11-6 The Potential and the Reality
11-6-1 The Weakness Of Judah Under Nehemiah
We shouldn’t underestimate the seriousness of the famine conditions in Judah as described in Neh. 5. The sheer lack of food led the Jews to sell their children and land to their richer brethren just to get something to eat. Mal. 3:5-15 says that this was directly a result of their lack of zeal to rebuild and care for God’s house. What a far cry from the prophecies of plenty and huge harvests which had been made. So much potential was wasted. Neh. 5:8 records Nehemiah’s comment that the wealthy Jews were victimizing the poorer Jews just as Babylon once had, and now Nehemiah needed to redeem them from slavery just as God had redeemed His people from servitude in Babylon. God’s deliverance of His people simply hadn’t been responded to. Tragically, it would appear from Neh. 5:15 that Zerubbabel, the potential Messiah of Israel, had acted in this oppressive way too.
What Was Prophesied About The Restored Temple And Kingdom | What Actually Happened |
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There were to be “holy chambers” in the temple for the Levites (Ezekiel 46:19 and very often in Ezekiel 40-48). The uncircumcised Gentiles were not to be brought into the sanctuary (Ezekiel 44:7). It was God’s intention that when Judah returned from Babylon, the uncircumcised would not come into Zion (the temple), and the Kingdom would be established (Isaiah 52:1,11). There was to be no Canaanite in the house of Yahweh (Zechariah 14:21). |
Tobiah the Ammonite was given a chamber in the temple for him to use as an office for undermining God’s people (Nehemiah 13:7-9). |
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Sacrifices were to be without blemish (Ezekiel 43:23) |
They offered blemished animals (Mal. 1:8), because they wanted the nicer meat and more money for themselves- petty materialism stopped the Kingdom experience being realized. |
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The house was not to be profaned (Ezekiel 44:7) |
Judah profaned the Sabbath (Nehemiah 13:17,18), and profaned the temple by their marriage with Gentiles and their “weariness” with the temple ordinances (Mal. 1:12; 2:10,11). They got bored with the things of the Kingdom, and so they had no part in it. |
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The covenant was not to be broken; the temple had been destroyed before because of breaking covenant with Yahweh (Ezekiel 44:7). |
Judah broke covenant [s.w.] with Yahweh at the time of the restoration by marrying Gentiles and worshipping their gods (Ezra 9:1,14). |
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Ezekiel 42:20: “He measured it by the four sides: it had a wall round about, five hundred reeds long, and five hundred broad, to make a separation between the sanctuary and the profane place”. This reflected the difference between God’s people, His “sanctuary” (Psalms 114:2), and the surrounding world. |
But Judah did not ‘separate’ themselves from the surrounding tribes but instead married them and worshipped their idols (s.w. Ezra 9:1 “The people of Israel...have not separated themselves from the people of the land, doing according to their abominations...for they have taken of their daughters for themselves”). The same word for “abominations” occurs in the same context in Mal. 2:11: “Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah hath profaned the holiness of the LORD which he loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange god”. Yet it had been emphasised that the temple system Ezekiel described was to be free of all the “abominations” [s.w.] previously committed by Israel (Ezekiel 43:8; 44:6,7,13).
In fact, the account of Judah’s separation from the surrounding peoples reads similar to that of the purges from idolatory during the reign of the kings. They separated / purged, and then, within a few years, we read of them doing so again. Initially, the exiles separated from the peoples of the land (Ezra 6:21); by 9:1 they are in need of separating again; and by 10:11 likewise; then they separate (10:16), only to need another call to separation by the time of Nehemiah 9:2; 13:3. They obviously found it extremely difficult to be separated from the surrounding world unto God’s law (Nehemiah 10:28). There was a powerful logic- either separate from the world around, or be separated from the people of God (Ezra 10:8). It’s a separation- one way or the other. |
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Judah were to keep the charges of God relating to His house (Ezekiel 40:46; 44:8,14-16). |
Nehemiah, seeking for Israel’s obedience to Ezekiel’s vision, tried to get them to “keep the charges” (s.w. Nehemiah 7:3; 12:9,45; 13:20). But soon, Judah complained that there was no benefit to them from having kept the charges (Mal. 3:14 s.w.). Partial obedience discouraged them from any further effort, because the fullness of blessing can only come from a way of life conformed to God’s Kingdom vision and life. This is why people get disillusioned with religion and lose even the true faith- because they seek for immediate benefit as a result of keeping a few highly specific aspects of God’s law, rather than willingly devoting their way of life to the realisation of His vision. |
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The Levites were not to marry divorcees or Gentiles (Ezekiel 44:22) |
They did just this (Ezra 9:1; Mal. 2:11-16). |
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The Levites were to teach Judah and to make others discern between good and evil (Ezekiel 44:23). The sons of Zadok were chosen because they had been faithful previously. |
They should have done this, but instead “ye have caused many to stumble at the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi” (Mal. 2:7,8). The sons of Zadok were descendants of Eleazer and Phinehas (1 Chron. 6:3-8), and Mal. 2:5 alludes to this: “My covenant was with him of life and peace: and I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared me, and was afraid before my name” (cp. Ex. 32:28). But Mal. 2:6-8 go on to show that the sons of Zadok, as the descendants of Phinehas, had not lived up to their pedigree; they were making men “stumble at the law”. This shows the connection between the Ezekiel prophecies and Malachi’s commentary on their failed fulfilment in the hands of men like the sons of Zadok. |
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The Levites were to judge justly (Ezekiel 44:24). |
But Zechariah 7:9; 8:16 [s.w.] had to exhort them to stop judging unjustly. |
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“They shall come near to my table” (Ezekiel 44:16). |
They did, but they despised it (Mal. 1:7,12), they found it such a weariness. |
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The Levites were to touch no dead body (Ezekiel 44:25) |
But they did (Hag. 2:13). |
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Tithes were to be paid to the Levites (Ezekiel 44:30). |
Nehemiah’s record and Mal. 3:8 make it clear that this didn’t happen, due to petty selfishness. |
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The princes would not oppress the people (Ezekiel 45:8); “Moreover the prince shall not take of the people's inheritance by oppression, to thrust them out of their possession” (Ezekiel 46:18). |
But they did (Nehemiah 5:1-5; Zechariah 7:10; Mal. 3:5). |
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The princes were to give the rest of the land to the people of Israel (Ezekiel 45:8) |
But they made their poor brethren mortgage it to them so that effectively they took it for themselves (Nehemiah 5:3). |
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Ezek 45:9: “Let it suffice you, O princes of Israel: remove violence and spoil, and execute judgment and justice, take away your exactions from my people”. |
Nehemiah 5 records that Judah did the very opposite, and Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi all record social injustice as being the order of the day at the time of the restoration. |
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Ezek 45:25: “In the seventh month, in the fifteenth day of the month, shall he [the prince] do the like in the feast of the seven days, according to the sin offering, according to the burnt offering, and according to the meat offering, and according to the oil”. |
Zechariah 7:5 criticised the Jews for keeping this feast only externally, but not “unto me”. Hag. 2:1 records how on the 21st day of the 7th month- i.e. once the seven day feast that began on the 15th had finished- Haggai was sent to rebuke “the prince”, Zerubbabel, for being so slack in fulfilling Ezekiel’s vision. Even by the time of Nehemiah 8:14-17, it was so that the feast of the 7th month had not been kept by Judah since the time of Joshua. They subconsciously switched off to Ezekiel’s words; just as we can all do. They reasoned that “the time” of which he spoke hadn’t come- even though the temple had miraculously been enabled to be rebuilt, for no human benefit at all to Cyrus (Isaiah 45:13 “not for price nor reward”). They felt that all the prophecies were “marvellous” in the sense of something incapable of concrete fulfilment in their experience (Zechariah 8:6). This is why Hag. 1:2 rebuked them for saying “the time is not come…that the Lord’s house shoild be built”. They didn’t want the prophecy to be fulfilled, because it would mean ‘going up’ from their ceiled houses- both in Babylon and in the farmsteads they had built in Judah- to build the temple. |
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Ezek 46:3: “Likewise the people of the land shall worship at the door of this gate before the LORD in the Sabbaths and in the new moons”. |
“The people of the land” hung around the gates of the city on the Sabbath in order to do some trading of goods (Nehemiah 13:19,20). |
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Ezekiel 42:13: “Then said he unto me, The north chambers and the south chambers, which are before the separate place, they be holy chambers, where the priests that approach unto the LORD shall eat the most holy things” |
The same words are found in Ezra 2:63 and Nehemiah 7:65- it wasn’t possible for the priests to eat of the holy things [signifying God’s acceptance of His people], because there was no record of their genealogy. Their names were not written in the “register” in fulfilment of Ezekiel 13:9: “neither shall they be written in the writing [s.w. ‘register’, Ezra 2:62] of the house of Israel”. Only if a priest stood up with urim and thummim could they eat of the holy things. These were two engraven stones carried in a pouch in the breastplate which flashed out Divine decisions (see H.A. Whittaker, Samuel, Saul And David for an excellent study of this). Zechariah 3:9 prophesies that Joshua the High Priest would have the engraven stone with seven eyes- the urim and thummim. It would thereby have been possible for a priesthood who had lost their genealogy record during the sacking of the first temple to eat the holy things, and thus fulfil Ezekiel 42:13. In a restoration context, Isaiah 66:21 had prophesied that Yahweh would regather Judah, “And I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, saith the LORD”. This implies, surely, that He would accept some as Levites who could not otherwise prove they were. Zechariah 6:11,13 speaks of Joshua being crowned with the High Priestly mitre and ‘bearing the glory’, i.e. carrying the urim and thummim in the breastplate. But all this was conditional on Joshua’s obedience: “This shall come to pass, if ye will diligently obey” (6:15). Because Joshua failed, he didn’t have urim and thummim, therefore no decision could be given about who was an acceptable priest, and therefore the ‘Kingdom’ prophecy of Ezekiel 42:13 was left unfulfilled. So much depended upon that man. And likewise, the eternal destiny of many others depends on us. Isaiah’s prophecies of the restoration feature “the servant”- who was a symbol of both the people and a Messianic individual. His success was bound up with theirs. Thus Isa 65:9: “And I will bring forth a seed [singular] out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor [singular] of my mountains: and mine elect [plural] shall inherit it, and my servants [plural] shall dwell there”. His obedience would enable the peoples’ establishment as the Kingdom. |
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There were to be gate openers (Ezekiel 46:12) |
There were gate openers, but they demanded to be paid for their services, or [so modern versions] they were nowhere to be found (Mal. 1:10). The difference in the translations reflects the Hebraism: if you won’t serve for nothing, then you haven’t served. |
Baruch’s Window Into The Mindset Of The Exiles
Although the Apocryphal book of Baruch isn’t inspired, it gives a significant window into the mindset of the exiles in Babylon. Baruch 1:10 mentions how the attitude was that the majority wanted to send funds to support the ‘good work’ going on in Judah- but didn’t want to return there themselves. Like the book of Esther, this indicates that the exiles had soon quit languishing by the rivers of Babylon, and had quickly acquired wealth and some degree of prosperity. Inspired prophecies had warned them of the fall of Babylon, and their need to flee out of it and return to Judah. And yet Baruch 1:12 records the exiles praying “that we may live long under the protective shadow of [the] king of Babylon”. This is in sad contrast to Daniel’s prophecies that the sheltering tree of Babylon was to be cut down!
The exiles asked for ‘deliverance’- but they redefined ‘deliverance’ as meaning being allowed to live prosperously in the land of their captivity (Baruch 1:12 cp. 2:14), rather than being delivered from Babylon and returning to Judah. In a way, the book of Esther shows how God heard this prayer. But the book of Esther therefore has a sad ending, with the Jews prosperous, loved and respected, and even further away from returning to the land. Indeed, Baruch 2:21 records them misquoting Jer. 27:12 about the need to obey the King of Babylon during their captivity, and understanding this as meaning they were to remain in Babylon! Baruch 6:2 is perhaps the most serious example of misquoting and wilfully misunderstanding God’s word. Here, Baruch [as Jeremiah’s scribe] changes the prophecy of Jer. 29:10, that Israel were to be 70 years in Babylon and then return: “When you reach Babylon you will be there many years, a period seven generations long, after which I will bring you back”. The 70 years are turned into seven generations. This was precisely the mindset spoken against in Haggai 1:2, whereby the Jews reasoned that the time had not yet come to rebuild the temple. “The time” referred to the time spoken of by Jeremiah- but Baruch had re-interpreted the 70 years as meaning seven generations. And yet all this was done with a surface-level reverence for God’s word- the exiles considered themselves blessed because they had God’s law (Baruch 4:4). Indeed, much of Baruch is a condemnation of idols and a demand to worship Yahweh.
Summing up, the book of Baruch reveals the following mindset:
- Wealth and prosperity amongst the exiles
- A feeling that they could buy favour with God by giving materially to those who were obedient and returning to Judah
- A re-reading / re-interpretation of Bible prophecies in order to justify their lack of obedience
- A love of ‘Babylon’, a desire to remain there, and a reasoning around the clear prophecies about Babylon’s doom and the need for God’s people to leave her
- A desire to pray to God, worship Him, make a big noise about rejecting idols, retain their identity as God’s people, and yet a refusal to live up to the responsibilities this entailed.
And we have to ask how relevant all this is for us…?
Jonah
We have commented elsewhere about the way in which the righteous remnant were actually persecuted by the other Jews in Babylon, according to the testimony of the later parts of Isaiah. One significant problem which they had right from the start was that they insisted that the captivity was unfair, it was not their fault, they were righteous and were being unfairly punished for the sins of their fathers. Ezekiel 18 addresses this at length with them. Jeremiah complained that the false prophets refused to expose Judah's iniquity, and made up all sorts of other reasons for her exile (Lam. 2:17). The purpose of Jonah, a book which according to Jewish tradition and the Talmud was written up in the exile, was perhaps to appeal to the Jews not to be so self-righteous and exclusivist. Jonah seems to think that "the presence of the Lord" is only in the land of Israel- and by going to Gentile territory he was somehow freed from his obligations. Jonah's falling into a "deep sleep" (Jonah 1:5) invites the Hebrew mind to compare other incidents of prophets having contact with God in association with "deep sleep" (Ps. 76:7; Dan. 10:9; 1 Kings 19:5)- the point being that no, God hasn't finished with Jonah. And likewise Judah had left the land, but God was still eager to work with them. And Jonah's having to 'own up' to being Jewish connects with how Mordecai uses the same word "Jew" to 'own up' to the Persians (Esther 3:4). Jer. 51:34 describes Babylon as a sea monster gulping down Israel into his stomach- using the same Hebrew words as in Jonah. Jonah's experience is thus presented as that of Judah in captivity. And yet Jonah's psalm from the fish's belly has evident connections with Messianic prophecies of the crucifixion of Jesus (e.g. Ps. 69:16). Through the whole experience, of sin, failure, rebellion, fleeing from the land, God so worked that Jonah came to know the spirit of Christ crucified. And so God sought to teach Israel; and so He [quite amazingly] works through our own sin and failure to bring us to know His most essential spirit.
Haggai's Criticisms
Haggai's prophecy can be dated quite precisely- it was given August-September 520 BC. This was harvest time. And at this very labour intensive season, where all hands had to be on deck out in the fields, the prophet called for a dedication of labour to building up God's house. Yet Judah were too concerned with their own harvests than the harvest of God's glory. They were asked to do something counter-instinctive- to take time out from harvest, and spend that time on building up God's house. And they failed the challenge. But it wasn't that they were simply lazy. Hag. 1:8, a prophecy given 18 years after the decree of Cyrus, orders the people to go up into the hills of Judah and get wood with which to build the temple. And yet according to Ezra 3:7, the decree of Cyrus 18 years earlier had resulted in cedar wood being brought from Tyre and Sidon, enough for the temple to be built. Where had the wood gone? Is the implication not that the leadership had used it for their own "cieled houses" (Hag. 1:4)? It all seems so petty minded. But this is what we are tempted to do, time and again- build up our own house and leave God's house desolate and in a very poor second place. And even worse- Hag. 1:9 records that the people expected "much" harvest, and were disappointed at the poor yields in Palestine. This might even suggest that many of those Jews who did return from Babylon were amongst the poor in Jewish exile society, and returned in home for personal betterment- rather than because they wished to obey the call of the prophets and establish God's glory in the land. That's a sober warning for all of us who may go through an external appearance of zeal for our God, whilst having very selfish and human motives underneath. Why, e.g., does a young woman so zealously attend church? Is it to worship God and build up His family... or because she perceives it as a potential meeting place with 'Mr. Right'? And so the examples could be multiplied. The poor harvests were because 'the heavens withheld their dew' (Hag. 1:10)- exactly the language of 1 Kings 8:35, which said that in such case, the people were to repent and pray towards the temple in Zion! But they didn't want to build that temple, they wanted rather to build up their own glory and homesteads. All things could've worked so wonderfully together for good; but they didn't want to participate in the program God had arranged, and so instead a downward spiral kicked in.
It should be noted that according to Hag. 1:1, the prophecy of Haggai (at least chapter 1) was specifically directed to two men- Zerubbabel, and Joshua the High Priest. Haggai's words are full of implication that these men could have achieved so much, and yet chose not to rise up to their potentials. Hag. 1:9 takes on particular significance when read in this light: "My house lies desolate whilst you run about, each man [i.e. Zerubbabel and Joshua] to his own house. It was those two who preferred to dwell in their "cieled houses" whilst God's house lay desolate (Hag. 1:4). The reference to "cieled houses" would be only relevant to the upper classes- it would hardly be applicable to all the returned exiles. If this line of interpretation is correct, then we can understand these two men as focusing more on their own homes than on God's house, and fulfilling the great potential possible if it had been built according to Ezekiel's specifications.
The Significance Of The History Of Esther
Context: The Paucity Of Judah’s Response
Separation from Babylon was made the harder by the Babylonian and especially later Persian policies of making subjugated people like the Jews become useful contributors to the empire. They didn't stay long weeping by the rivers of Babylon. Likewise it was Persian policy to allow each nation their own temple, and to even encourage them in this- hence the decree to rebuild Yahweh's temple in Jerusalem. Darius did similar things to areas of Egypt which he conquered. But all this had a price tage attached- people like the Jews were to come to see themselves as essentially Babylonian or Persian, and they were to give up all idea that their god or the culture was the absolute truth. And tragically, the Jews willfully became part of this policy. There were specific commands in Isaiah for the Jews in captivity to leave Babylon and return to the land. God confirmed those who wished to obey in their choice- for Cyrus made a decree commanding them to return! But so many still remained. Significantly, Artaxerxes gave Ezra authority to rule the entire “province Beyond the River” (Ezra 7:25). The boundary of the land promised to Abraham reached to “the river”- and Ezra was being given power over all that area. And yet there is no evidence that Ezra actually did do what Artaxerxes enabled him to do- i.e. to establish rulership under his command over that area. But potentially, the full restoration of the Kingdom promised to Abraham was made possible. Despite the King’s decree that the Levites should accompany Ezra from Babylon, not one Levite came with Ezra (Ezra 8:15- the references to ‘Levites’ later in the record must refer therefore to Levites that had remained in the land after the deportation of the majority of Judah). Last minute recruiting efforts by Ezra in Casiphia produced only 38 Levites (Ezra 8:31)! They even delayed their departure from Babylon for 12 days in order to desperately try to persuade some Levites to come with them. This was how poor Judah’s response was. Indeed, it appears that only 1,700 men returned to Judah with Ezra(1). Even generous readings of the text would give only between four and five thousand(2). And even when some Levites did return under Nehemiah, they weren’t given their tithes and went off to live on farmsteads as subsistence farmers, resulting in the restored temple scarcely operating (Neh. 13:10,11). Despite the repentance for marriage out of the faith in Ezra’s time, Nehemiah closes with the same problem having recurred. Nehemiah had to close the gates of Zion on the Sabbath (Neh. 13:19) to stop Sabbath trading going on- a sad contrast with the command in Is. 60:11 that her gates should be open continually in order that the Gentiles may enter in with their tribute to Yahweh. But now, the Jews were buying from the Gentiles in those very gates, which now had to be closed.
Not only were the Jews disobeying the specific commands of God to return to the land, but they were judging themselves as separated from God by voluntarily remaining in Babylon. They would’ve known the material of Dt. 28, which stated that Israel would only be separated from their land as a result of their being under judgment by God. By choosing to remain in captivity away from their land, they were in effect judging themselves as unworthy of being God’s covenant people dwelling in His land. And this is what condemnation is all about- people living out and choosing their condemnation by their behaviour in this life.
It could be argued in fact that Mordecai was the Mordecai referred to in Ezra 2:2 and Neh. 7:7- one of the first of the exiles who returned with Zerubbabel. Are we to conclude from this that Mordecai lost his youthful zeal, and perhaps returned to Babylon and assumed a pagan name? According to non-Biblical tradition, Zerubbabel also returned to Babylon. Esther 2:5 mentions Mordecai as being descended from Shimei, the man who cursed David in 2 Sam. 16:5; and Kish- the father of apostate king Saul (1 Sam. 9:1,2). Perhaps these references are to suggest that Mordecai was from a poor spiritual background. Another window into the weak mindset of Mordecai is given by his lament: “An innocent people is condemned to death!” (Esther 4:1 LXX). Passages like Ezekiel 18 reason with the exiles that their insistence upon their innocence was so wrong, and that they were quite wrong to feel unfairly treated by God, being punished for their fathers’ sins. Passage after passage in Ezekiel reveal how the prophets sought to convict the exiles of their sin, and the weakness and guilt of Judah in captivity. But it seems Mordecai for one didn’t accept that. Note that when we read of Ezra and Nehemiah confessing that “we” have sinned (Ezra 9:7; Neh. 1:5-11) they are accepting the truth of Ez. 18- that they, the Jews in Babylon, had sinned along with their fathers and were not somehow separate from them in their guilt.
It would seem that the events of Esther were towards the end of the 70 year captivity period; for the Jews are described in Esther 3:8 as being “scattered” throughout Babylon. It’s also apparent that the Jews were no longer sitting weeping by the rivers of Babylon, but had become influential and wealthy throughout the empire- hence Haman’s desire to kill and plunder them. The vast sum he offered to the King for permission to do this was presumably on the basis that a percentage of the plunder would be given to the King; for Herodotus estimated Haman’s offer to approximate to two thirds of the annual income of the Persian empire. The only way he could realistically have offered this would’ve been on the basis that the Jews were wealthy and he would totally plunder them. Hence when the whole plan was reversed, the Jews were allowed to plunder their enemies (Esther 8:11). They certainly didn’t take any wealth with them into captivity; they must have experienced meteoric prosperity and success in all their business dealings. Hence their desire to materially support the exiles who wished to return, but most of them were too caught up in the good life to heed the call to come out from Babylon. And we, faced with that same call in these last days, must enquire whether we’re not the same.
The Jews In Babylon
The events of Esther, which appear to have happened some time between Ezra chapters 6 and 7, reflect how the Jews had so quickly assimilated into Babylon. ‘Esther’ in Persian means ‘star’ and appears a reference to Ishtar. The name ‘Esther’ is also possibly derived from the Persian stara, or ‘star’, the Babylonian goddess of love. Even her Hebrew name Hadassah means ‘myrtle’, a tree which is native to Babylon, not Israel [although the Jews apparently brought myrtle trees back to Palestine with them]. Likewise ‘Mordecai’ is a form of the Persian god Marduk. The complete absence of God’s Name in the book perhaps indicates how they had forgotten the Name of their God in Babylon. It’s also odd that there is no mention of prayer in the story- when prayer was the obvious recourse of God’s people. The omission is so obvious- as if to point out that the Jews were not the prayerful community which they should’ve been. When we read of Mordecai rending his clothes and putting on sackcloth and ashes (Esther 4:1-3), we expect to read of him praying – for prayer accompanies those two things in 2 Kings 19:1-4 and Joel 1:14. Even Esther appears to accept her possible destruction in a fatalistic way rather than in faith- “If I perish, I perish” (Esther 4:16). There’s a contrast with Daniel, who gathered his friends and gave himself to prayer before going in to the King; she gathered her friends and asked them to fast, but there’s no specific mention of prayer. What she did was brave, but it seems to be more human bravery than an act of spiritual faith. The omission of any mention of prayer seems intentional- to highlight that the Jewish community were simply not prayerful as they should’ve been. The book of Esther was surely to encourage the Jews that despite their weakness, God was prepared to work with them. Esther appears to have slept with [‘went in unto’] the King before he married her; ate unclean food (Esther 2:9; cp. Dan. 1:5, 8), and finally married a Gentile. And she didn’t tell her husband that she was Jewish for the first 5 years of their marriage (Esther 2:16; 3:7). It’s almost certain that she would’ve acted like a Persian woman religiously in order for this to be the case; she certainly wasn’t an observant keeper of the Mosaic law. She’s almost set up in contrast with Daniel, who refused to defile himself in these ways and maintained his conscience in the same environment at whatever cost. But the point of Esther is to show that God was eager to work with such as Esther, He hadn’t quit on His people. And of course if Esther and Mordecai had done the right thing and returned to Judah as commanded, the whole situation would never have arisen, and there would’ve been no Jews left in Babylon to persecute. It seems that the history in the book of Esther is an example of how God sent ‘fishers and hunters’ to encourage the Jews to return as He commanded them (Jer. 16:16)- but even then, they didn’t.
Esther 3:13 implies that Haman’s plan to confiscate all Jewish property was because they were wealthy; his offer to pay Ahasuerus 10,000 talents of silver would only have been credible if that sum was obtained by him from the seizure of Jewish property. Herodotus claims that the total annual income of the Persian empire was about 15,000 talents of silver(3). Haman personally surely wouldn’t have had this amount of wealth- rather was he assuming how much could be gained from seizing Jewish property. The simple conclusion is that the Jewish community had soon left their weeping by the rivers of Babylon, and gone on to become a very wealthy group. The way the Persians rejoiced at the effective annulment of the decree to kill the Jews (Esther 8:17) would indicate that quite quickly, the Jews became popular with the world in which they lived. And for me, the book of Esther has a sad ending- the Jews are even more popular, even richer. Our loving Father gives us as His children what we beg Him for materially- but so often, it’s not for our good spiritually. God must be so torn- between giving us what we want, what we whine for, what humanly we obviously need and would desperately like to have… and yet knowing that this is not for our spiritual good. We wonder what happened to Esther. Ahasuerus was slain soon after the events of the book of Esther- typically, the wife and supporters of the King would’ve been slain or persecuted. Was this not another prod from God for Esther and Mordecai to return to Judah? It’s simply breathtaking how we are in God’s grip. He doesn’t give up on us. He works, as Job perceived, visiting us every moment in providential touches and prods, in order to encourage us to walk towards His Kingdom and quit the fake Kingdoms of this world.
Idolatry In Babylon
So much of later Isaiah is taken up with mockery and criticism of the Babylonian gods and the Marduk cult. The book of Esther, with Mordecai as the joint hero, named as he was after Marduk, demonstrates how caught up were the Jews with the Babylonian gods. Ezekiel repeatedly reveals the idolatry of the captives. Isaiah was therefore an appeal for the Jews to quit the Marduk cult and believe in the radical prophecies about the overthrow of Babylon. The situation is analogous to how the New Testament is full of references to the Roman imperial cult of empire worship. So much of the Bible is like Isaiah and the New Testament- a radical, counter-cultural call to see our present world for what it is, and to perceive that the ways of God simply can’t be mixed in, watered down or compromised with the way of this world.
Alexander Heidel analyzed the recovered Babylonian poem to Marduk Enuma Elish, discovering phrase after phrase in it which recurs in Isaiah- with reference to Yahweh exclusively (1). The similarities are exact, and impressive. Without doubt, Isaiah was developing a major theme in his later writings- that the true Israel of God must not have any part in the Marduk cult, and must understand all the claims made for Marduk as being untrue, and solely appropriate to Yahweh God of Israel. Consider some of the claims made for Marduk (exact references given in Heidel):
- “Marduk is King alone” (cp. “Your [Israel’s] God reigns as King!”, Is. 52:7)
- “None among the gods can equal him”
- Marduk killed Tiamat in the waters and cut him in pieces [applied to Yahweh in Is. 51:9,10]
- Creator of the stars (cp. Is. 40:26; Is. 45:12).
- Marduk is without comparison (cp. Is. 40:18,25 etc.)
- Marduk was, and no other (cp. Is. 45:5,6 etc.)
There are also mocking allusions to Marduk, showing Yahweh’s supremacy over him. Marduk was formed- but Yahweh had no god before Him and will have none after Him (Is. 43:10). Marduk had a counsellor, Ea, called in the inscriptions “the all-wise one”. But Yahweh has all wisdom and has no such counsellor (Is. 40:13,14; Is. 41:28) (2). All this reference to the Marduk cult was in my opinion not merely a pointless mockery and poking of fun at the Persian culture. It was a very real appeal to the Jewish exiles to quit it, to come out and be separate; remember again and again that Mordecai [and perhaps Esther too] had adopted names reflective of the Marduk cult.
(1) Alexander Heidel, The Babylonian Genesis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963).
(2) Other such examples are given at length in Norman Whybray, The Second Isaiah (Sheffield: JSOT, 1983) pp. 73,74.
Grace And Impenitence
Isaiah urged the Jews to return to the land by saying that God had forgiven them, and on this basis He appealed for them to both ‘repent’ and ‘return’ to the land. The two terms are related. Thus He showed His grace; forgiveness preceded, not followed, repentance. Is. 44:22 is clear about this: “I have swept away your transgressions like clouds [therefore] return to me, for I have [already] redeemed you”. God was angry with their sins, but kept no record of them- hence He could comfort Judah that there was actually no documentary evidence for their divorce (Is. 50:1) and therefore she could return to Him. As Paul put it, the goodness of God leads to repentance (Rom. 2:4). And we are asked to show that same “goodness” of God to others, being “kind [s.w. ‘goodness’] one to another… forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven you” (Eph. 4:32). We too are to show this grace of forgiveness-before-repentance; but perhaps in no other area has formalized, institutionalized Christianity failed worse. If XYZ shows us she’s repented of her divorce, then we’ll forgive her and accept her in fellowship [as if, in any case, we are the ones who need to forgive her]. These are graceless and yet terribly common attitudes. The Greek word translated “goodness” is rendered “gracious” in 1 Pet. 2:3- newly converted babes in Christ taste of this gracious goodness, and it leads to repentance.
It’s apparent that Judah in captivity weren’t repentant; and yet God granted them His forgiveness so that they might repent. Indeed, the Jews were bitter with God. They claimed that they were suffering unfairly as a result of their fathers’ sins (Ez. 18:2), and that Yahweh was unfair (Ez. 18:25)- when He was showing them a grace so wonderful that all that is within us fights against perceiving it! The lack of perception of God’s grace was terrible- and yet many of us have lived for decades doing just the same! Reasoning back from the addresses to the captives in later Isaiah, it appears they thought that Yahweh was a God who just operated in the land of Israel. The captives felt they couldn’t sing the songs of Yahweh in a Gentile land (Ps. 137). They thought that now they were outside His land and far from His temple, they were forgotten by Him (Is. 49:14,15), their cause ignored by Him (Is. 40:27) and they were “cast off” from relationship with Him (Is. 41:9). Hence Isaiah emphasizes that Yahweh is the creator and the God of the whole planet, and His presence is literally planet-wide. Likewise there is much stress in those addresses on the fact that Yahweh’s word of prophecy will come true. Remember that there had been many false prophets of Yahweh just prior to the captivity who predicted victory against Babylon and prosperity (Lam. 2:9,14; Jer. 44:15-19). And the 70 years prophecy of Jeremiah appeared to not be coming true, or at best was delayed or re-scheduled in fulfilment [even Daniel felt this, according to his desperate plea for fulfilment in Daniel 9]. And so there was a crisis of confidence in the concept of prophecy, and Yahweh’s word and prophets generally. Isaiah addressed this by stressing the nature and power of that word, and urging faith in its fulfilment and relevance.
Esther: Married To An AntiChrist
It's sometimes said that the book of Esther isn't quoted elsewhere in Scripture. There may not be explicit quotation, but there is certainly allusion(4). Ahasuerus sat on his throne, to tell others of "his glorious Kingdom" (Esther 1:4). The very same two Hebrew words occur again in Ps. 145:11,12, where we read [in a Psalm that may well have been written or used by the righteous remnant in Babylon] that it is Yahweh God of Israel who has a Kingdom of glory, and who ultimately hears the cry of His people in distress, as Ahasuerus did. The Kingdom of Media and Persia had books in which the good and bad deeds of the citizens were written (Esther 10:2); and so in the one true Kingdom, there are ‘books’ from which the ultimate King will judge His people. Clearly, the Kingdom of Ahasuerus is being set up as an anti-Kingdom of God, with an antichrist figure ruling it, faking the Kingdom of God. Note how the Assyrians described their Kingdom as a place where men sat happily under their own vine and fig tree- consciously applying the language of God’s Kingdom to their Kingdom (Is. 36:16 cp. Mic. 4:4). And sadly the majority of God's people preferred the fake Kingdom to the true and ultimate Kingdom of Yahweh, which they had the opportunity to work towards in His land.
Likewise, Ahasuerus is described as reigning over territory from India to Ethiopia (Esther 1:1)- the very land promised to Abraham, the territory of the intended Kingdom of God. The description of his court and the drinking "according to the law" from the Yahweh's own golden temple vessels is all replete with reference to the construction of the tabernacle and Solomon's temple: "There were hangings of white cloth, of green, and of blue, fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rings and pillars of marble: the couches were of gold and silver, upon a pavement of red, and white, and yellow, and black marble" (Esther 1:6,7). And they drunk there "the wine of the Kingdom" (Esther 1:7 Heb.). The seven elders who stood before the King's throne (Esther 1:14) may be reflective of the seven spirits before the throne of the true King (Rev. 1:4; 4:5). And of course the claim in Esther 1:19 that the words of the King could not be altered [s.w. transgressed] uses the same Hebrew words as found in the statements of fact that the words of King Yahweh cannot be altered / transgressed (Jer. 34:18). And the King's decrees had to be published in every language, to every nation (Esther 1:21)- just as the great commission spoke of the Lord's Gospel being likewise distributed. When the Lord spoke of how He as the true King would give the 'place' of the rejected to those better than they- i.e. those more humble (Lk. 14:9)- surely He had in mind how Ahaseureus gave Vashti's "royal estate unto another that is better than she" (Esther 1:19). This connection makes Ahaseuerus to be an anti-Christ figure. And the point is, Esther the heroine of the story, married the antiChrist and sat with him in his throne. Ahaeuerus ‘delighted’ in her, and she sought his delight (Esther 2:14). But at that very time, God had said that He would be ‘delighted’ in His people and in His forsaken land if they returned there (Is. 55:11; 62:4 s.w.). But Esther rather sought the ‘delighting’ of the anti-God, of the fake Kingdom of God, and didn’t return to the land. Indeed, very often this Hebrew word is used about God delighting in His people, and wishing that they would seek to delight Him. But Esther chose to delight an anti-God, the false God, rather than the true One. And we too face such a choice- advertisments and media kid us that if we buy this product or that service, then we’ll for ever have eternal youth and a smiling face. They’re offering us a false Kingdom of God which is in fact the Kingdoms of men, which are soon to be eternally ended.
Providence And Grace
So the history of the book of Esther reveals God’s grace- because providence is grace, in that we can’t do anything much about it. It is purely God’s initiative. Although Esther was weak spiritually, yet God worked through her to save His undeserving people. The story brings out a number of coincidences which on reflection could only have been from God. The way Haman collapses and it appears he’s tried to rape Esther is one such. Another is the way that Mordecai isn’t rewarded for revealing the plot to kill the King- the King seems to have forgotten about it, overlooked it, and therefore he was all the more inclined to do Esther and Mordecai a real favour when required. This is all especially remarkable when we note that Ahasuerus [or Xerxes] was noted for rewarding loyalty: “Xerxes was very concerned that loyalty to his throne be highly honored. In fact, Herodotus informs us that at one battle, ‘whenever he saw any of his own captains perform any worthy exploit he inquired concerning him; and the man’s name was taken down by the scribes, together with the names of his father and his city’ (8.90).”(5). It was surely no mere human co-incidence that the very morning the King has had a bad night and remembered Mordecai and decides to honour him, that Haman arrives to request Mordecai’s death. Esther 3:7 seems to be saying that Haman decided on his plan to kill the Jews in the first month, Nisan, but his roll of the dice dictated that he execute it in the 12th month: “In the first month, which is the month Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus, Pur, that is the lot, was cast before Haman from day to day and from month to month, until the twelfth month, that is the month Adar”. This gave the Jews and Esther / Mordecai nearly a whole year to try to get out of the situation. The fact this plan was made around Jewish Passover time [hence the mention of the month Nisan] perhaps suggested to the thoughtful that God would work a similar Passover deliverance as He had from Egypt. Truly when ‘the lot is cast into the lap . . . its every decision is from the LORD’ (Prov. 16:33)- surely another allusion to the Esther story. And further, we note that the first month was considered by the Persians to be the best time to take decisive actions (6). Yet the ‘lot’ made Haman have to wait a whole year until the 12th month. Again, we see providence, a Divine hand intervening. And that Divine hand intervenes and works even through our own failure.
The way in which Esther ‘found favour’ with the King also reflects providence, in that she had earlier developed an artless way of ‘finding favour’ with others (Esther 2:15,17; 5:2). Yet she learnt that art in the unspiritual pursuit of seeking to become Queen of Persia, doubtless at the expense of many religious compromises; for a man like Daniel could never be so universally popular as Esther was (Esther 2:15), on account of his religious conscience. She would surely have been aware of, or at least heard, the condemnations of the Queen of Babylon as recorded in Isaiah. Only recently had Persia overthrown Babylon; and she sought to become the new Queen of Babylon / Persia, who was Divinely condemned for her beauty?
And again we see God’s providence working through human weakness in the way that Mordecai refused to bow before Haman. Jews bowed to superiors (Gen. 23:7; Gen. 27:29; Gen. 33:3; 1 Sam. 24:9; 2 Sam. 14:4; 1 Kings 1:16); to refuse to bow before Haman is hard for me to understand as a reflection of some hyper sensitive religious conscience in Mordecai, especially given his evident lack of commitment to his Jewish religion. It seems to me that he did this out of stubborn anger. But it was this very flush of weakness which was used by God to bring about the drama of the situation, in that Haman therefore wanted to destroy him… and that very night, by providence, the King couldn’t sleep, and decided that he wished to reward rather than destroy Mordecai… Carey Moore references an interesting possibility about Esther 6:1, “the king could not sleep”, or in the Hebrew, ‘the sleep of the king fled’. The suggestion is that “nadda, “fled”, should be read as containing the abbreviation for YHWH, “Lord”, that is, h, and thus should be read as a po’el, namely, nodah h, “YHWH made to flee”” (1). The Vulgate actually translates this verse as “God prevented the King from sleeping”. So we see the reference to God’s hand, to YHWH Himself, in the shadows as it were… providentially stopping a king from sleeping. And this same invisible God is just as passionately active in our lives; perceiving that seems to me to be one of the great art forms of the believing life.
When we read of the Jews fasting in sackcloth and ashes (Esther 4:3), we almost expect to hear that they also prayed; certainly a later Jewish audience would’ve expected this. For fasting, sackcloth and ashes are elsewhere associated with prayer (Jer. 14:12; Neh. 9:1; Ezra 8:21,23; 1 Sam. 7:6; Joel 2:12; Jonah 3:8). That’s an impressive catena of passages. The lack of mention of prayer stands out in sharp relief. Surely the reason was to develop a theme- of how God works through the unstated, through the unwritten, through the silently implied... And this literary device makes us as readers and hearers imagine more deeply how much the Jews would’ve prayed to their God, the God they’d conveniently forgotten amidst their prosperity and nominal acceptance of the Marduk cult. Likewise we read that Esther fasted before going in to the King- which, it’s been observed, would’ve made her less attractive to the King but more attractive to God. She finally learnt that human advantage and beauty can’t save.
When Esther’s nerve failed [as it seems to me], and she cops out of making her request by asking the King and Haman to come to a banquet, she finds herself saying: “Let the King come with Haman today” (Esther 5:4). The Hebrew text reads: “Ybw’ Hmlk Whmn Hywm”- the first letter of those four Hebrew words spells YHWH, the Name of God which never occurs in the book of Esther. Truly God’s strength is made perfect in human weakness. In that very moment of failure, the cop out, God was revealed in His essence. And He proceeded to work through the element of suspense which her request created… to pique the King’s desire to help, and to raise Haman’s pride at having been invited, so that he would act even more foolishly, leading to his downfall. It could also be noted that Esther’s entire intercession could so easily have been spoilt if Haman had suspected her machinations against him. But he didn’t; he felt very honoured to have been invited by Esther to the banquet, and he boasted about it. In other words, Esther concealed her true feelings towards him. And where did she learn to do that? Surely in a lifetime of concealing her true Jewish identity and religious feelings, when actually she shouldn’t have done so.
In the final sealing of Haman’s fate, we again see providence. There are Esther, Haman and the King sitting at a meal. Esther reveals Haman’s evil. And then the King goes out, leaving the two of them alone. He’d been drinking- did he go out to the washroom? Haman approaches Esther’s couch to beg for mercy, perhaps touching her feet, in a typical Persian way of begging for mercy. And then, he faints. The King returns to the room. And there’s Esther lying on the couch with Haman collapsed almost all over her, leading the King to assume Haman was making an advance on the King. As if that wasn’t providential enough, there’s another point of language that might rather fit in here. In Esther 7:6 we read of Esther denouncing Haman to the King as “this wicked Haman”. There’s a very fine difference in Hebrew between hara [“wicked”] and harea [“the lover”- s.w. Jer. 3:1; Hos. 3:1]- so much so that Ehrlich’s commentary suggests that Esther actually accused Haman of being her would-be lover by the word she used. I’m not qualified to comment upon which language Esther would’ve spoken to the King in, and whether the same word play would’ve been possible. But if it was so- and there are to this day certain basic similarities between all the Semitic languages- then we can again see providence. For she’d have set up the thought in the King’s mind, that just possibly Haman was coming on at his wife. And then he goes out to the loo and comes back to the room to find the guy slumped over his wife.
(1) Carey Moore, Esther: A New Translation (New York: Doubleday, 1971) p. 63.
God Works Through Human Failure
Esther was a Jewess; she shouldn’t have married a Gentile, Mordecai should never have entered her for the beauty contest! Further, the King was supposed to only marry a Persian; Esther and Mordecai’s silence about her Jewishness is understandable if she wanted to win the competition: “If the king was required to take a wife from one of seven noble families of Persia, as Herodotus asserts (The Histories iii. 84), there was every good reason for silence on the subject of descent” (7). But again, God worked through this- the fact a spiritually weak Jewess was queen was the way to the Jews’ salvation. Note in passing that Esther’s intercession for her people would’ve effectively involved her admitting to the King that she had deceived him by acting like a Persian when actually she was a foreigner. Hence her great human bravery in doing what she did, quite apart from the fact she was asking the King to change an unchangeable law (Esther 1:19; 3:10-11; 8:8). Perhaps another example of God working through Esther’s weakness is to be found in the way she goes to beg the King a favour- but only invites him to a banquet. And then at the banquet she asks him to attend another banquet. This could be read as smart psychology. But my guess is that each time, her nerve failed her, and she bottled out of making her request. But the process of inviting the King to the various banquets only picqued his curiosity. It would’ve been evident from her nervousness that something was distressing her, and likely the whole exercise ended up in him feeling sorry for her and more likely to respond to her. My suggestion is that her nerve failing her each time, lamely ending up asking the King to come to another banquet, actually prepared the way psychologically for him to be far more open to doing her a favour than if she had just burst into his presence and asked for it. Again, our great God worked through human weakness. His way of working, however, was quiet and indirect. Perhaps this is why the Name of God doesn’t occur in the book directly, and yet there are four places where it does occur as an acrostic [a play on Hebrew letters]. God was there, and is there, but in a hidden way that has to be perceived. Significantly, the only other Bible book where the Name of God commonly occurs in acrostics is Lamentations- also written whilst Judah were in captivity (8).
The fact that all these things happened over and above any human ability to influence events, using Jews like Esther and Mordecai who had not been faithful to God’s calling, simply demonstrates how desperate He was and is to work with His people to save and restore them. And this was the lesson which the captives in Babylon needed to learn. And yet on the surface, it seemed that co-incidence was all against the Jews- for at the beginning of Ahasuerus’ reign, the Samaritans had written to him, complaining about the Jews and urging him to stop the rebuilding of the temple (Ezra 4:6). And then, Haman arose, making the Jews out to be dissidents and worthy of destruction… and got an edict made which commanded the deaths of all Jews throughout the Persian empire. We must remember that this would’ve included the more faithful Jews who had returned to Judah! Everything looked the worst. But actually, what seemed the worst possible combination of events turned out to be the best. And so it happens month by month in our own lives, if we will perceive it.
Esther And Passover
The LXX, if it can be relied upon here, offers the following translation of Esther 8:9, concerning when the edict to reverse the Jews’ destruction was given: “the twenty third day of the first month, which is Nisan”. This would mean that the Esther / Haman drama and the destruction of the Jews’ persecutor occurred at Jewish Passover time. There are other evident similarities with Israel’s Passover deliverance:
- Spoiling of their enemies
- The fear of the Jews falling upon the Egyptians / Persians (Esther 8:17)
- A memorial feast instituted
- Esther 9:26 quotes Ex. 10:6
- What was “seen” in Israel’s deliverance (Esther 9:26 Heb.) s.w. Ex. 10:6
- “Every single” Jew to observe Purim (Esther 9:28) = the legislation about Passover
- The 14th and 15th of Adar (Esther 9:27) cp. the 14th Nisan.
What all this means is that God set up the Jews to be able to experience a full Passover-style deliverance from Babylon / Persia. Isaiah’s prophecies of the restoration from Babylon are shot through with allusion to the Passover, the Exodus and the wilderness journey of Israel from Egypt to Zion. As Hosea fantasized about waltzing with his faithless wife once again in the wilderness, entering a new covenant with her, having a re-marriage, at which the whole natural creation would share in the joy… so God wished to romance Israel once again in the wilderness, and lead them back to Him and back to the temple in Zion. Is. 49:13 speaks of how the joy of Judah’s return to Zion would likewise find a response in all creation breaking out in praise. And so the Haman experience was to set up a situation in which the Jews could heed the prophets’ call to leave Babylon and return to Zion. But… they didn’t. It’s why the book of Esther has such a tragic ending, in spiritual terms- for the Jews are pictured wealthy, accepted in society, prosperous, self-satisfied, and remaining in Babylon / Persia. At best, Judah remained a province of the Persian empire, without the independence and ‘head over the nations’ status which the prophets had said could have been achieved by the exiles. Thus Nehemiah lamented, with allusion to those prophecies, that the Jews were still servants within their own land, and “its abundant produce goes to the kings whom you set over us” (Neh. 9:36,37). S.H. Horn analyzed the archives of the Murashu sons of Nippur and lists of bankers and brokers in the times of Artaxerxes I and Darius II- and found a quite disproportionate mention there of Jews in prominent positions (9). Even further, Esther’s request that the Jews be given even more time to slay their opponents and establish their power, and display the corpses publicly (Esther 9:13) could be read as plain vengeful, graceless, and simply trying to consolidate the temporal dominance of the Jews. Nehemiah being so senior in Babylon is another indicator of how quickly the Jews progressed in Babylon, and how popular they became after the Haman debacle. The lists of names of those who returned to the land (e.g. in Neh. 7) include many obviously Babylonian ones- e.g. Bigvai, Elam etc. Meshezabel (Neh. 3:4) even means ‘the god delivers’, with evident pagan overtones. Zerubbabel and Sheshbazzar likewise were Jews with Babylonian names who were Persian governors. Contrast this with the way Daniel is usually referred to by his Jewish rather than his pagan Babylonian name, which he presumably disliked. When a minority of the Jews sought to return, they refer to Yahweh as “the god of the heavens” (Ezra 5:11)- the very title which the Babylonians used for their god. They speak of “the good hand of his God” (Ezra 7:9)- a phrase used in the Akkadian prayer to Marduk (10). Again, we see a contrast with how Daniel unashamedly spoke of his God, rather than seeking to make Yahweh out to be somehow in harmony with the pagan gods of Babylon. Perhaps this is why Isaiah rebukes the idea that Yahweh is somehow like the other gods- His total ‘otherness’ needed to be understood by the Jews in Babylon for whom Isaiah’s prophecies were directed [or, redirected, seeing they were initially relevant to Hezekiah’s time, but re-written for the exiles].
We have to enquire, and enquire deeply, of our own lives- how much potential deliverance has God set up for us, that we refuse to be part of? To what extent has self-satisfaction, comfortable living, the acceptance we have in human society… lead to us failing to grasp the call of God?
Notes
(1) See J. Carl Laney, Ezra and Nehemiah. (Chicago: Moody Press, 1982) p. 126.
(2) See John A. Martin "Ezra" in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: Old Testament, Edited by John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck (Wheaton: Victor Books, 1985) p. 667.
(3) A. D. Godley , Herodotus: An English Translation (London: Heinemann, 1963), Vol. 3 p. 95.
(4) Here are two examples:
- The God who has given us His Son will, through His mediation, surely "freely give us all things" in response to our prayers (Rom. 8:32-34). And note how this passage is alluding to the LXX of Esther 8:7: "The King said to Esther, If I have freely granted thee all that was Haman's, and hanged him on a gallows [a cross]...what dost thou yet further seek?", and the King then gives Esther whatever she requests. Note the repetition of ideas: if death on a cross had been granted, then all other things would be freely granted to the mediator / intercessor, for the good of her / His people.
- In Esther’s time, a decree was made to “destroy…and cause to perish” the Jews throughout the provinces of Persia / Babylon (Esther 3:13; 7:4). This phrase uses the two Hebrew words which we find together three times in the list of curses to be brought upon a disobedient Israel (Dt. 28:20,51,63). There evidently is a connection. And yet by her wonderful self-sacrificial mediation, Esther brought about the deferment and even annulment of those justifiable curses. God’s prophetic word was again changed- due to a mediator, who of course pointed both backwards to Moses, and forwards to the Lord Jesus.
(5) John C. Whitcomb, Esther: Triumph of God’s Sovereignty (Chicago: Moody Press, 1979), p. 61.
(6) Carey A. Moore, Esther, The Anchor Bible (Garden City, NY: Doubleday,1971) p. 38.
(7) Joyce C. Baldwin, Esther: An Introduction and Commentary (Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 1984) p. 70.
(8) All this said about God working through human weakness, Esther’s human bravery stands out. She’d not been called to the King for 30 days- “this is thirty days…” (Esther 4:11 Heb.), she says, as if she took this to mean that she was no longer the number one woman in the King’s life. Her approach into the inner court is described in such detail, as if to heighten for us the sense of suspense and risk. Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews, 11/205) claims that “round his throne stood men with axes to punish any who approached the throne without being summoned”. She identified totally with her people- the difficult to translate “My people’s as my petition” (Esther 7:3) reflects how totally her petition was theirs, and their petition was her personal petition. The intercession of the Lord Jesus was achieved on the cross, according to Isaiah 53 and other passages. There He identified with us in toto. The fear and risk of failure which He faced were not of course a function of coming before an angry God; but rather a result of the awesome power of human sin and weakness which we too face. His bravery, Esther’s bravery, are our inspirations in the endless battle against this. But she wasn’t merely brave, she was passionate. The hard to translate sentence “My people’s as my petition” (Esther 7:3) may reflect the nervous intensity of her words and thinking. When she begs for “your favour”, she’s using the more intimate second person form of address- whereas in Esther 7:4,8 she addresses the king in the third person, which apparently was the usual form of address to a king in such contexts, even from his queen. Note how in Esther 8:5 she addresses the king as “the king”, but the LXX has her addressing him as “you”. We are led by this to reflect upon the intimacy between two persons which is achieved by the very act of an inferior begging a superior for a favour; and the element of intimacy between the Father and Son which arises from the Lord’s intercession.
(9) S.H. Horn, Biblical Research Vol. 9 [1964] pp. 14,15.
(10) Jacob Myers, Ezra-Nehemiah (New York: Doubleday, 2004 ed.) p. 58.
