Esther: A 10-Day Reading PlanSample

The very last thing we’re told in Esther 7 is that after Haman was lifted up on the gallows, the king’s anger was calmed. The author of Esther couldn’t have known the degree to which his telling of the story foreshadowed something so much greater. Like Haman, Jesus Christ was lifted up—not on a gallows but on a cross. Unlike Haman, Jesus was condemned for guilt not his own. He paid for our sin—the guilt of all God’s people in every age and for all time. And once Christ’s work on the cross was finished, God’s righteous anger against our sin, like King Ahasuerus’s anger, abated.

Reflection:

How can you see God’s presence in the book of Esther up to this point in the story?