Before Reading The Book of Esther

The Importance of Context

Welcome to the Well Community Church. For those I haven’t met yet, my name is Brad, and I get the privilege of hanging out with you today. Welcome to everyone joining us online, at our Fig Garden campus, or at the PM services.

If you have your Bibles, please turn to the book of Esther. As we begin our new series this week, we are going to spend some time on the background and introduction to the book. The reason we want to do that is because it is very easy for us to look at the Bible and be historically removed or unfamiliar with the backstory. We might assume the Bible was assembled by some random sage who found a book of Aesop’s fables or a book of virtues and decided to put it in the Bible as if it isn’t connected to a culture, a context, and sovereignly placed there by our God.

The beauty of the Bible is that it is unique from any other piece of literature ever written. It is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. This means every single book was sovereignly placed by God at a specific point in history, with specific characters, adding cultural context to the chapters and verses we read. You can understand the Bible without the cultural context, but God strategically placed these books for a reason. We would do well as students of Scripture to understand what was happening behind the scenes so that when we read chapter and verse, there is a depth to what we’re seeing.

From Theocracy to Monarchy

To understand Esther, we need to understand how the people of God got to where they are. They started in slavery in Egypt, came out during the Exodus led by Moses, and Joshua led them into the Promised Land. Once there, they looked at the nations around them and noticed something. The people of God lived under a theocracy where God was their King. That was great, but the nations next door had kings who could squat 600 pounds or bench press 415. They decided they wanted a king like the other nations.

Incidentally, if you’ve ever had a relationship with God but saw an opportunity to do something like the “other nations”—something different than what God said—and you tried it, it probably didn’t turn out well for you. That is exactly what happened with the move from theocracy to monarchy.

You see three main kings early on: Saul, David, and Solomon. Solomon was the king who actually built the temple. David was the architect who drew the blueprints, but Solomon was the contractor who got the job done. After Solomon, the kingdom did something very unfortunate that makes your Bible very confusing: it split. You had the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah. The Northern Kingdom had zero good kings. It was a downward spiral until the Assyrian Empire destroyed them and intermarried with the people, creating the group we know in the New Testament as the Samaritans.

The Southern Kingdom of Judah had a couple of good kings, but ultimately, the Babylonian Empire came in. They took the best of the best—the blue chips, the intelligent, the gifted—and exported them into Babylon. Daniel was taken at that time, along with his friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah—better known as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

The Babylonian Captivity and the 70-Year Promise

While in captivity, King Nebuchadnezzar had a dream he couldn’t interpret. God had raised up Daniel to be a counselor to the king. The king basically said, “Look, I couldn’t sleep. I had this dream and I have no idea what to do with it. Can you help a brother out?” Daniel prayed, and God showed him that the dream represented the empires that would rise and fall over the next several hundred years: Babylon, then Medo-Persia, then the Greeks, and then the Romans. Centuries before they existed, God was calling the shots.

In Daniel chapter nine, Daniel is having a quiet time in the book of Jeremiah. He’s reading his Bible just like you and I do, and he starts doing the math. He pulls out his calculator and realizes that God gave a timeline for their deportation—seventy years—and that time is almost up.

Daniel 9:2 (NASB)

in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, observed in the books the number of the years which was [revealed as] the word of the LORD to Jeremiah the prophet for the completion of the desolations of Jerusalem, [namely], seventy years.

Sure enough, the Babylonian Empire was defeated by the Medo-Persian Empire. The Persians took the city of Babylon without a fight. If you’ve ever been to the British Museum in London, they have the “Cylinder of Cyrus” on display, which is King Cyrus’s own account of taking Babylon. It matches the biblical record.

The Rise of Persia and the Decree of Cyrus

The Persians required two things from anyone they conquered: earth and water. “Earth” meant complete submission of your land. “Water” meant every resource you had was now theirs. You could give them earth and water, or you could die. Nobody stood up to the Persian Empire; they were a dominant military force for over two hundred years.

However, they had an interesting policy of appeasement. To maintain control of a vast empire, they would ask exiles where they were from. If a man said he was from Jerusalem, they would say, “Great. Did you have a God? Did He have a temple? I’m going to send you back, and I’m even going to give you money to rebuild that temple. I just want three things: earth, water, and taxes.”

Ezra 1:2-4 (NASB)

’Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, ’The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and He has appointed me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. ’Whoever there is among you of all His people, may his God be with him! Let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah and rebuild the house of the LORD, the God of Israel; He is the God who is in Jerusalem. ‘Every survivor, at whatever place he may live, let the men of that place support him with silver and gold, with goods and cattle, together with a freewill offering for the house of God which is in Jerusalem.’’

Here is a pagan king who doesn’t know God from nothing, yet he has this interaction with the Lord. It reminds me of the truth that the king’s heart is like a channel of water in the hands of God, and He guides it wherever He wishes.

Proverbs 21:1 (NASB)

The king’s heart is [like] channels of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He wishes.

This theme of God using unlikely people is going to be all over the book of Esther. Jeremiah had prophesied this return as well. He told the people to build houses and plant vineyards in Babylon, but he warned them not to stay forever because after seventy years, God would bring them back to “this place”—Jerusalem.

Jeremiah 29:10-11 (NASB)

’For thus says the LORD, ’When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place. ‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ’plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.

The 60-Year Gap: Where Esther Fits

There were three objectives for the return to Jerusalem: rebuild the people (Ezra), rebuild the temple (Haggai and Zechariah), and rebuild the wall (Nehemiah).

In Ezra chapter two, we see that about 50,000 people went back. That sounds like a lot, but it’s actually embarrassing. It means over a million people chose to stay in Persia. Even though God said, “I will bring you back,” they said, “No, my vineyards are doing great here. My family is settled. We actually prefer it here.” They chose to stay in a land of disobedience.

This is the context of Esther. It is the only book in your Bible that is a “meanwhile, back in Persia” story. It’s written about a disobedient people in a disobedient land, and yet, God still shows up. If you look at the chronology, there is a sixty-year gap between Ezra chapter six and Ezra chapter seven.

Ezra 6:12 (NASB)

‘May the God who has caused His name to dwell there overthrow any king or people who attempts to change [it], so as to destroy this house of God in Jerusalem. I, Darius, have issued [this] decree, let [it] be carried out with all diligence!’

Ezra 7:1 (NASB)

Now after these things, in the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, [there went up] Ezra son of Seraiah, son of Azariah, son of Hilkiah,

Between the reign of King Darius in chapter six and King Artaxerxes in chapter seven, there is no mention of the king in between: Xerxes. That sixty-year gap is exactly where you insert the book of Esther.

Meet King Xerxes

Esther begins during the reign of Ahasuerus, which is the Hebrew name for the Greek name Xerxes.

Esther 1:1 (NASB)

Now it took place in the days of Ahasuerus, the Ahasuerus who reigned from India to Ethiopia over 127 provinces,

We talk a lot in our culture today about tyrants, but you have never seen anything like Xerxes. He was a complete totalitarian dictator. If he took your city, he might flay you alive or impale you on a stake. He was despicable, indulgent, and immoral. There are nine banquets mentioned in this book, and every single one of them is full of debauchery.

If you have seen the movie 300, the king depicted there is Xerxes. The movie actually does a fascinating job of capturing the indulgence of his court. He slept with whomever he wanted, and if you resisted or protested, you were dead. His empire was massive—roughly the size of the entire United States. It covered modern-day Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Egypt, Syria, Israel, Jordan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and more. He was a man hungry for power, raising money in chapter one to invade Greece to avenge his father’s defeat.

The “It Just So Happened” Book

The book of Esther is a masterpiece of historical narrative. It is built in what is called a chiastic structure, meaning the content is mirrored, building to a crescendo in chapter six and then descending. Chapters one and two show the greatness of the king; chapters nine and ten show the greatness of Mordecai. Haman is elevated in chapter three; Mordecai is elevated in chapter eight.

Chapter six is the key. It is the author’s way of highlighting the most important thing in the book: a series of “it just so happened” moments. It just so happened the king couldn’t sleep. It just so happened he asked for the chronicles to be read. It just so happened he read about an assassination plot foiled by Mordecai. It just so happened Haman walked in right when the king wanted to honor Mordecai.

You can call that luck, fate, or coincidence. But by the time you finish this book, there are so many “it just so happened” moments that you either have to ignore providence entirely, or you have to see the hidden hand of God. Even when it doesn’t seem like God is working, He most definitely is.

The Problems We Must Face

Now, this book isn’t without its problems. First, God is never mentioned. Not once. These people never pray, they never quote the Bible, and they never refer to the text. This caused some early scholars to wonder if it even belonged in the Bible. But I think we are hard-pressed to deny the implicit hand of God on every page.

Second, there is a lot of moral ambiguity. There is a “faithful” way to see this and a “flannel graph” way. In the flannel graph version, Esther is a perfect hero. In reality, I don’t want my daughters to grow up to be like Esther. She was morally compromised. She spent the night with a pagan king to please him. The environment was dark, intoxicated, and sensual. However, I am grateful that God doesn’t only use morally perfect people. As they say in the South, God can hit a straight lick with a crooked stick.

Third, Esther is never quoted or referenced by any other book in the Bible. It stands alone, with the exception of the Feast of Purim. This is a feast Jewish people still celebrate today. My friend Ronan, a tour guide in Israel, once told me, “Brad, all Jewish feasts are the same: They tried to kill us, God saved us, let’s eat!” That is exactly what Purim is.

Trusting the Hidden Hand

As we close this introduction, I want you to realize that not much has changed. We don’t live in Persia, but kind of. We don’t have tyrants like Xerxes, but kind of. We don’t live in an indulgent culture, but kind of. It is so easy to look at the news and ask, “God, where are you? The wicked are being exalted and the righteous are being oppressed. Are you absent?”

The purpose of Esther is to remind us that even if He seems absent, He never is. He is always working. It reminds me of the cry of the Psalmist.

Psalms 13:1-6 (NASB)

For the choir director. A Psalm of David. How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, [Having] sorrow in my heart all the day? How long will my enemy be exalted over me? Consider [and] answer me, O LORD my God; Enlighten my eyes, or I will sleep the [sleep of] death, And my enemy will say, ‘I have overcome him,’ [And] my adversaries will rejoice when I am shaken. But I have trusted in Your lovingkindness; My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation. I will sing to the LORD, Because He has dealt bountifully with me.

Have you ever prayed that? “How long, O Lord?” This world can feel like a hot mess. But notice that the Psalmist says, “But I have trusted in your loving kindness,” even though his circumstances hadn’t changed yet. He trusts that even though he doesn’t see God moving, he knows He is.

If you find yourself discouraged, let this journey into Esther encourage you. God uses ungodly people in an ungodly culture to stir the hearts of ungodly leaders for His glory and the good of His people. The hidden hand of God is always at work. Amen?

Let’s pray.

God, we are grateful for this time together and for the opportunity to see the behind-the-scenes of this book. As we begin exploring the hidden hand of our good and gracious God, I pray it would encourage us. You are at work even when You seem not to be. You are moving even when You seem silent. Your kingdom is being established on earth as it is in heaven, and we get to be a part of it. Bless us, give us hope, and give us eyes to see what You are doing behind the scenes. In Jesus’ name, amen.