Esther 5:14 “Speaking for Him”

 Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹⁴And Zeresh his wife (and the all of his friends) said to him, “Let them make a gallows fifty cubits high and in the morning speak to the king and let them hang Mordecai on it and go in with the king to the banquet happy,” and the word was pleasing to the eyes of Haman and he made the gallows.

I want to pause and ponder on this verse, precisely because it concerns Haman’s wife Zeresh. Notice above in my fairly literal translation it begins with “And Zeresh his wife (and the all of his friends) said to him…” The reason why I put the “and the all of his friends” in parentheses is because, in Hebrew, the verb “said” is a feminine singular. The writer obviously intended us to understand the advice is coming specifically from Zeresh. The friends chimed in and seconded her motion, but it was coming first of all from her.

Once again, if we would learn anything from the passage, we all have to see the Zeresh in our own hearts. I think we who are spouses ought to be looking for truths to help our own marriages, but then I also want to note that probably anything we would see will also apply to our friendships in general. Whether it is in the intimacies of marriage or just the day to day interactions between people, we all profoundly affect each other. This passage would teach us to be mindful of just how we are affecting each other.

The good wife of Prov. 31 is “worth more than rubies.” She does her husband “good and not evil all the days of his life.” She “opens her arms to the poor” and “speaks with wisdom.” “Faithful instruction in on her tongue.” The Lord created Eve to be to Adam a “helper suitable to him” (Gen. 2:18). Prov. 18:22 says, “He who finds a wife finds a good thing.” In all of this we see the Lord intended a wife to be a blessing to her husband. I personally think it is profoundly significant that it was to be “the Seed of the woman” who would “crush the head of the serpent.” The redemption of the entire universe was to arise specifically from “the woman.”

What I believe we see then, in the Bible, is the Jekyll/Hyde that sin introduced even into something intended to be so enormously good as a woman’s presence in this world. To the same extent a woman is capable of great good, she is also capable of great evil. It says of wicked Ahab, “There was never anyone like Ahab, who sold himself to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, urged on by Jezebel his wife” (I Kings 21:25). He would never have murdered Naboth had not Jezebel orchestrated the fiendish deed. On the other hand, the beautiful and godly Abigail humbly and wisely deterred David from the guilt of angrily destroying Nabal’s house. Even Pilate’s wife urged him to “have nothing to do with that innocent man.” On the other hand, it was Sarah who urged Abraham to take Hagar her maidservant, and the descendants of Ishmael and Isaac have been fighting ever since.

We all profoundly affect each other and “life and death are in the power of the tongue.” Zeresh and the “friends” live in their world without God and are doing here what they do every day—whatever it takes to get by. They have no moral compass to trouble their minds before all heartily agreeing that Haman should murder another man. That “seems” like a great solution, does it not? Mordecai bothers Haman. Haman has the power to simply have him killed. So, why not? In their world without God, that works. I’ve confessed before, if I had the power to “right click delete” a few people, it wouldn’t take but a second to come up with a rather long list of candidates.

Someone reportedly once asked Billy Graham’s wife Ruth if, in all their years, she’d ever considered divorce. It is said her answer was, “Divorce? No, but murder? Many times.” It’s there in all of our hearts, is it not? Ever since Cain, it has seemed to our fallen minds a good solution to “eliminate” our enemies. For the believer, we have two huge obstacles in our way, the first being the Sixth Commandment: “Thou shalt not kill,” and the second being Jesus’ command that we should above all else “Love God and love people.” It’s kind of hard to fit murder in there, yes? Of course, that works greatly in our favor, as it removes murder from our list of options dealing with other people. As “attractive” as it may sometimes (often) appear, it simply isn’t an option. Zeresh and the friends had no such scruples to keep them from urging such a solution to Haman.

And so they do. Unfortunately for them and for Haman, in their world without God, God does exist and He is very present. The course they advise to Haman will mean that by tomorrow evening he himself will be dead and all the “glory of his wealth” will be given to Esther and his position to the very man he hates, Mordecai. Before it is over, the ten sons of Haman will also be killed. We don’t know what happened to Zeresh, but, before the year is out, she herself buried her husband and her ten sons and was dispossessed of their estate. Unless someone else came to her aid, she would have been left a destitute widow. Overnight, she went from being the wife of a very rich , powerful man, to a completely ruined widow. If only she had known that “life and death are in the power of the tongue.” If only she’d known that God is very real and very present, perhaps she’d have never advised her husband on the very path that would utterly destroy everything she ever cared about.

What are you and I to do? Obviously, we need to take very seriously all those proverbs about “the tongue.” Obviously, we need to give serious thought to James’ words about the tongue in his chapter 3. As we husbands and wives “counsel” each other and, as all of us as friends offer to each other “advice,” we need to be very careful that our words come from a heart that does recognize there is a God. We’re either God-ly or God-less and so our advice has only two options: God-ly or God-less.

Here is something I’ve been thinking about and trying to live for the last year or so: Every time I open my mouth, I want to be very aware I am speaking for God. I want to be very aware I am speaking for Jesus. What I mean is this: The only reason I’m in this world is actually because the Lord loves people and wants to draw them to Himself. Every single person I interact with is someone Jesus deeply loves. It is never mere coincidence that I am intersecting with another human being, no matter who or where or why. Even if I am “just” talking to someone at work, maybe giving direction to one of my AutoCAD drafters, I can either speak to them with the kindness and respect that Jesus would give them or not.

Even in a situation like that, as a Christian, shouldn’t I be speaking to them in a way that, if I was to suddenly disappear and Jesus took my place, there would be no difference in how He would treat them compared to what they were experiencing with me? Isn’t that true? Shouldn’t every person receive from me words of love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and faithfulness? If we really care about the people around us, do we or do we not want them to see Jesus? We Christians will acknowledge that we are His “hands and feet,” but I believe we need to realize that applies every single time we speak to them, every time we interact in any way. Every word that comes out of our mouths we need to speak for Him.

For me that really comes down to prayer. As I’m interacting with another person, I want to be praying, “Lord, help me speak for You. Help my words to be Your words. Help me to say to them what You would say to them.” I want to state that my hope is not that I’ll be clever and craft just the right words. Far from it. I am a total idiot. I have spent my whole life saying and doing stupid things. My hope is in the Lord. My hope is that, as I would be praying, as I am trying to be mindful I’m speaking for Him, somehow He would do His quiet work of touching their heart. I may not see or know in any way that I had any influence at all. But God knows. I hope it is more and more true that I was willing and I was praying to be His mouthpiece and so He did His soul work through me—again not because I’m clever or great but because He is. My job is simply to love. His job is to touch hearts.

If only Zeresh could have known these things. She would never have counseled her husband to vengefully murder another man. If only even one of Haman’s friends could have known these things, they could have been brave and spoken up to say, “Wait, wait, wait…” But it’s hard to speak for God when you live in a world without Him. And so we see that, in every case, what we have here is not a problem of people making bad decisions and suffering for it. What we have is people trying to live without God in this world, people interacting, speaking to each other, affecting each other from God-less hearts. The hole in their hearts is not just a lack of proper morals. It is a God-hole.

As I write, I am so thankful God gave me a good wife who sees Him in this world. Most (if not all) of the bad decisions I’ve made in my adult life I made because I either didn’t ask Joan or because I ignored the counsel she did give me. It is amazing to me how much better decisions I make when I involve her. She has done me “good and not evil all the days of my life.”  Her price is “far above rubies.” I am also constantly reminded of the people who have influenced me most (for good) in this world. In every case, it wasn’t what they said, so much as how they said it. Now, late in my life, I realize it was the Lord who was touching my heart through them. And I want to be that person for everyone I meet.

What if everybody did?