Today in God's Word—May 2023
East Tallassee Church of Christ
May 8, Esther 8
Then Esther spoke again to the king. She fell at his feet and wept and pleaded with him to avert the evil plan of Haman the Agagite and the plot that he had devised against the Jews. - Esther 8:3
In Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Marc Antony eulogizes Caesar, but his most famous line was really about Brutus, Caesar's murderer. Do you remember it? "The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones." I thought about the first half of the quote as a good way to describe why Esther and Mordecai did what they did in Chapter 8.
Haman was dead. Mordecai’s hateful enemy who plotted to kill not only him but all the Jews in Persia did not live long enough to see his plan enacted. But the decree that authorized the wholesale genocide of all Jews was still like a ticking bomb. This bomb could not be defused because it was signed and sealed with the signet ring of the Persian king, whose word could not be reversed. So Esther and Mordecai still had work to do to save their people from the destruction that Mordecai had devised.
So Esther went back to Ahasuerus and made another request. He welcomed her back into his presence, and asked again what he could do for her. Esther worded her request in a masterful display of respect for the king’s authority, and an appeal to the king's affection toward her. She was careful not to blame the king for Haman’s evil plan enacted with the king’s royal authority. But she pleaded with her husband and king for help. She asked him to avert the disaster that Haman had devised for her and her people.
Ahasuerus reviewed what he had already done for his queen, including hanging Haman and giving his entire estate to Esther. She turned the estate over to Mordecai to manage and provide a fine residence that befitted her cousin’s new high position in the king’s administration. After Esther told the king about her relation to
Mordecai, Ahasuerus gave the power he had previously given to Haman to Mordecai. He gave Mordecai the signet ring that carried the authority to write and speak for the king. Ahasuerus could not take back or cancel his decree. But he authorized Esther and Mordecai to write a counter decree to neutralize the threat. The new decree gave the Jews the right to exercise force to resist and avenge themselves against their enemies. He gave them permission to do to their enemies what their enemies had planned to do to them. It would be like Haman hung on the gallows he built for Mordecai, only on a much larger and bloodier scale.
Mordecai got some new royal clothes and a crown that spoke of his sweeping authority. But it was a different kind of crown from the one Ahasuerus wore. The king was still the king, but Mordecai was his most trusted and powerful servant.
Did you notice how fear motivated many people who were not Jews to identify with them? When other people in the provinces saw how the God of the Jews helped them, they decided they'd rather be on the Jews' side when the conflict began. It was not exactly evangelistic, but it was effective. The threat got the attention of and a profession of faith in God from many people around the actual Jews. Some scholars only see a calculated survival scheme in the proselytes’ actions, and doubt this was a genuine conversion. Don't you agree that analysis is best left to God, who knows every person's heart? More than a few people have responded to the gospel more out of fearing hell than loving God, at least to begin with. Was their conversion and baptism valid if they obeyed out of fear? Yes, they had much to learn and lots of room to grow in their love and faith. But the motive of fear is a valid one, if not the highest, purest motive of all.
The opposing decrees created a situation that could have been averted if that law about the
immutability of the king's word had not been in place. How arrogant and prideful was such a law! God is God and his word is absolutely sure. But God himself could and did relent from previously announced impending doom for Israel and others. When people repented, God relented.
The Law is clear and certain and convicts us all. But the same God who is the author of that law designed the gospel to rescue and redeem us from the curse of the law by the blood of his Son. Aren't you glad?
Copyright © 2023 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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