Esther: Daring Faith for Such a Time as This Намуна

The ending of something is always more meaningful when we consider its beginning. As the book of Esther closes with Mordecai second in command of the empire, Esther on the queen’s throne, and the resounding deliverance of the Jews, we can’t forget that this story blossomed out of the soil of Israel’s most devastating season—exile. A little over a century before the first Purim, the freshly deported Jews in Babylon wondered how they would ever survive—much less flourish—outside of Jerusalem. Psalm 137:1-6expresses their grief with provocative imagery, describing exiles weeping by the rivers of Babylon.

Jerusalem was the city where the Jews flocked to the temple to worship the one true God. It was also the city in which the priests mediated on behalf of the people. God’s presence dwelt in Jerusalem. The exiles were terrified of forgetting it. Perhaps they thought that if they forgot the city, they would forget their God.

In 539 BC, approximately fifty years before Ahasuerus’s reign, many Jews returned to Jerusalem under King Cyrus. Perhaps one of the first things they looked forward to doing was plucking their harps, loosening their tongues, and singing the praises of their youth in their homeland. But most exiles did not return. They and their sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters, had made a life outside of Judah. Many may have forgotten the glory of Jerusalem and how to sing the Lord’s songs. Maybe a few of them rehearsed the melodies in their heads and hearts, realizing that the Lord inhabited their praises even in the pagan fortress of Persia.

What we do know is that the Jews' triumphs across the empire were inconceivable to anyone other than God Himself. Only He could have placed Esther and Mordecai in royal positions, giving a future and hope to those who had hung up their harps on Babylonian poplar trees so many years before.

Now, in Esther 9:29-32, we see a second letter sent out reaffirming the newly-established Purim celebration. It may seem redundant for a second letter to go out to the empire confirming the first. But confirmation and reconfirmation are an important part of chapter 9.1 (I tend to over-communicate, so I appreciate the reconfirmation of a confirmation of what has already been confirmed.) The extra authorization is most certainly due to the magnitude of establishing a new Jewish holiday, something that hadn’t happened since the days of Moses.

Esther authored this second letter alongside Mordecai with “full authority” (9:29). Karen Jobes writes, “No other woman among God’s people wrote with authority to confirm and establish a religious practice that still stands today. The importance of most biblical women, such as Sarah and Hannah, lies in their motherhood. Esther’s importance to the covenant people is not as a mother, but as a queen.”2

We can learn a great deal from the remarkable partnership between Esther and Mordecai and how it reflects God’s design. He created males and females to work together to accomplish His kingdom purposes (Gen 1:26-28). While pride, power, and pettiness continually try to undermine His created order, how much more can we, in Christ, model this beautiful partnership for the world?

Whether you’re a mother, businesswoman, missionary, caretaker, full-time student—or queen—you are to steward your God-given authority and resources for His kingdom purposes. Neither Esther nor Mordecai could have saved the Jews alone. God ordained their partnership to bring about a great deliverance.

Esther 9:30-31 seems to have ties to Zechariah 8:19. There, the prophet wrote, “The fasts of the fourth, fifth, seventh, and tenth months will become joyful and glad occasions and happy festivals for Judah. Therefore love truth and peace.” In other words, feasting would replace fasting. Purim would signify the final reversal of all the weeping and wailing the days of fasting represented.3

Whether or not Esther and Mordecai wrote their letters with Zechariah in mind, their point appears to be this: As dedicated as we were to fasting and crying out in our times of trouble, we must be just as committed to celebrating when God delivers!4 Does anyone else need to hear that besides me? Sometimes, we don’t mourn over tragedy, brokenness, or sin enough. But other times, we don’t commit to celebrating the redemption God has brought about in our lives.

Purim celebrates the divine reversal God brought about for Esther and her people. It also points forward to an even further-reaching reversal that would extend beyond the borders of the Persian empire and span the entire globe. Jesus’s death on the cross didn’t merely improve our circumstances or make us a little less sinful. His death completely reversed the trajectory of our lives.

Read Esther 9:29-32 and take a moment to acknowledge and celebrate the redemption God has brought about in your own life.
_____________________________________________________________

1. Michael V. Fox, Character and Ideology in the Book of Esther (United States: W.B. Eerdmans, 2001) 124.

2. Karen H. Jobes, Esther, The NIV Application Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1999), 224.

3. Debra Reid, Esther: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 13, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008), 149.

4. Ibid.

For more of this study by Lifeway Women, visit lifeway.com/estherstudy.