Esther Chapter 1. About 580 years before Christ came, this passage was written by God’s Spirit, and does not speak of God at all. God takes a little orphan girl and turns her into a royal beauty queen that would offer her own life to save thousands of God’s people and never takes an ounce of credit for it. Herein lay the attitude of Christ! Philippians 2:5-8. Unbeknownst to the most powerful man in the world, God would use two little known women to make the days of Ahasuerus famous forever, instead of his own riches and powerful deeds. Jesus believed this letter was written by God. When Jesus said, “nomos” in Luke 16:17, it included all the Old Testament, Esther too. Esther was written in the Scriptures of Jesus, approximately 580 years before he was born. It is set in ancient Iran, then called Persia and most (but not all) of God’s people in Persia have not returned to Israel to re-build the Temple, like they could have, but have stayed in a foreign land (Ezra 4:1-6) Yet God is silently working behind the scenes of the world’s super power on the globe. He also worked for the faith of foreigners in the days of Jonah in Assyria, modern day Iraq. The King, Ahasuerus (better known by modern historians as Xerxes) throws a huge public party, probably as a show of power and a rally to announce revenge on the Greeks and go to war against them in 481BC, because prior in 490BC, his father King Darius had been defeated by them. The huge party was held in the northern capital of Persia, the city of Susa, and is indicative of this happening in the summer, as the temperature in the southern capital of Babylon was too high in the summer, so the grand rally to war could have been held up north in Susa.
We know absolutely nothing about Queen Vashti, whose stubborn will, caused the whole sequence of events to get all 127 provinces’ attention. The drunken King’s immaturity was shown in allowing her pride to get the best of his better judgment. If the party was a rally cry for war, Vashti might have been making an implied objection to it by refusing to parade her beauty in obedience to King Ahasuerus (Xerxes). His enacting the irrevocable law for the entire Persian Empire that affected the personal lives of every family, is not a wise move, being solely based on fear of calming domestic violence. The best motives for enacting new laws, is firstly to stabilize economies, secondly to punish evildoers (taxes & justice) This problem is a lesson with a current message for us in learning that God is active behind the scenes of world affairs. No matter how we think powerful men act a fool publicly, God is working to prepare people like Mordecai and Esther for the best interest of His choice people, Romans 8:27-28. The root problem for King Ahasuerus is the origin of his solution in the face of his drunken rage. The wise men and princes of v13-14 are expert in ancient astronomy and empirical Persian law, but they are not wise in the morality & ethics of Daniel & Ezra, who lived only a few years before and during this event. Do you ever feel like you are stuck in an ungodly position with no way of helping the church, or anyone interested in God’s truths? Be assured by this passage, that God is working even when he is silent and your situation seems hopeless. Esther is a spiritual woman living in what seemed to be a god-forsaken culture, she knew the value of fasting and asked others to do the same, so that God’s blessings & strength would be on her and her fellow Jews, in her work. (4:16)
Epaggelia 