Esther is not the story of a courageous heroine saving her
people you think it is.
First of all, let me say it is so frustrating you can’t seem
to find any alternative views of this book of the Bible on the internet.
While I’m not going to spell everything out for you, with
the help of the Holy Spirit, I will give you the key points and other things
that jump out to me, as I usually do on here.
Chapter 2 10: Mordecai told Esther not to let on that she
was a Jew, and she didn’t. Inevitably, there would have been conflicts with
regard to food laws and other things living in a pagan king’s palace. Why
wasn’t Esther encouraged by her uncle to stand up for God and His law?
V15: Esther obtained favour in the eyes of all who looked
upon her, which implies people admired her beauty, not what a godly and
virtuous person she was.
V20: This verse clearly shows this is really the Book of
Mordecai. Mordecai drives the action in this story; Esther is only used by him.
Chapter 3 v1-6: Mordecai refused to give Haman even the
basic respect the Bible clearly says is due civil authorities. We see that
Daniel spoke respectfully to Nebuchadnezzar and, in the New Testament, Paul and
Peter tell us authorities deserve respect.
Not only did Mordecai refuse to give respect to Haman, he
went on to say, when questioned about it, that no Jews showed respect to civil
authorities. Now, you can’t have a society with a group of people in it who
refuse to respect any civil authority, so Haman orders the Jews all to be
killed, including the ones who had returned to Jerusalem by this time, the ones
who would be the direct ancestors of Jesus Christ. This, mind you, because of
one man’s flippant, arrogant, rash remark.
Chapter 4 v13-14: To paraphrase the true meaning of this
famous passage: “Hey, honey, somethihng’ll probably happen to deliver the rest
of our people from Haman’s decree, but I’ll definitely hang for not showing
respect to Haman, and if I go down, I’ll sure let those who need to know you’re
a Jew, too, so you’d better do what I say, if you know what’s good for you, or
it’ll be your own neck in the noose.”
V16: Notice there is no mention of prayer in this verse.
There is also no mention of repentance for possible sins committed by the Jews
or asking God for deliverance.
Compare Esther’s response here with the three Hebrew boys in
the story of the fiery furnace in Daniel.
Chapter 5 v9: Man, Mordecai couldn’t even be bothered to
scootch his butt out of the way for Haman.
Chapters 6 and 7: Here is where we see God in this book. We
must remember that, even though Esther is not a godly story as such and even
though there are many ungodly situations in the world, God is always working
behind the scenes in human affairs for His glory and for His people,
specifically here Jesus’ ancestors, not Esther and Mordecai. If the king had
been able to sleep that night or if Ahasuerus hadn’t just happened to walk
in from the garden and see something
that caused him to jump to a very bad conclusion, we might not have a Saviour.
Chapter 8 1-13: Persian law couldn’t be revoked, so what
then had to be done was for a law to be written that the Jews throughout the
empire could fight back against all the people who were scheduled to kill them.
This is understandable, but Mordecai went even further and decreed in the name
of the king that the Jews could kill women and children and seeze property.
V17: Many of the people in the other Persian provinces
became Jews, not because they realized the truth of the Living God, but because
they were afraid of being killed by their Jewish neighbours. This way, they
figured, the Jews wouldn’t kill their fellow Jews, however suspect those fellow
Jews’ conversions may have been.
Is this really the way we want people to become Christians?
And don’t give me that “whatever works” bull.
Chapter 9 v3: Notice it says “fear of Mordecai”, not fear of
Esther.
V7-15: God’s law says sons shall not be put to death for
their father’s crimes, or vice versa.
One lesson we can take from this book of the Bible is that,
while many of God’s people had gone back to the promised land to be His people,
many others of His people were perfectly happy to stay in Babylon and take full
advantage of all that ungodly society had to offer in the way of worldly
advancement. Let us not be like this latter group of people but choose the
eternal reward of living for Christ instead.
Second, this book shows that, just because someone is
genetically of a people group God has called His chosen, that doesn’t mean an
individual actually is chosen by God. Read Romans 9-11 for further
clarification on this.
Third, spite is a horrible thing. Please do not be led
astray by this sin.
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