Esther 9:15-16 – “Fighting”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹⁵And the Jews which [were] in Shushan assembled also in the day of the fourteenth to the month of Adar and they killed in Shushan three hundred of man and in the spoil they did not send out their hand. ¹⁶And the other of the Jews which [were] in the provinces of the king assembled and stood upon their soul to rest from their enemies and to kill ones hating them seventy-five thousand and in the spoil they did not send out their hand.

This is a good place to remember the decree. Reflecting word for word Haman’s wicked, malignant decree, Mordecai’s “allowed the Jews who were in every city to gather and defend their lives, to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate any armed force of any people or province that might attack them, children and women included, and to plunder their goods, on one day throughout all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar.”

Warfare. Fighting.

Frankly, I’m not sure where I’m going with this, but it strikes me that these two verses are worth some serious pondering. For some time now, it has been interesting to me to note how, throughout most of human history, for most people, fighting and the need to fight has been part and parcel of people’s daily lives. Boys used to grow up assuming they needed to know how to handle weapons, whether it was swords, or bow & arrows, or guns—all on the understanding the time might come when they would have to defend their families or that they would be expected to serve in militias or the military.

As late as my parents’ generation, practically every boy learned to box. In one sense that was a “sport,” but there was also the sense that a guy would need to know how to defend himself. As we read through the Old Testament, we read of a world where fighting and warfare were a constant reality for the Jewish people. The entire culture of the American Indians was built around war and killing ones’ enemies. Europe has been engaged in an endless blood-bath for centuries. I think of the Viking invasions of England, where they would suddenly appear along the coast or up a river, attack a farm and kill everyone, then move in.

We read these verses and others like them and may, at first glance, find them repulsive, but we need to remember, once again, this has been part and parcel of most people’s reality throughout human history. Kill or be killed. Defend your family and your farm. Take up your sword, aim your gun, pull the trigger—or else.

I’m very thankful that isn’t the world I’ve had to live in. I have lamented before the fact that I simply am not a fighter. It’s just never been in my nature to even want to hurt other people (most of the time). I really like people. I like being with people. I like getting along and getting things done together. I try hard to encourage people to get along, to respect and appreciate each other. Even physically speaking, it’s a good thing I haven’t been required to fight, as I would have been dead long ago. I have very slow reflexes and just have never excelled at anything that required speed, coordination, and power. I’ve loved running, because all I had to do was keep putting one foot in front of the other, and endurance has definitely been my strength—maybe I couldn’t do something as fast as someone else, but I can do it for a lot longer! 

When I was young, the Viet Nam War was raging. Every year they would do a lottery of birthdates to decide which guys went to the top of the list for the draft. Even though I wasn’t old enough to serve, still I’d read those newspaper articles in a terror to see where my birthday fell. I had absolutely no interest in joining the military, and especially of getting my head blown off in a jungle half-way round the world! Fortunately, just before I turned 18, that war ended and when I went to sign up for the draft (every guy had to), they told me it wasn’t necessary any more. Hallelujah. What a relief I felt driving home that day!

Growing up, pretty much every man was a WW II veteran, and then there was the Korean War which followed not long after. So war wasn’t ever very far away. On the other hand, those men had so protected our world that by the latter half of the twentieth century (I was born in 1957), war and fighting were always “far away” things. We’ve been able to live in what has been an unusually safe world. In fact, it has been so “safe,” we’ve all but lost any sense of the need to fight at all. I probably don’t even want to know the percentage of boys growing up today who don’t know how to hold a gun, much less use it with skill. Unless someone trains in martial arts (which I wish I had), few even know how to swing a punch.

I guess, on the one hand, I am thankful I haven’t had to be a fighter, while on the other hand lamenting how we have lost those skills. Somehow that just cannot be a good thing. Obviously, it was good that the Jewish men in our story knew how to handle their swords. Unfortunately, Haman’s people knew what a sword was and had every intention of using theirs! Just like most of the rest of human history, it was “kill or be killed.”

Warfare. Fighting.

I suppose I should inject here—someone will say, “Aren’t we supposed to ‘turn the other cheek’?” Two things: First of all, that is a verse about interpersonal relationships, not national politics. Once again, Romans 13 says out government doesn’t “bear the sword in vain.” If my neighbor sits on his porch and shoots at my house, I don’t shoot back. I call the police. Second of all, no one seems to notice, what Jesus is talking about is trifles. He says specifically “If someone strikes you on the right cheek…” Notice, if a normally right-handed man hits me to hurt me, he’ll strike my left cheek. A “strike” to my right cheek is a back-hand, which is an insult, not an attack. Jesus is saying, “Let it go.” “It isn’t worth fighting over.” The same is true when He says, “If he sues you for your shirt, give him your coat.” If I was actually served a summons that someone was suing me for one of my shirts, Jesus is saying, “Give them your coat and be done with it.” It isn’t worth fighting over it. Again, He’s talking about trifles.

As we are reminded here in the book of Esther, there is evil in this world. There will be a day when “The wolf will lie down with the lamb… They will neither harm nor destroy on all My holy mountain” (Isa. 11:6-9), however, that day is not today. In fact, today the problem is far worse than we are generally willing to acknowledge. “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:11). Satan is still “the prince of the power of the air” and he is a murderer and a liar. He and his minions are constantly at work spreading lies, destroying relationships, and trying to kill people and get them to kill each other. As the old saying goes, “All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

And so, like our Jewish friends, we live in a world where sooner or later we must fight. When it comes to defending our families, we too might have to be a part of seeing 75,800 men killed. On the other hand, we have the spiritual warfare that swirls around us. In that case, “…the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but powerful to God for bringing down of strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (II Cor. 10:4,5).  That is the fight that calls us to “put on the full armor of God… praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication” (Eph. 6:13-18). Whether you and I ever have to take up a weapon and kill another person, we will all face the spiritual battle.

Our families and friends are in mortal danger and so we must wrestle in prayer for their lives and their souls. Fortunately, our God is far greater and stronger than all the evil in this world. As Elisha’s servant hand to learn, “More are they that are for us, than they that are against us.

Yet there is a fight to be fought. As I read these two verses over and over, I deeply admire these Jewish men. When it was time to fight, they stood their ground. Even though it’s not my nature to fight at all, I pray when these times come and when I should “fight the good fight,” that by grace I too will stand my ground and be and do whatever is right before the Lord.

Warfare. Fighting.

It is a reality the Jews could not escape and, like them, we’ll not escape either. God help us to be faithful.