A Crash Course Through The Old Testament, Part 5 (Esther)

SOMETHING TO GNAW ON:  A CRASH COURSE THROUGH THE OLD TESTAMENT, PART5 (Esther)

Welcome to the Something To Gnaw On podcast, a short – parable style devotional for the Christian with a short attention span…. Usually!   Right now we’re doing a crash course through the Old Testament, designed to give a basic understanding of how it is laid out and hopefully pique your curiosity enough to take the initiative to gnaw on scripture on your own without being intimidated by such a big book.  And if you are a seasoned student of the Bible, just look at this as a refresher course, and hopefully you’ll begin to dig deeper into the Word.

This episode is Part 3 in the series covering the book of Esther.

My mom is a saint.  My dad is too, but we’ll talk about him another day.  But every saint makes it through some tough times before sainthood, and my brothers and I unintentionally provided such an atmosphere… and from what I understand my mom is quite grateful for our role in her sainthood.  

That being said, there were a couple of episodes that caused me to question this issue of sainthood.   I need to add here that the mild mannered pastors wife becomes a totally different person when she’s watching football…. And other sports, basketball boxing and wrestling.   If ever there was a Jekyl & Hyde scenario for mom, sports were it, especially when it involved her kids.   And if I am not mistaken, my dad would try to sit with a bit of distance between him and mom at my basketball games, because mom became a bit of a different, or excitable person. 

That said, while living on Vashon Island, my older brother and I got into a shadow boxing match.  As happens between brothers sometimes, one will take it to the next level…… and things begin to spiral. This particular match was being held in front of mom and dad.

After blocking several punches, Jim snuck one past my defenses and tagged me right on the jaw.   Apparently, I have what’s called a glass jaw…. And I never felt it, but I fell to the ground in a dazed and confused state of mind.  I knew Jim was going to get in trouble for this one, how could he not when it happened right in front of Mom and Dad?

When I regained my senses I was a bit shocked to find my mom laughing.   She has this cute laugh that she tries to keep hidden…. Her face turns red, her hand is over her mouth trying to keep it shut, and the laughter building behind her hand keeps her from being able to do anything practical, like speaking or disciplining my brother.

A few years later, we were living in Montana and mom, my little brother (dave), and me were in the basement watching TV.   As happens between brothers, we got into a scrapping match.   I had the weight advantage, and 5 years of experience on my side.  I managed to get dave on his stomach and proceeded to sit on his shoulder blades – looking down toward his feet.

What happened next is the stuff of legends.

I looked at his back side and saw a brand new pair of tighty whitey’s flashing me, so I grabbed ahold of them and proceeded to give Dave the biggest atomic wedgie ever.  There was no way he was going to be able to wear those again.

He began to flail, but due to my weight on his shoulders, he couldn’t break loose.  Eventually, he started kicking his feet, which proved to be disastrous.  While tugging on the whitey’s like a cowboy reigning in  a runaway horse, I managed to grab one of his feet, then the other.   At which point I hooked said undie’s over his feet.  Everytime he’d move his feet he’d wedge himself even worse, and the beauty of it is that I finally got off his shoulders to let him go, but he couldn’t reach his feet with his hands, he couldn’t get free.  He laid there on his stomach rolling one way, then the other, unable to free himself.   

Like a punk teenage brother, I sat there and just laughed at him.   And so did mom.

He looked up at her to be saved from this predicament like she had done so many times before, but her laughter parylized her and she just sat in the rocking chair – red faced with laughter, eyes watering, and unable to do anything in the moment.

The look on Dave’s face was priceless, the golden child looking up to be saved by mom only to be disappointed by her inability to act on his behalf in the moment.  

I guess it was a rite of passage, because I remember the frustration too.

I haven’t talked about it much thus far, but when reading any book of the bible, it’s necessary to look at who the audience is, who is initially on the receiving end of the book (or letter).  Understanding what the audience was going through helps us with the original intent of scripture.  Looking at the audience of Chronicles Ezra Nehemiah (and we’ll get into Nehemiah next week), there is an underlying theme, and the book of Esther is no exception. The original audience for these books is the exiles that remained in the Babylonian Empire, and the actual events happen in the capital city of Susa.  

Several baseline questions arise for the exiles, here are a few that  one commentator tosses out there: 

·         “Is God still interested in us?” “Are his covenants still in force?”  “Do God’s Promises to David still have meaning for us?”

·         This is a group of people laying on the ground (metaphorically speaking) in exile, and looking up (like my brother) to be set free from their torment.

·         And if ever there was a book that answered these questions with a resounding yes, Esther may be it.   It is not answered in theological proofs, or theoretical musings.  This is a rock hard story, more of a testimony of God working in real time for the Jews to see in the moment.

Let me give you a quick crash course through the book in bullet format, then we’ll look at some deeper details.

·         The story begins in the first few years of the reign of King Xerxes and is located in Susa, not Babylon.

·         King Xerxes throws a party, asks the Queen to come out to show her off, and she denies him in front of his guests.

·         In turn, Xerxes terminates her duties as queen and sets out looking for a new queen.

·         A Jew named Mordecai found out about this overrated beauty pageant, and got his cousin enrolled….   Spoiler alert…. She win’s, ….. her name is Esther, but she keeps her nationality a secret.

·         Not only does she win, she gains considerable favor in the process.

·         Mordecai overhears of a murder plot to kill Xerxes, forwards the information to Esther, who in turn informs the king.   

o   The plot is found out to be true, the men are executed, and Esther and Mordecai are honored for their service to the king.

·         As life moves forward for all the characters, one of Xerxes advisors (named Haman) fosters a hatred for Mordecai and the Jew’s.   It’s important to note that Haman is also an Amalakite, a long standing enemy of the Jew’s.   

o   Haman sets out with a plan to kill the Jew’s 

§  Part of his methodology of what to do and how to do it came from PURIM, or their word for casting lots,  this will come into play toward the end.

o   To do this he has to get a decree from Xerxes.  He needs permission

o   The important thing to note here, and you will read about it in Daniel as well, but much is made of the Law of the Mede’s and Persians…. Mainly that the kings law cannot be undone.

§  If you remember Daniel being thrown in the lions den, the king wanted to change his ruling after he made it, but he couldn’t.  Granted God protected Daniel, but it’s impossible to revoke a law.

o   Haman is successful in getting Xerxes to sign the death warrant of the Jews….  It is important to note that there is a significant timeframe to work with, it was soon to happen, but not immediate.

o   When Esther finds out about this she tells the king, who can’t undo the law.  So he does the next best thing.

§  He authorizes the Jews to use whatever force necessary to protect themselves.

·         Let’s just say that they defended themselves well.  

·         And as a result of this justice:      

o   Mordecai was promoted to a position similar to Prime Minister and he was honored and respected by the people.   A semi-similar picture to what happened to Josheph in Egypt.

o   Queen Esther ended up with a higher level of honor and respect

o   Many other people throughout the kingdom literally became Jew’s.

§  That is to say that they weren’t Hebrew in DNA, but they were converts to Judaism.

§  And this should not be looked over lightly… in this day, converting for the females was an easy thing, but for the men it would mean circumcision…..   All I got to say on that one is that you must be pretty committed to the cause if you are getting that bit of cosmetic surgery done.

·         And somewhere in this mele, Xerxes has Haman hanged… ironically on the gallows that Haman had prepared for Mordecai.

o   And shortly after, Haman’s 10 sons are hanged there too.

§  And to round out the process, Queen Esther establishes a festival to celebrate being saved from extermination, and oddly enough the it is called the Festival of Purim… It’s akin to our 4th of July, or the emancipation proclamation for the slaves, that is the type of celebration of remembrance we are talking about.

And with that, you have the cliff’s notes version of the book.   As quick as that was, I will tell you there is so much more to go thru, so much more to extract from the story….. but for now, that’s the nuts and bolts of it.

Ok, lets take a quick break and as always, feel free to take a break and pick this up later or power on through…  This study really does get interesting in this next segment, we’re going to hit a bit of world war 2 history in the process…  But I want to just take a moment and say thanks to all who have visited the online store and supported the podcast in that fashion, right now we have some pretty cool and comfortable hoodies on sale, but what I haven’t talked about is that I realize that sometimes people may not be in the market for a hoodie, and they may just want to support the podcast monetarily, so if you visit the store there is an icon for contributions only.   It’s pretty self explanatory, but if you’d like to take advantage of that, knock your selves out, and feel free to email me if you have any questions.   The links will be in the show notes.

Ok, enough of that, lets get back to the good stuff!!

OK ….. Now that we have the baseline story down, I want to take a moment and look at some random details of the book

·         The events of this book both happen, and are recorded relatively close to each other, so it is almost like a real time testimony, as opposed to Ezra writing about King David hundreds of years later.  It’s plausible to think that there were those who experienced the fighting, and death of those supporting Haman, were unaware of the backstory of why they were given the royal edict to behave as they did.

·         As far as a timeline is concerned, the events of Esther happen between Ezra Chapter 6 & Chapter 7.  Which is why we are tackling this book before Nehemiah.

·         As we discussed last week, it is believed that Ezra wrote Chronicles, Ezra, and possibly compiled Nehemiah, many manuscripts have the books of Ezra and Nehemiah grouped together, or as one book.  Esther, on the other hand, clearly has a different author and is most likely why Esther is placed after Nehemiah.

·         In fact, where Ezra goes to the extreme mentioning words like God, Lord, Worship, and Prayer, Esther mention’s none of these.   The closest the book gets to any of these is when the word “fast” is used, which has nothing to do with speed, but going without eating and spend that time praying.

·         Historically, people have questioned whether or not it should be in the cannon of scripture due to this little factoid, but, as one commentator said, the absence of these elements highlight the fact that God is all over this situation.  

o   Maybe it’s good to look at this like the great theologian Yogi Berra, who said “that’s too coincidental to be coincidence”.   And as it would apply to the book of Esther, there is no way that any combination of events this story is a coincidence.   God’s hand is clearly at work to save his people.

·         I am not going to spend a lot of time with it today, but there are several Jewish scholars who speak of the “Tetragrammaton”, which is Hebrew letters YWHW, for Yaweh.  (You got to love when they use a 14 letter word to describe a 4 letter reference.)  Anyhow, they point to transcripts where it appears that these letters appear in code. (and that is my verbiage), but the gist of the argument is that God is definitely in it, in the manuscript.  I’ll post an article in the show notes from a Rabbi that highlights this.  

o   While I find this intriguing,  I am not convinced of this, and because this doesn’t change things biblically in one way or another, in fairness I will post an article that calls this into question.

o   And I would caution chasing these rabbits, but let me mention one more for conversation sake.

·          that article mentions a date buried in the manuscript in the dating of the death of Haman’s son’s. (and we’ll get to that shortly, but bottom line is that all ten are hanged)  but an interesting number emerges, I’ll let you read the full article in detail, but the number counts from creation and prophetically pointed to October 1946…. (and I’ll let the rabbi’s explain how that works out….. but here’s the interesting part).

o   Whether you are skeptical of the numbering, the events of October 16 1946 are significant.

§  Prior to this date 12 Nazi officers & architects of Jewish Genocide were convicted to be hanged.  One committed suicide, one evaded capture and was tried in abstentia, and the 10 remaining were to be hanged on October 16, 1946.

§  While the date is interesting, what is of more interest to me is the last words from Julius Streicher,  I hadn’t heard of Streicher before this, but he was one of the most vehement proponents of Genocide.  He stopped on the first step to the gallows and with a terrifying shriek yelled ‘heil hitler’, then proceeded to say two simple words with a date “PURIM FEST 1946”, simply translated Purim festival 1946.

·         I suppose It highlights his knowledge of the bible and history.

o   Haman’s 10 son’s were hanged, which signified the freedom the Jew’s now enjoyed from the hands of Haman and his family.

o   Upon further inspection of his home, Streicher was obsessed with the Jews and seemed bent to pick up the mantle and finish what Haman started so many years prior.  

§  In fact, he had a newspaper that was dedicated for over 25 years to propaganda against the Jew’s, and was considered the major drive  behind the pulling off the Genocide.

§  Haman is the first account of a full-on plan to exterminate a people group based on their DNA…

·         And they all hang for it.

§  Streicher was bent on picking up where Haman left off.

o   Purim was the festival instituted by Mordecai and Esther, and is a bit of a play on words, because Haman cast ‘lots’ in his planning process to exterminate the Jews.  The word for ‘lots’ is Purim.

o   Why they chose this word, I have no idea, but they did.  And the festival of Purim becomes a celebration that’s on par with our Independence Day.

·         Somewhere between the courtroom, the jail cell, and the Gallows, I tend to think that Streicher finally acknowledged that he was no better than Haman or his son’s when he yells out from the gallow’s “Purim Fest 1946”.  Both an acknowledgement of the Jew’s victory in Persia 2400 years previous, and the defeat of the Nazi’s in World War 2

·         It’s worth noting that as startling as Streicher’s statement is, we all know the depth of the hatred of the Jew’s within the ranks of the Nazi’s.  To that end, and I take this from an article at “thetorah.com” and I’ll post a link in the show notes, but the Nazi’s used the Jewish Holiday’s for particular savagery as these days had become known as Goebbels calendar (Goebbels being the chief propagandist in the Nazi ragime).

·         Consequently, many atrocities were committed on those days.    

o   On Purim in 1942 10 jew’s were hanged in revenge for “Haman”

o   On Purim in 1943 in a move of deception, the Nazi’s asked for 10 volunteer’s to be traded for 10 germans living in Palestine.  Seizing the opportunity to return to the Promise Land, 10 volunteered…. And were subsequently shot.

o   And this list isn’t even the tip of the iceberg when it comes to atrocities… let alone those related to the Jewish calendar and the Festival started under Queen Esther.

·         Within the ranks of the Nazi’s there was a solid understanding of what had happened to Haman and his son’s,  but rather than learn from his mistake they thought they could accomplish what he failed to do….And they could not have been more wrong.  

Lastly, one of the things that I found so interesting has been hiding in plain sight from the beginning, and it’s bound up in the name, ESTHER.

Esther has two meanings.  A Hebrew meaning, and a Persian meaning.   And the two could not more beautifully compliment each other…. Although it took me a while to see it.

In Hebrew it means hidden, or concealed.  Which makes sense as Esther concealed her identity as a Jew from Xerxes.   

In Persian it means star.   Simple enough, right?

I was stewing on this the other day and it took a while but it finally hit me.  Why couldn’t these two both be true at the same time and in this story of Esther?

It really is a beautiful thing that for the Jew’s, their salvation in this matter was there all along, like a star in the daylight hours.  Scientifically we know they are there, but staring at a blue sky you won’t see them.  But as it gets darker, and the star will shine, and the darker it gets, the brighter it gets.   The star is concealed in plain sight… both meanings of Esther come true in Queen Esther. The deliverer was there all along.

It's an interesting parallel of Jesus in the New Testament.  In the Book of Revelation, chapter 22, he is referred to as the Bright Morning Star, among his many names.  In the Gospel’s, He is the deliverer, the Messiah.  The Apostle John describes Him several times as the Light of the World.  Starting in the first chapter of his Gospel, he calls Jesus “light” 6 times, and in the great chapter 3, where we get the most famous verse “for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son” …. In that chapter he refers to Jesus as “Light” five times.  And like Esther, this Light was hidden, hidden in Nazareth for 30 years, prior to his ministry.  Prior to His delivering the people under THE DEATH SENTENCE OF SIN.  

At the beginning, I mentioned two of the questions that the exiles seemed to have, according to one commentator.  Those questions were “Is God still interested in us?” &  “do God’s promises still have meaning to us?”  And the answer in Esther is a resounding YES.

With regard to the question of “do God’s promises still have meaning, or application, to us?” In addition to messianic promises, I think of the promises recorded in the Psalms.  Like Psalm 91 “The Lord says, “I will rescue those who love me. I will protect those who trust in my name.  When they call on me, I will answer;” (let me break in here real quick…. If you know the story, what did Esther and Mordecai do prior  to approaching the King?  It is the only place in the book where anything remotely close to religious or spiritual happens… again the book has no record of the words God pray worship sacrifice etc…  but in Esther chapter 4, the queen calls Mordecai to assemble the Jews in Susa and fast for 3 days, she also commits her maids and herself to fast 3 days… And I think its fair to assume that they didn’t gather to simply not eat…  they gathered to fast and pray.   Here’s how Gods promise in Psalm 91 finishes).  “I will be with them in trouble.  I will rescue and honor them.  I will reward them with long life and give them my salvation.”  And like other episodes in history, this is exactly what happens.

This is that moment when the exiles are on the ground like my little brother, although in more severe circumstances, looking up at God saying, “are you going to act on our behalf in this moment…”?   And the answer in Esther is a resounding YES.

And while this book was initially written to the exiles, there is definitely application for us today.  Is God interested in us?   Will he honor the promises in His Word?    When we’re lying on the ground, unable to free ourselves from a brutal atomic wedgie, is God going to step up?  The answer is a resounding yes!

And I should add as I wrap this episode up, that despite my depiction of my mom in this episode as a fanatical sports mom who laugh hysterically at our pain, she is one of the most Godly women I know, she is a treasure to be sure.  And the beauty of this episode, is that her middle name is none other than Esther…   a true star …  hidden for a while as a sportsmom…. But a star nonetheless.