Today in God's Word—May 2023
East Tallassee Church of Christ
May 2, Esther 2
And when Esther was taken to King Ahasuerus, into his royal palace, in the tenth month, which is the month of Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign, the king loved Esther more than all the women and she won grace and favor in his sight more than all the virgins, so that he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti. - Esther 2:16-17
Are you old enough to remember Queen for a Day? The radio version (which I do not remember) ran from 1945 until 1957. The show came to television in 1956 and ran for eight years on two different networks. The host Jack Bailey would interview four women on each show, who would tell Mr. Bailey their sad story of need or neglect. The audience voted with applause, and the winner got whatever she had wished for during the interview and was crowned Queen for a Day. The show played to two keen interests of the viewing or listening audience, They liked stories about other people’s misery, and they liked the big prize giveaways that became the staple of most television game shows.
Chapter 2 is about a different kind of contest, a much darker and tragic sort of contest that might be call Queen for a Night. After he banished Vashti, the king got involved in a war with the rising Greek empire. The Greeks defeated the Persians in several key battles before Ahasuerus withdrew and went home. To fill the vacancy left by Vashti's banishment, the king's young advisors proposed a contest to choose a new queen. First, all the most beautiful young virgins in the kingdom would be gathered and admitted to the king's first harem for a year of grooming and pampering. Then, one by one the girls would be taken to the royal palace to spend the night with Ahasuerus. Then they would go to the second harem, and unless the king chose her to become the new queen, she would never see the king again. How many young women were shamefully abused and
robbed of their virginity by this fiendish plan to find the new queen?
One of the young women taken into custody as a prospective bride for Ahasuerus was a young Jewish woman named Esther. She was an orphan, being raised by an older cousin Mordecai. Mordecai was a Jew who was taken to Babylon during Nebudchadnezzar's first conquest of Judah. As her advisor and guardian, Mordecai guided Esther’s actions and she did whatever Mordecai advised.
The king was smitten by Esther's beauty and he selected her to become his queen. So Esther (whose Jewish background was not revealed at first) went from being an orphan in captivity to the queen over the most powerful nation on earth at the time. She joined Joseph, Moses, Daniel and other Israelites who were in royal households in strategic positions to bless God's people through their influence and actions.
Mordecai became an even greater friend to the court when he discovered a plot to assassinate Ahasuerus. He told Esther, and she told the king, who promptly hanged the two servants who plotted against him. The whole episode was recorded in the chronicles of the king. That record would play a key role in developments to come.
Although it is true that God's name is not found in Esther, the sovereign hand of of God was surely at work, arranging and laying the groundwork for the Lord to bless snd protect his people. The people involved didn't know what God was going to do, but by their actions they would ensure the survival of the Jewish people.
Esther's path to becoming queen was a dark one. It served the lust of an ungodly pagan. But God is able to bring good out of bad, and he was surely going to do good for his people by putting Esther in place to thwart an evil enemy’s plan to exterminate the Jews. You and I may not understand all that God is doing in our lives and times. But let’s remember that we are called to
trust and obey, not necessarily to understand what God is doing.
Copyright © 2023 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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