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.