Nisly Paradise

• Until now, we have mostly seen Esther in a passive position. Almost certainly, she was taken into the king’s harem with little to no choice of her own.  Many of the verbs speaking of Esther are in the passive sense–in other words, she was not very in control of her destiny.  In the end of chapter 4 going into today’s lesson, we see a reversal of the passivity.  She becomes very deliberate and takes the assertiveness of a queen.
• What is the significance of Esther putting on her royal robes?
• Esther wins favor in the king’s sight:  We know from Xerxes previous behavior that this is not a given.  Is it just chance then that Esther wins this favor?
• Esther’s plan: maybe a bunny trail, but I think her method shows insight into the male psyche. She made him curious instead of nagging or beating him over the head.  Are there lessons we can learn for our own cross-gender relationships?
• 5:5 “that we may do as Esther has asked” (ESV)  This shows the king and Haman recognizing Esther as an authority in her own right.  This is also underscored by the pride Haman had in being included in Esther’s feast (v9, 12).
• Why did Esther again delay her request to the king after the first banquet?
• Haman and Mordecai: Mordecai’s behavior has become different yet from his previous actions (refusal to bow/pay homage >> refusal to stand/tremble). There was now no doubt in either man’s mind that they were total enemies, and that Haman had a death sentence hanging over Mordecai.
  • Why was Mordecai not rising nor trembling before Haman?
• What do Haman’s actions here tell us about what kind of a person he was?
  • Why was Haman so furious about Mordecai’s apparent lack of respect/fear?  Why could one man’s lack of respect/fear totally ruin his accomplishments?
  • Why did Haman need to recount these items to his wife and friends? What is the significance of the accomplishments he listed?
• Gallows 75 feet high: how did Haman get this made after supper in one evening (I don’t think they stocked gallows kits at Lowes in those days)?  Does this show exaggeration, symbolism,  or?? (interesting read here)

• Recap from last Sunday: Mordecai’s unwillingness to respect/commit to loyalty to Haman set off chain of events that was going to bring annihilation to the Jews.  Chapter 3 set up the disaster that the book hinges on.
• The reason I bring up Mordecai’s choices here is because we start Chapter 4 with Mordecai in sackcloth and a bitter cry.  I was wondering how it must feel to know you were the one that set up the destruction for your people.  It would be bad enough knowing you had done it in good conscience, but how would you feel if you knew you were wrong? (I’m not trying to say that Mordecai was wrong (although in my personal opinion he was at least being foolish), but more to have you think about how it applies to us: let US be CAREFUL to not foolishly be disrespectful.)
• BTW, how much time do we have here between when the decree was sent (“coincidentally” on the eve of Passover week), and when it was to be carried out?  How much time from when the decree was sent until it was “reversed”?
• Mourning: what was the symbolism of sackcloth and ashes?
  • Says in every province. Think of the joy of God’s enemies back in Jerusalem.
  • Why did Mordecai go up to the king’s gate to mourn?
• Why was Esther distressed at Mordecai’s mourning?
  • What was the point in sending him clothes to wear? He obviously had clothes already, right?
  • Interesting that Mordecai even knew how much money Haman had promised. 10,000 talents may have been near 2/3 of GDP of Persian empire (Debra Reid).  For comparison: US GDP $16.77 Trillion x 0.75 = 0.66 so around $10 Trillion if we would be thinking in American value.  Little wonder people were repeating the number as the story passed around (did Haman leak the number to brag since this conversation was behind closed doors?)
• Mordecai commanded Esther to go in to the king. Interesting that he commanded her. Maybe more importantly, he was finally releasing (commanding) her to reveal her identity.
  • The author, using Esther’s response, reveals that Esther is now in the same position of Vashti–of disobeying the king.  We know what happened to Vashti when she did that, what will happen to Esther? (One important difference here, though, is that Esther was smart enough to make the Jews’ destruction a matter of the king’s honor, whereas Vashti had publicly violated the king’s honor.)
  • What is the significance of not being called in to the king for 30 days?
• What is the significance of Mordecai warning Esther so severely in his reply to her initial refusal? Why did he throw in her father’s house as well? Wasn’t it perishing anyway with her being married off to a Persian king?
  • Mordecai’s second response seems to show his faith in deliverance.  But yet he almost states it as a question? He did not know for sure that Esther would be able to avert the disaster, but he knew that she must try.
• Vs 12-17 is probably the most interesting passage in the book. There seems to be an implicit faith in God and his providence, and yet he is never mentioned. How do you reconcile this? I am confident Scripture’s omission of prayer and God in this passage are not incidental.
• What is the significance of Esther’s statement: “If I perish, I perish”?
  • Obviously, Esther was committing to laying down her life for her people which was commendable. And yet, was her statement showing her resignation to fate, or was a declaration of her faith in God’s providence??

• After these things… How much time had elapsed here?
• Haman the Agagite: is there significance to his name?
• Xerxes apparently trusted Haman implicitly so much that he elevated him above the other officials and we don’t see the multitude of counselors any more. Was that wise?
• The king’s command: bow and pay homage (ESV) or reverence (KJV).  Was Mordecai justified in disobeying the king’s command?
  • Strongly encourage you to study how the words bow and reverence are used in the OT.
  • Definition of Homage (Dictionary.com):

respect or reverence paid or rendered: In his speech he paid homage to Washington and Jefferson.
the formal public acknowledgment by which a feudal tenant or vassal declared himself to be the man or vassal of his lord, owing him fealty and service.

• In the little that I have studied, I think use of this word in Hebrew roughly correlates with the idea of paying homage in the English, as defined above. If so, Mordecai was basically making a statement that he was unwilling to reverence or be loyal to Haman, who was his superior.   It was not that he was being commanded to worship Haman, but to respect him. If so, his behavior would be in direct contradiction with passages such as 1 Peter 2:13-17 and Jeremiah 29:7.
• Deffinbaugh points out the concern of later Jewish commentators with this apparent contradiction in Mordecai’s attitude:

(5) Later Jewish additions to our text betray the fact that Mordecai was being stubborn and rebellious. The Alexandrian Jews, uneasy with Mordecai’s attitudes and actions as conveyed in the Hebrew text, sought to improve his image with this insertion:

“About 100 B.C., Alexandrian Jews, possibly in an effort to vindicate the spirituality of Mordecai . . . put this prayer into his mouth: ‘You know all things; you know, Lord, that it was not because of insolence or arrogance or vanity that I did this, that I did not bow down before arrogant Haman; for I would have been quite willing to have kissed the soles of his feet for Israel’s sake. But I did it in order that I might not put the glory of a man above the glory of God.’“40

If it were not so obvious that Mordecai was a proud, self-willed Jew, later Jews would see no need to tamper with the original text.

• I would also like to consider the possibility that Mordecai was justified in refusing to bow.  Mostly, I would like to ask if there are any applications to us today. Do we have circumstances where we should not be bowing or offering loyalty?
• Was Haman playing wild and free with the truth in his request to the king?
• 10,000 talents of silver?! Not a significant point, but was Haman just making up this unbelievable number (75lb x 10,000 = 750,000lb of silver) knowing that the king would say to keep it?
• What was Xerxes thinking in just passing off his signet ring like this? Do we as fathers make decisions like this sometimes?
• “And the king and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of Susa was thrown into confusion.” (Esther 3:15b)  What was the significance of Xerxes and Hamans’ sitting down to drink? What was going on in the city of Susa?
• Where was God in all of this?

A few questions to get you started:

• How many years was chapter 1 from Chapter 2 (“…Now after these things…”) ?
• Is there any significance to Mordecai and Esther’s names? (probably transliteration of the common name for Persian gods)
• Do you think Esther was taken by force into the Harem or did Mordecai “enroll” her? (I’m not sure Scripture tells us, but the answer helps form an opinion of Mordecai’s character).
• The text mentions twice that Esther was an orphan. Besides being plain fact, why is this such an interesting detail?
• Was it acceptable for Mordecai to command Esther to conceal her nationality?
• Why do you think Esther found favor with all who *saw* her?  BTW, is it reasonable to even infer more about her character than is said???
• V 17 Esther is made queen instead of Vashti…this illustrates that Esther was now in the same honored, but perilous position as Vashti was.
• What was the second gathering of virgins (v. 19)? Was this referring to some part of the feast for Esther?
• FYI, Xerxes was killed in an assassination by someone allowed into his chambers by the chamberlain.
• Why do you think Mordecai was not honored immediately?
• If we run out of things to discuss, here is one from last Sunday… It’s easy to critique Vashti’s response to be summoned. But how about Xerxes… How often do we as men assume our wife or family even are for our own honor and pleasure and use them as such? Wasn’t that Xerxes’ motivation in summoning her?

• Starting book of Esther next Sunday.  Maybe you’ve never thought of this, but I think there are some tough questions to answer before we can jump into the book.  Christian scholars through the ages have a wide variety of explanations that perhaps we must struggle through a bit to come to most Scriptural understanding of Esther.  Here are a few things to get you thinking.
• Occurs roughly 50 years after (530 to 480)  the 70 year exile was finished and the first return to Jerusalem.  So what was Mordecai doing, working in a heathen capital?
• Why is there no mention of God or prayer anywhere in the book?
• Why is the feast of Purim and the book of Esther never mentioned in the NT?
• Here is an interesting article (Part 1, Part 2) that discusses some of these sticky questions.
• A basic understanding of the chronology is helpful.  Here is a detailed article of the contemporary kings.

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• What do you think is the main point of chapter 1?
• Xerxes: Here is a quote from J. Sidlow Baxter regarding the nature of this fine specimen of a king.

11 What then of Xerxes? This is the king who ordered a bridge to be built over the Hellespont, and who, on learning that the bridge had been destroyed by a tempest, just after its completion, was so blindly enraged that he commanded three hundred strokes of the scourge to be inflicted on the sea, and a pair of fetters to be thrown into it at the Hellespont, and then had the unhappy builders of the bridge beheaded. This is the king who, on being offered a sum equivalent to five and a half million sterling by Pythius, the Lydian, towards the expenses of a military expedition, was so enraptured at such loyalty that he returned the money, accompanied by a handsome present; and then, on being requested by this same Phthius, shortly afterwards, to spare him just one of his sons—the eldest—from the expedition, as the sole support of his declining years, furiously ordered the son to be cut into two pieces, and the army to march between them. This is the king who dishonoured the remains of the heroic Spartan, Leonidas. This is the king who drowned the humiliation of his inglorious defeat in such a plunge of sensuality that he publicly offered a prize for the invention of some new indulgence. This is the king who cut a canal through the Isthmus of Athos for his fleet—a prodigious undertaking. This is the king whose vast resources, and gigantic notions and imperious temper made the name of Persia to awe the ancient world. Herodotus tells us that among the myriads gathered for the expedition against Greece, Ahasuerus was the fairest in personal beauty and stately bearing. But morally he was a mixture of passionate extremes. He is just the despot to dethrone queen Vashti for refusing to expose herself before his tipsy guests. He is just the one to consign a people like the Jews to be massacred, and then to swing over to the opposite extreme of sanctioning Jewish vengeance on thousands of his other subjects. J. Sidlow Baxter, Explore the Book (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House [reprint], six volumes in one, 1960), Vol. 2, pp. 262-263.