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?”
As this chapter opens, what intrigues me is to see the four people involved and to consider what we learn from each.
First there is Haman. He has the dubious distinction of being dead. The godless, arrogant, petty, vindictive villain was just yesterday boasting of his great wealth and power. It was true. He was extremely wealthy and powerful. However, what did he use his wealth and power for? He saw it only as a tool for his own designs, even to plot the cruel murder of an entire people group. Though he was the king’s right hand man, he did not use his position to do good to his king, but rather took advantage of that king for his own ends.
Yesterday he was boasting. Today he’s dead. I’m reminded of that other man who boasted of his wealth in Luke 12. The Lord said to him in v.20, “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?” Then we’re told in v.21, “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”
We can take at least two lessons from Haman. First, let us all be reminded that “every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights.” All that I am, all that I have are gifts from God given me to somehow bless those around me. Rich or poor, let us all use our gifts to that end. Second, let us be encouraged to know that the rich and powerful, however cruel and threatening they may be, still answer to the very God they ignore. As Daniel told Belshazzar, “You did not honor the God who holds in His hand your life and all your ways” (5:23), then that rich, powerful, cruel man also was dead before the night ended.
As our world sweeps toward the end, the rich and powerful will only get more powerful and more cruel. Common people will suffer and it will only be a matter of time before we believers find our way into the cross-hairs of that cruelty. Let us literally, if so be the case, go to our deaths trusting the God who holds their very breath in His hand. Haman would wipe out God’s people and he literally could have. Now he’s dead.
While I’m at it, I’ll throw in Haman’s wife. Remember just last night she was herself rich and comfortable and counseling her husband to murder innocent people. I don’t where she is today, but it’s not in her home. Suddenly she finds herself a totally destitute widow who’ll have to hope one of her sons will give her a bed to sleep in! As the old folks said, “My, my. How the chickens do come home to roost!
Then there is Xerxes, the indolent, distracted monarch who spends his days dallying in his pleasures rather than governing an empire. The fact is, this whole situation came about because he carelessly entrusted his signet ring to Haman. Now the problem is, as too often we see, the sin outlives the sinner. Haman is dead but the evil he set in motion lives on. If Xerxes possessed in his soul even a fiber of leadership, he would have immediately addressed the issue of Haman’s evil decree. It is nice that he conferred on Esther Haman’s estate and he did do it “because Haman attacked the Jews.” The man does possess some vague sense of justice. However, his indolence will mean Esther has to “push the issue.” No decent husband should ever put his wife in that position. I’m reminded of Boaz of whom Naomi could confidently tell Ruth, “The man will not rest until the matter is settled today” (3:18). Our Ruth got to marry a man she could count on, a godly man who took his responsibilities seriously. Poor Esther has to literally risk her life because the man she’s married to is a godless, irresponsible overgrown adolescent.
We can all applaud the fact that Xerxes gives his ring instead to Mordecai, however, what we see in this act is the same flippant careless attitude. Why is he giving anyone his ring? He’s the king. It is his responsibility to rule. He has no business relinquishing those duties to anyone else. May his very indolence and the grief he caused Esther move the rest of us to take our own duties seriously. I myself am a husband, father, son, employee, boss, and neighbor. Each of those roles incurs upon me responsibilities. Unlike Xerxes, may I accept each one and may I strive hard to be a person who does his duties. May my wife and no one else ever feel they have to compel me to do what I should have done on my own initiative!
I once knew an older couple who seemed to have an exemplary relationship. I asked the wife what she had particularly appreciated about her husband and she replied, “I could always count on him to take care of us. If our money got tight, he would go out himself and find some extra work. We could always count on him to be a good provider.” She could count on him.
Hopefully we can learn from the
bad examples of evil Haman and careless Xerxes. However, and fortunately for
us, we have in this same story two people who exemplify everything good and
right. Let us first consider Mordecai. Here is the man who stood one day at a
funeral and agreed to take charge of his little orphaned cousin, but, not only
did he simply give her a place to live, remember the Hebrew itself says he “took
her to daughter.” He loved her as his own and, even after she was taken to the
palace, he never stopped worrying over her. Again, in the Hebrew, we learned
that “Every day he walked back forth near the courtyard of the harem to know the peace of Esther and what was
done in her.”
He is a man who risked his own life to expose the plot of Bigthana and Teresh against the king, then quietly went on about his duties even though he received no recognition for such a meritorious deed. We’ve seen the same quiet humility in the fact that he has asked no favors of his daughter, though she is the very queen of all Persia. The first “favor” he asks of her is to intercede on behalf of the Jewish people. He is a man you can count on to do his duty, to selflessly seek the good of others around him, with no regard to his own advantage. Those qualities, in fact, make him a great candidate for Xerxes’ prime minister and Esther’s steward over Haman’s estate.
Lawson observes in The Preachers’ Homiletical Commentary: “It appeared plainly that he (Mordecai) was more careful to deserve the king’s favour than to enjoy it, and that greatness had no charms but the opportunities it might give him of doing good, or preventing evil. Those are fittest for high stations that are best satisfied with any station in which Providence is pleased to put them.” Note the “more careful to deserve the king’s favour than to enjoy it.”
One wonders what went through Xerxes’ mind that day. Here is this man Mordecai. Just this morning, the king was made aware of his loyal courage. In addition the king has to realize here is a man who did that noble deed for him, then kept on quietly doing his job, even though he went unacknowledged and unrewarded. Now, suddenly he finds out this man is the adoptive father of this beautiful, sweet, humble girl Esther. The text simply says Esther had told “what he was to her,” but you can bet that went way beyond simply acknowledging him as her cousin and adoptive father. You can bet this pretty girl was smiling from ear to ear as she recounted to Xerxes what a wonderful father Mordecai had been to her.
I’m reminded of a girl I worked with several years ago. Whenever Nichole mentioned her father or grandfather, she’d always smile from ear to ear and I remember her face would beam as she told how her grandfather used to sometimes come and pick her up on Saturday mornings and take her out to breakfast. I can well imagine, as Xerxes listened to Esther telling what Mordecai “was to her,” he saw that same beaming glow of love. Here is this girl who “won his favor and approval more than any of the other virgins.” Her sweet humility had to be very unusual in a palace filled with self-promoting courtiers. Suddenly he discovers there’s two of them!
What pearls they must have appeared to him. That is what each of us believers ought to be to our bosses and leaders—people who do their jobs, who are selfless and humble, who are loyal and respectful, and just generally people they know they can count on. Xerxes will probably never realize just how blessed he is to have these two godly people close by his side. They certainly were all they should have been, if there was any chance at all Xerxes might notice the difference in them and “come and ask a reason of the hope that is in them.” You and I may not be prime ministers or queens, but even in the mundane and the commonplace of our lives we ought also to be people who “adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things.”
Then finally, there is our Esther. I think I’ll hold off and devote the entire next blog just to her.
