do that personally and privately with the man. Publicly, it was my fault and I should own it. In the case before us, Xerxes should have owned Haman’s plot. He himself should have been the one most moved to undo the evil which had been set in motion. Esther, especially being raised by such a fine man as Mordecai, would instinctively know this, yet she’s smart enough to “let it go.”

How does she word it? “She begged him to put an end to the evil plan of Haman, which he had devised against the Jews.” And her request is specifically, “Let an order be written overruling the dispatches that Haman devised and wrote to the destroy the Jews.” Esther very carefully avoids anything which might arouse the pride in Xerxes’ heart. She not only doesn’t blame him, she keeps the focus totally on Haman and his evil. She refers to him as “Haman the Agagite” and “Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite.” I think she is highlighting the fact he is not a Persian. She’s driving a wedge between this king and a man who is “one of them.” She’s actually making it easy for Xerxes to distance his own heart from Haman and his evil.

She also identifies the plot as being against “the Jews in all the king’s provinces.” I wonder if the mere mention of “all the king’s provinces” doesn’t conjure in his mind the thought of taxes and resources. I wonder if it helps him to suddenly realize how much he’ll be losing, if this thing actually happens.

Then of course we can’t overlook her presentation to start with, “If it pleases the king, and if he regards me with favor and thinks it the right thing to do, and if he is pleased with me…” As always Esther goes way out of her way to speak respectfully to this king. She never demands anything. She humbly asks. She no doubt knows Prov. 21:1, “The heart of the king is in the Lord’s hand…” I believe she can stay humble, she doesn’t need to get desperate and start demanding, precisely because she has a God to trust above Xerxes. Then notice too, she’s smart enough to make it personal, “and if he is pleased with me…” Once again, he’s a man. Here he is looking straight into her very pretty, tear-filled eyes and she says, “and if he is pleased with me.” I suspect by this point, the man is already completely slain.

Then finally, she makes the whole thing intensely personal for her. I think she is still being smart, but here is where we see it is love that drives this girl’s heart. “For how can I bear to see disaster fall on my people? How can I bear to see the destruction of my family?” Once again, she’s the queen. She’s safe. She lives in a palace. She’s just been granted the unthinkable wealth of Haman’s estate. Yet she cannot stop thinking about her own people, her family. Like Jesus, twice now she has walked the Via Dolorosa, the path to the Cross. In neither case did Esther end up dead, but she didn’t know that as she walked the path. Like Jesus, she walked it driven by love. “If I perish, I perish,” she said the first time. In the New Testament we learn, “Perfect love casts out fear.”

Many times I’ve referred to her as “brave.” However, if you and I would know her courage, we must first know her love. Love is the engine that drives courage. I often think of how, in World War II, not a single shot was fired, not a single bomb was dropped here in the continental United States. Europe and much of the world was literally destroyed by the war. But it never came here. And why not? It was because our service people went there and, in essence formed a human wall which stood between the horrible war and their families back here. Sadly, of course, that wall was made of soft human flesh and many, many of them died, many were maimed for life, but the wall held and an entire nation was kept safe. Why did they do it? Of course, the word “duty” was prominent in their generation, but I want to say, underneath it all was love. Every single person, man or woman, who did their part, knew that ultimately they were protecting their own homes, their own families.

I like how Alexander MacLaren summarized it all: “Esther may well teach her sisters to-day to be brave and gentle, to use their influence over men for high purposes of public good, to be the inspirers of their husbands, lovers, brothers, for all noble thinking and doing; to make the cause of the oppressed their own, to be the apostles of mercy and the hinderers of wrong, to keep true to their early associations if prosperity comes to them, and to cherish sympathy with their nation so deep that they cannot ‘endure to see the evil that shall come unto them’ without using all their womanly influence to avert it.”

Of course it isn’t just Esther’s “sisters to-day.” All of us, male or female, young or old, rich or poor should learn from Esther to deliberately cultivate love in our hearts, certainly love for everyone, but especially love for our own people, our own families.

Lord, You are love itself. Jesus loved us all the way to the Cross. It’s Your love that buoys our hearts day by day. As we ourselves enjoy Your love, and especially as we see that love in the life of this girl Esther, may it be true, ever more and more, that it is love which drives our hearts too.

Esther 8:1 – 4 “Esther”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹In the day of the that the king Xerxes gave to Esther the queen the house of Haman, one being the enemy of the Jews, and Mordecai came in to the face of the king because Esther had told what he [was] to her. ²And the king took off his ring which he had taken from Haman and he gave it to Mordecai and Esther placed Mordecai upon the house of Haman. ³And Esther added and she spoke [intensively] to the face of the king and she fell to the face of his feet and she wept and she sought favor to him to cause to pass the evil of Haman the Agagite and his plot which he devised upon the Jews. ⁴And the king extended to Esther the scepter of the gold and Esther arose and she stood to the face of the king.

And then there is our Esther! It is a rare thing when a beautiful face adorns a beautiful person. Most people cannot handle wealth in any form, whether it be riches, exceptional talents, fame, popularity, or good looks. As the old saying goes, “It takes a steady hand to carry a full cup.” There aren’t many “steady hands” out there. And then there is our Esther. Here is a girl who was born uncommonly beautiful, who’s been raised to be the queen of what is perhaps the richest empire in all of human history, and yet she is for the rest of us a model human being.

We’ve already admired her for her self-sacrificing love and courage, going into the king’s presence saying, “If I perish, I perish.” Now, in the passage before us, we get to see even more of the beauty that lives inside this girl’s heart.

First, let’s notice her gratitude. In my last post, I observed the love that this man Mordecai had shown to his little orphaned cousin. Because of Mordecai, little orphaned Esther got to grow up wrapped in a Daddy’s strong arms with all the love and security that gave her. What we see in v. 1 is that she didn’t forget it. Here we find Esther telling “what he was to her.” As I said earlier, we can rest assured that was far more than just, “He’s my cousin,” or even just “He’s my adoptive father.”  In the very next verse, we see Xerxes handing his ring to Mordecai and making him prime minister. I don’t think it’s any stretch to say that had everything to do with what Esther told him. You can bet she grinned from ear to ear as she told what a wonderful father Mordecai had been to her. His love wasn’t wasted on this girl. The first chance she gets, her heart bursts with the appreciation she feels for all he’s done for her.

We probably don’t talk nearly enough about gratitude. It is a virtue that dethrones our pride and feeds our humility. To be a person of gratitude means we remember all the kindnesses that others have shown us. It keeps us aware that we are what we are, we have what we have, because others have given of themselves for us. I’ve always liked how it shows up in one of our favorite passages, Phil. 4:6,7, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God…” “With thanksgiving.” There we see us facing what are in some way worrisome circumstances. We’re being urged not to worry. Yet, as we would carry those cares to the Lord, He would have us remember to be thankful! Though Esther’s people were threatened with massacre, yet her heart still remembered to appreciate what Mordecai had done for her.

Another indication of Esther’s regard for Mordecai is that she immediately appoints him over Haman’s estate. We need to stop and remind ourselves how back in chapter 2, Haman had flippantly offered to throw in “ten thousand talents of silver” for the men to carry out this business.” When commenting on that amount of money, I noted, “Ten thousand talents of silver is a fantastic sum of money. There’s probably no way today to determine absolutely how much that was worth, but it is somewhere in the 100’s of millions or even billions of dollars.” Us po’folk can’t even imagine one man possessing that kind of wealth, but just to manage the money itself would be way beyond most of us. I would surmise too it wasn’t just a huge pile of gold and silver sitting in someone’s bank. It would undoubtedly include vast amounts of land to be farmed, tenants to be managed, probably his own personal little army to protect it all, nearly numberless servants of every possible kind, and all the other features and responsibilities that would go with an estate of that unthinkable magnitude.

And Esther appoints Mordecai over it. Just pause a second and consider what that tells us about Esther’s opinion of Mordecai. He is not just “Daddy” to her. She obviously has enormous respect for his organizational skills. If she had even the slightest hesitation about Mordecai’s ability to command such responsibilities, she no doubt could have found someone else either within the king’s court or from among her Jewish friends. But she immediately appoints Mordecai. For myself, there are people I love dearly, but I wouldn’t even think of expecting them to shoulder such a task. I wouldn’t want it myself. However, I do know a handful of people I wouldn’t hesitate to grant such an assignment. Mordecai was one of those people to Esther. It is interesting to note, she not only loves and appreciates “her Daddy,” she also deeply respects him!

Next, as we read v.3, we find Esther pleading a second time with the king. Once again, just stop and ponder on this for a minute. She is the queen. She lives in a palace. She has just been granted an estate of unthinkable wealth. At this point, a lesser person might have thought, “Why should I risk all of this? It’s all mine. The king gave it to me. I suppose it’s too bad for the rest of my people, but why shouldn’t I just let them fend for themselves? I need to think about myself for once!” But not our Esther. No matter how beautiful she is, no matter what high position she holds, no matter how much wealth she possesses, it never goes to her head and she never stops thinking of others.

There’s no way to know how much danger she was in this second time. She obviously went into his presence and v. 4 tells us he “extended the gold scepter to her.” The temptation is to assume the situation is the same as the first time she went to plead with him at risk of her life. However, kings sometimes extended their scepter like this simply as a gesture of acceptance or approval, so just because he did, doesn’t necessarily mean this was another “life & death” situation for Esther. However, he is a king and a very fickle, temperamental one at that. Esther is going in to ask him to essentially repeal a law that was issued in his name. Even in our story, it is a huge deal that “no document written in the king’s name and sealed with his ring can be revoked.” So, going in, Esther has no idea how he’ll respond. It might make him angry that she’s “back again.” It might make him angry that, after giving her Haman’s estate and appointing her father as prime minister, she’s still asking for more! His disinterested heart might be “tired” of all this stately business and he doesn’t wish to be “bothered” any more with it all.

So, if we stay “in the moment,” we have to realize that, though we may all know “the rest of the story,” Esther does not. As has been true from the very beginning, Esther has had to face every step of her journey one step at a time, never knowing what the outcome will be. That, of course, is the same world you and I live in. Would that all of us faced that world with the same humility, courage, and love that Esther did. We can and we should.

There is a great deal to ponder specifically in how Esther approaches the king and what she says to him, so I think I’ll stop here and come back again in the next post.

Esther 8:1 – 6 “Giving”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹In the day of the that the king Xerxes gave to Esther the queen the house of Haman, one being the enemy of the Jews, and Mordecai came in to the face of the king because Esther had told what he [was] to her. ²And the king took off his ring which he had taken from Haman and he gave it to Mordecai and Esther placed Mordecai upon the house of Haman. ³And Esther added and she spoke [intensively] to the face of the king and she fell to the face of his feet and she wept and she sought favor to him to cause to pass the evil of Haman the Agagite and his plot which he devised upon the Jews. ⁴And the king extended to Esther the scepter of the gold and Esther arose and she stood to the face of the king. ⁵And she said, “If upon the king it is pleasing and if I have found favor to his face, and the matter is proper to the face of the king and good I [am] in his eyes, let it be written to bring back the documents of the plot of Haman, son of Hamedatha the Agagite which he wrote to destroy the Jews who [are] in the all of the provinces of the king. ⁶Because how will I be able and will I see in the evil which will find my people, and how will I be able and will I see in the destruction of my family?”

Before I look closely at what we can learn from Esther, I want to record one more observation from Mordecai. As we’ve noted before, one has to respect this fellow who not only adopted his little orphaned cousin, but literally “took her to daughter” and worried over “her peace.” Any parent or teacher knows this man has given much to Esther, sacrificed much, given much time to her training and her care. He gave her a family, and this little girl named Esther, although her own parents had died, got to grow up in a world where she was deeply loved and always cared for, with a real Daddy who loved her. As with his loyalty to Xerxes, Mordecai did it all with no thought of reward for himself.

Now, all of a sudden, that little girl, now a woman, recounts his virtues to the king and brings him into his presence. There the humble Mordecai finds himself appointed to serve as the king’s prime minister. That would have meant great advantages to Mordecai, no doubt an astronomical salary and other benefits. However, as if that was not enough, once again the little orphaned cousin appoints him as her steward over what had been Haman’s vast estate and he finds himself the right-hand man not only to the king but to the queen herself!

Just think how all this honor, all this blessing comes to Mordecai on this day specifically because of that day when he said, ‘Yes, I’ll take care of her,” and then went on to be a loving father to little Esther.

Once again, “My, my. How the chickens do come home to roost!” Haman plotted cruel murders and now he’s dead. Mordecai showed kindness to one little girl and now he’s the prime minster!  I never knew my Grandpa Bixby, but my father told me he was a very generous man and that he had a favorite saying, “There was a man, they thought him mad. The more he gave, the more he had!” We see this same idea expressed in Prov. 11:24,25, “One man gives and receives only more…and he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.”

Somewhere early in my life, I learned the truth, “You can’t out-give God!” In a world without God, I suppose it would be foolish to sacrifice your own advantages to provide for someone else’s. Without a good God ruling over our world, what guarantee would I have that my loss would not be permanent? But because God does rule, because He sees, and because He cares, because He is love itself, we find this principle put in motion, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” As we learn in II Cor. 9:8, “And God is able to make all grace abound to you…”

This is a wonderful principle to know. You never lose for loving. In the short run, love can be very costly. In fact, the more you love, the more vulnerable you become and the more deeply those you love can (and will) hurt you. People can and will take advantage of your love. Others will spurn it in ingratitude. On a purely accounting basis, when you give a dollar, you have one less in your own account. And yet, time will prove, one way or another, you’ll never lose for loving.

I cannot tell how many times Joan and I have sweat over someone else’s need and given, only to find we have more money in our account at the end of the month than we had at the beginning. That has happened so many times, we’re literally to the point where we practically expect it! As I sit here, about to turn 65 in just a few months, we aren’t anywhere near as prepared as we should have been for retirement. The plain simple fact is that we have given too much. Perhaps I’ve been foolish. Perhaps I should have given more thought to our own welfare. However, here I sit and the Lord has given me a great job where they are very generous with me. Even though I really only started saving for retirement at the age of 55 when I started working at Chamlin, yet I am actually making some pretty good progress on it. If I can just work a few more years, we’ll probably be okay. I live in a beautiful house. I have a beautiful wife, three wonderful children and four grandchildren. We love this city where we live. I have a heart full of good memories from the life I’ve lived.

It probably is true that we gave too much. I probably really should have thought more of our own needs. Yet, for all my foolishness, here we are, blessed far beyond anything I could have ever dreamed. And it all goes back to this simple principle, “You can’t out-give God!” You never lose for loving. “He who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.” “It’s more blessed to give than to receive.”

I should insert here what I’m proposing is not that we should be reckless and irresponsible. Ps. 112:5 tells us, “Good will come to him who is generous and lends freely,” but it goes on to say, “to him who manages his affairs with discretion.” Generosity and good management of one’s own affairs go hand in hand. Our entire life, Joan and I have kept a meticulous budget. We’ve kept track of every penny that came in and went out. We’ve never had a month where we couldn’t pay our bills. However, I can say without question that what that meticulous management has done for us is allowed us to give generously while still being responsible ourselves. We have paid our bills. Looking back, I seriously should have been more responsible preparing for retirement. I wish I could go back and do a better a job of that, but, on the other hand, here I sit blessed beyond my own wildest imagination, so, as always, we have to do our best, based on what we know at the time, love as much as we can the best we can, be as responsible as we can, then enjoy the security that our good God can handle all the blunders we make along the way!

I’m so glad it’s true. I’m so glad we can live in this world, be determined to love and give and, all the while know that, at least in the long run, you cannot lose. In fact, like Mordecai, what we usually will find is that our Lord is the God of the “full measure, pressed down and running over.” He is the God who does for us immeasurably more than we could have ever asked or thought. Mordecai not only did not lose for loving Esther, he also didn’t just get “reimbursed.” The Lord didn’t one day present him with a check to cover all the costs of Esther’s upbringing. He raised him to be the prime minister of what was probably the richest empire in all of human history!

That’s our God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who loved us to the end, who gave Himself for us, even all the way to the cruel death of the Cross, only to rise from that tomb and be exalted “to the highest place…” to be given “the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father!”

You can’t out-give God. In His world, at least in the long run, you cannot lose for loving. Mordecai’ example shines down through twenty-six centuries to teach us to love today, to love only for love’s sake, to forget ourselves in the loving, and then to rest assured somehow, some way the day will come when that love will come roaring back into our life.

Mordecai took in little Esther. Perhaps some people thought him mad. But, you see, “the more he gave, the more he had!”