Bible Reader

Esther 10

¹And the king Ahasuerus laid a tribute upon the land, and upon the isles of the sea.

²And all the acts of his power and of his might, and the declaration of the greatness of Mordecai, whereunto the king advanced him, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia?

³For Mordecai the Jew was next unto king Ahasuerus, and great among the Jews, and accepted of the multitude of his brethren, seeking the wealth of his people, and speaking peace to all his seed.

⁴Then Mardocheus said, God hath done these things.

⁵For I remember a dream which I saw concerning these matters, and nothing thereof hath failed.

⁶A little fountain became a river, and there was light, and the sun, and much water: this river is Esther, whom the king married, and made queen:

⁷And the two dragons are I and Aman.

⁸And the nations were those that were assembled to destroy the name of the Jews:

⁹And my nation is this Israel, which cried to God, and were saved: for the Lord hath saved his people, and the Lord hath delivered us from all those evils, and God hath wrought signs and great wonders, which have not been done among the Gentiles.

¹⁰Therefore hath he made two lots, one for the people of God, and another for all the Gentiles.

¹¹And these two lots came at the hour, and time, and day of judgment, before God among all nations.

¹²So God remembered his people, and justified his inheritance.

¹³Therefore those days shall be unto them in the month Adar, the fourteenth and fifteenth day of the same month, with an assembly, and joy, and with gladness before God, according to the generations for ever among his people.

on Esther 10

Israel’s celebration

(6:7–11) but new robes prepared especially for him. The official royal colors were blue and white (see 1:6). The golden “crown” was probably a large turban which, along with the robe of white and purple, identified Mordecai as an important man of great authority.

Everything that Haman had acquired from the king by his scheming, Mordecai received as gifts, because Mordecai was a deserving man. At the beginning of this story, Esther and Mordecai were hardly exemplary in the way they practiced their religious faith, but now we get the impression that things have changed. Both of them have affirmed their Jewish nationality and both were the means of calling all the Jews in the empire to prayer and fasting. In one sense, they spearheaded a Jewish “revival” and made being Jewish a more honorable thing in the empire.

God doesn’t always give this kind of a “happy ending” to everybody’s story. Today, not all faithful Christians are promoted and given special honors. Some of them get fired because of their stand for Christ! God hasn’t promised that we’ll be promoted and made rich, but He has assured us that He’s in control of all circumstances and that He will write the last chapter of the story. If God doesn’t promote us here on earth, He certainly will when we get to glory.

God Keeps His Promises

(In which the tables are turned, and then the tables are spread)

Seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive.” That was God’s counsel to the Jews through the prophet Jeremiah (Jer. 29: nkjv), and for the most part, they obeyed it. It wasn’t the Jews who had declared war on the Gentiles, but the Gentiles who had declared war on the Jews!

“D Day” arrived for the Jews, the day appointed by Haman’s decree for the slaughter of God’s chosen people in the empire. But Mordecai’s decree had changed that “D” from “destruction” to “deliverance.” The Jews had permission to resist their enemies and had been given nine months to prepare for the encounter. The people in the empire who hated the Jews were hoping for victory, but “the tables were turned and the Jews got the upper hand over those who hated them” (Est. 9: niv).

Exaltation: the fame of Mordecai

This brief chapter tells us that Mordecai, unlike his predecessor Haman, used his office to serve the king and help the Jews. Sometimes when people are elevated to high office, they forget their roots and ignore the needs of the common people. Mordecai wasn’t that kind of man. Even though his political deeds are recorded in the official annals of the empire, what he did for his people has been recorded by the Lord and will be rewarded.

Why did the author mention the new tax program of King Ahasuerus? What does this have to do with Mordecai and the Jews? Some Bible students think that it was Mordecai who engineered this new system of tribute as a substitute for war and plunder as a source of kingdom wealth. Now that there was peace in the kingdom, the Jews were free to work, earn money, and prosper; and the prosperity of the Jews increased the prosperity of the empire in general. Mordecai reminded the king that the throne deserved a share in that prosperity. After all, it was the king who had chosen Esther, a Jewess, and promoted Mordecai, a Jew, and all three of them had worked together to save the Jews from destruction. Didn’t the people of the empire, Jews and Gentiles alike, have an obligation to their monarch?

But the important message in this chapter is that God continued to use Mordecai to help the Jewish people. The Jews were aliens in a foreign land and subject to all kinds of harassment and abuse. Mordecai saw to it that they were treated with fairness. The last words of the book are variously translated. The Authorized Version says “and speaking peace to all his seed,” suggesting that he encouraged the Jews and kept them at peace with one another. The NIV reads “and spoke up for the welfare of all the Jews.” This implies that there were still forces at work in the empire opposing and threatening the Jews, but Mordecai represented them at court and protected them. “He did his best for his people, and was a friend at court for all of them” (tlb).

The exciting drama of Esther is over, but the blessings go right on. God preserved the Jewish nation so that we today can have a Bible and a Savior. Now it’s our job to tell the whole world about this Savior and seek to win as many as we can to the Lord. We are the King’s couriers, and we dare not fail.

J O BEsther reaches across the centuries to join hands with believers today, and to say to the church: Be Committed! G e n e s i s 1 S a m u e l E x o d u s 2 S a m u e l L e v i t i c u s 1 K i n g s N u m b e r s 2 K i n g s D e u t e r o n o m y 1 C h r o n i c l e s J o s h u a 2 C h r o n i c l e s J u d g e s E z r a R u t h N e h e m i a h