40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Esther 1:1-12 (Episode 372)

Episode Date: August 24, 2023

Chad and Daniel begin the book of Esther in this episode. There is a lot to say about the style and history of this book. The king throws a massive man-only party with an open bar and decides he wants his wife to come out and greet his guests. The queen refuses the request and sets events in motion that will lead us to Esther. Have a listen! Show Notes: 1517 Podcast Network Survey Support 1517 1517 Podcasts The 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 on Youtube What's New from 1517: Faith and Reason Exchange @ Apple Podcasts Faith and Reason Exchange @ 1517.org Join the 1517 Academy More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

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You can go to 1517.org slash podcast. Check out all the other podcasts that are living over there and while you're over there. You can check out all the other things that 1517 is doing. Make sure that you register for the new academies. The academies are free and there are new ones that you can take. You should probably take that Faith and Reason Academy with Adam Francisco. our buddy. If you want to get your faith and reason all figured out, figure out how this relationship works, figure out, are these things at war with each other? I mean, do you have to

just shut your brain off to be a Christian? Is that what Chad and I are trying to get you to do as we go through the book of Esther? We're trying to get you to not have any reason? I don't think so. So you can go find out all about that sort of stuff if you sign up for that academy. There's a link to it in the show notes. Chad, the cat's out of the bag. We are starting a new book this episode, man. We get to go into the book of Esther, and this is a little bit different than what we've done thus far over the course of eight years. As you move from one book to the next, there's at least some time might have passed. There might have been some kind of jump, or you know, the language might be a little bit different, but you're sort of following a

historical narrative. You're kind of following the timeline. The books are roughly in order, and what you heard previously was, in fact, previous to what you are hearing now. And Esther is like a break from all that, because there's so much that you don't know, and you kind of have this one-off story just kind of thrown in here. You know, we've got to have completed sort of the history of Israel according to what you get in the Old Testament. And before you're going to get into, you know, some prophets that were taking place during some of the stuff that we just read, you get this sort of strange book thrown in there. And it's not the only book like that. You know, Jonah's a little bit like that, Job's a little bit like that. I think those three

kind of stand out as the books that are like and now for something a little bit different you know and that's how it is yeah for sure there's a lot of distinctions to uh to the book of esther i mean to begin with it's one of only two biblical books that are named after uh a woman of course we talked about ruth a while back in connection with with judges and now we have now we have esther who of course is not only not the only character and not even only the not the only main character we have mordica we have hayman we have king ahasuerus uh also known as xerxes the first by the greeks so we've got a lot of people going on active here uh but yeah esther ends up being the the heroine of of the story we'll get to her momentarily uh yeah and the uh the sequence is really out of

out of sequence, the dates here. So we covered Ezra. We just finished Nehemiah. And now we actually have to go back in time because even though in our English ordering of the books, Esther falls after Nehemiah, the events described in the book actually precede not only Nehemiah, but also Ezra.

So we're doing a little backwards move here. So she's going to become queen. in uh about 478 bc so that's kind of if you kind of get that in your head fifth century 478 bc now that is two full decades before ezra arrives in jerusalem and as arrives in jerusalem before nehemiah arrives in jerusalem to rebuild the walls so maybe that kind of helps to position this this is a a little over a century after the babylonian exile began and of course a few decades after the jews were allowed to return from babylon to jerusalem by the persians you know should should they choose to so look at 478 that's when she's going to become queen and uh we're going to right

away be introduced to the king who uh we usually say his name in english is has you wear us i think that's a typical pronunciation that we give but uh the greeks called him xerxes the first now you all know xerxes the first even though you might not know that you know xerxes the first you do know xerxes the first especially if you're a uh a movie a movie about yeah and have seen we can talk about some spartans here yeah man you gotta you gotta bring in the the spartans uh because if you've seen the movie the 300 and you have seen a cinematic portrayal of this persian king who had the audacity to invade greece he crossed over and he was in some pretty narrow straits that we uh we know by the uh what do you what do we call them

the gates of fire yeah yeah pretty narrow place very narrow place and uh before they could advance into the greek mainland they had to get through this place and so famously i mean it's one of the great last stands of history right oh yeah man got uh get the 300 spartans of course you know the full story it wasn't just them the entire time there are a whole lot of others who were who were there but they made the last stand uh by led by the spartan king they made it cost a lot yes right it was a it was a uh a costly delay tactic but you know it was a it was a delay tactic that that at least helped the the greeks now the the persians led by by xerxes would uh eventually defeat the 300 i mean if you've seen the movie you know this already but

but only after one of the greatest lines ever uttered in all of human history there's a lot of great lines which one are you thinking of well when xerxes says uh throw down your weapons uh and you and you can live and the response is come and take them i mean that's i mean that's hardcore man that's pretty hardcore i thought you maybe were referring to take them as good yeah the threat that their arrows would would darken the sun that's pretty good yeah and the spartans respond well well then i guess we'll fight in the shade there's some uh there's some pretty great uh that's why we refer to spartan speech right it's very short pithy yeah but packed with packed with meaning so yeah that's our that's our guy

uh xerxes the first uh we'll hear more about him just in the in the opening opening lines uh we'll get to him but we'll uh kind of flesh him out a little bit more in just a second but so back to the timeline yeah 478 that's when esther is going to become queen um i think probably if there's anything that uh folks know about kind of the the details of the book not just kind of the overall message but uh the details of the book it's that esther is the only book in the uh not just the old testament but the bible where god is not mentioned explicitly yeah yeah there's no l there's no elohim there's no yahweh i mean the song of songs is close but there is mention of Yah, which is a short form of Yahweh in the Song of Songs. And of course, many times God

sort of fades from the explicit narrative, but he's still mentioned. And I'm thinking in particular of the Joseph story, the Joseph novella, or whatever you want to call it, where he's not nearly as prominent in the Joseph story, but you still have this language of Joseph prospered because the lord was with him so it's still there i mean it's it's much more the these providential ordering of events you have the the explicit nature of of god's activities muted let's say but it's still you know he still mentioned not nester no mention no mention of god now uh this creates uh this creates problems for for some folks throughout history uh this is one of the books where there was uh quite a bit of back and forth debating as to its canonicity

so you know is it did it belong did it not belong well the thing about esther that's that's strange i mean so for the for joseph you still have this sort of promises made by god and then i mean all you really need you know in the story of joseph's that okay we're still thinking about the same thing as lines like and then god remembered joseph and then you're bada boom there you go like you know what we're dealing with here right uh yeah esther is not like that there is no and then god remembered mordecai or or whatever that this is not this is not happening to me esther always felt like if you were recording a history right and you were having these books written and stuff there might be an instance where you said hey did you include the story of whatever it is right

awesome and now you're like no i didn't that is a crazy story i'm gonna write like a little and novella is like a good word i'm gonna write like a little book about that that was that was a very you know interesting uh thing that happened so we're gonna write that down and ezra or esther fears feels like that to me that it's it's sort of this really i mean it's a very interesting story fascinating yeah you read it super super entertaining it's super entertaining it's what to me esther is the as we've read gone through the the old testament there's a lot of like shades of gray and your good guys are all flawed and your bad guys aren't like completely bad all the time and like it's it's uh it's very nuanced right these characters esther is like

esther's the good guy uh there's just no there's just nothing you could argue about that she just is she's a good guy and hayman is just terrible i mean like it's it's uh there it's this good guy bad guy straight up like there's not ambiguous of what you're dealing with here here this that's what it is i i mean i don't know how you feel about it but you i read it and i'm like hayman's a bad guy oh yeah yeah no doubt about that yeah i mean he's like the ultimate bad guy biblical history i mean we've had a lot of bad guys but uh yeah even some of them i mean even you look think back to pharaoh and the ten plagues i mean there are instances in there where for instance he he tells moses pray for me yeah haman's never gonna say something like that he's the ultimate

bad guy you know there's he's dressed fully in black there's not a shade of gray or white in his character he's he's bad all all the way through uh which i mean today leads to uh this is the this is the background we haven't said that yet but uh so the jewish festival of purim or parim which is celebrated in in march which is a huge it's like the uh the the most uh carnival like of all the jewish festivals i mean it's a big party basically it's like halloween people dress up there's parties in the street there's feasting it's really it's a extremely festive atmosphere and so uh when one of the things that always has to take place is they read the entire of Esther. And anytime that Haman's name is

mentioned, there's like noise that's made by the congregation to kind of blot out his name. That's the idea. Or booing or things like that that go on. So yeah, he's the guy whose name is to be obliterated. Remember not to remember Haman's name is kind of the idea. And this all leads to the celebration of Purim or pareme which we'll get to later in the book uh that's kind of the this is the historical background of that that festival but yeah i mean you got providence is one of the themes it's there

uh we'll you know see plenty of evidence of that where you have these i'm doing air quotes which you can't see of course because this is a podcast but quote unquote coincidences you know there's a lot of those where oh it just so happens that uh coincidentally the king couldn't sleep that night and so he asked for the you know official records to be read and it was there lo and behold he discovers that mordecai once saved his life and you have a lot of uh these uh reversals that that that take place uh eucatastrophes as as tolkien would call them were just when you think all hope is lost and the curtains are closing bam there's this complete reversal that takes place yeah Yeah, there is this sort of hidden God behind the scenes that is not ever stated.

But it's probably the most famous line, and I know that you're like, hey, you guys are going to spend half the podcast talking about the book of Esther, or are you going to get into the book of Esther? But probably the most famous line from Esther, I think, is, for such a time as this. Yeah, absolutely. Now, that seems like it has some divine punch behind it, right? Like, you are placed in this position for such a time as this.

Well, who did the placing? So there's this implied thing that's happening where it's like, well, God has put you in this position for such a time as this. It doesn't say that, but I think that's what you're supposed to take from that, right? It goes to that sort of providence stuff, that even when you can't point to a Red Sea parting or manna falling from heaven or whatever it is, that you can say God is sort of active, and you are in this place at this time because you're supposed to be, because God wills you to be. And so there is some sort of reading between the lines of what is going on there. and i think joined to that uh this is kind of more on the uh the other theme level uh i mean historically this this is a good case of illustrating through narrative how you live faithfully as a jew in the gentile diaspora so i mean you're so you you know even if you have to

do it surreptitiously which is at least what esther begins to do you know so uh you're you're very much a minority you've been exiled that's kind of the situation that you're in uh but you're you're a jew so how do you how do you live faithfully according to to the torah while surrounded by you know major and minor threats to your very existence so how do you how do you do that well i mean this is a great example of that esther is uh joseph was a great example of that too i mean both of these people of course rise to be right beside the king joseph as the vizier or whatever you want to call him you know basically he's the vice pharaoh i suppose you'd call him and then esther's the queen so both of them rose to this this place of prominence daniel's another

example of that where he's faithful as along with shadrat mishak and abednego they're faithful but But they're also in these elevated positions of authority under these Gentile governments. Apparently, the real secret is to be very attractive. Oh, it helps. Yeah. This is what we know about Joseph and Esther. Apparently, you could work this to your advantage. Yeah. That does happen on a daily basis still today.

I guess so. Good looks fill in a lot of other gaps that people might have. yeah so uh that that's that's kind of part of the theme here and i mean it doesn't take much of a stretch to say hey you know we we're christians and uh we're reading the book of esther so uh even though i think for most people listening to the podcast we're not living under any kind of you know uh explicit persecution we are living i think we all admit we're all living in an increasingly less-than-Christian culture, I suppose you could say.

So a lot of people compare it to, we're now living in kind of a second-century kind of climate. So as exiles in this world, how do we position ourselves to live faithfully, but also at the same time to live within that world and to work within that world and to serve within that world in a way that is also loving and merciful and wise which is speaking of that this is wisdom wisdom kind of literature that uh in narrative form exemplifies illustrates a lot of the stuff

you'll see in proverbs and other wisdom wisdom literature let me say one more thing before we jump into the text and that is uh you may have heard that esther is the only book that from the old testament not found among the dead sea scrolls i've heard hints you know that people suggest there are maybe some um some possibilities but the overall uh overall consensus is that yeah it's it's not so what does that mean does it does it mean that the people that come on rejected the festival of parim possibly does it mean that because esther is such a relatively small book it just wasn't found among the scrolls yes possibly so you can't read too much into the absence of esther from from the dead sea scrolls and the one more thing uh for those who uh might

have a bible that's not your typical protestant bible maybe it's a catholic bible or maybe it's what is called the jerusalem bible something that includes the uh apocrypha in it well this is esther is a famous example of where the the septuagint that's a greek translation differs substantially from the hebrew and especially in the inclusion of a whole bunch of stuff that's not fought that's not found in the hebrew so there's there are uh there's six major additions to the hebrew text found in the septuagint a total of 107 verses that are that are inserted into the the greek version of esther and a lot of these are what you might expect they're kind of do we have a verb for this religionizing i suppose making it more making explicit what

is more implicit in the book so that god's name is mentioned there's prayers that are recorded in the septuagint editions uh so there's there's kind of a fleshing out of stuff that's between the lines in the Hebrew that you'll find in the Septuagint. It's like the Hobbit devotional, that all of a sudden, I've seen this, so you can buy this version of this companion, because they can't change the text, so you can buy this companion where you can dig out all the spiritual meanings of the Hobbit as you read along in this companion volume, and suddenly, I went from thinking that God wasn't really mentioned in this book at all of this being the most explicitly christian volume of all time uh

that's that's the sort of thing that it feels like where it's like hey let's like let's just really do the work here and show you just how explicitly religious this whole thing is yeah that's kind of what happens in the uh in the septuagint version of of esther uh it's sort of a preachy a more preachy yeah text we we might we might say uh let's let's help let's help the reader out in case they happen to miss the god element here we're going to make sure it's unmissable in this version so anyway that's a that's about 20 minutes of some intro material on on esther uh kind of get it positioned uh chronologically and a little bit of the theme stuff going on there and uh with with all that being said we'll we'll jump in here and see how

far we get in this first episode. Starting out here with Esther 1.1, we already meet the name of our king. Now in the days of Ahasuerus, the Ahasuerus, and then we're going to specify who this is, the Ahasuerus, who did what? He reigned from India to Ethiopia, over 127 provinces. In those days, when King Ahasuerus sat on his royal throne in Susa, the citadel, in the third year of his reign he gave a feast for all his officials and servants the army of persia and media and the nobles and governors of the provinces were before him while he showed the riches of his royal glory and the splendor and pomp of his greatness for many days a hundred hundred and eighty, a hundred and eighty days. Now, let's stop there. That's the first four

verses. So one of the things that becomes obvious in, and we're going to see more of this in the next, I don't know, probably three or four verses. One of the things that becomes obvious in this first section is that the author of Esther, whoever that was, we don't know, but the author wants to make sure that you don't miss it's pretty it's pretty hard to miss the fact that this king thinks that he is it i mean he yeah i talk about i mean i've been to some you know some pretty big parties and you know some parties last more than a few hours but uh six months this lunar calendar you got like you know about 30 days of the month it's 180 days we're gonna

have a six month party it's like the the party of the uh millennium and he's uh he's he's showing off basically that's that's the whole purpose of this and we'll see more of this uh just come you know way exaggerated language in the verses that are coming up here too but one of the one of the the impressions that we are intended to receive from these opening verses is that this guy is beyond lavishly rich beyond powerful beyond you know everything that you might think a monarch is is going to have he's got it all he's all powerful he's all rich he's all generous and you know providing this long lavish party for all these these officials and whatnot and i don't want to I don't give too much away up front,

but one of the things that become obvious is that this guy who seems to control the entire world can't even get his wife to bend to his will as we will be introduced to the queen in just a few minutes. So there's some poking fun at King Ahasuerus as well. So I mentioned earlier, this is Xerxes, who reigned from 486 to 465.

he was assassinated in in 465 so he is the is the son of darius darius the great and uh then darius's wife who was a daughter of cyrus the great so he's probably best known for that greek invasion that we already talked about in 4 480 he ended up after the battle of thermopylae he ended up burning athens and then was eventually defeated and had to tuck tail and head back to to the homeland uh but not you know not without uh quite a bit of destruction in greece you know one of the things so one of the things that's interesting is that it's so obviously it's so obvious that this is xerxes that so if you're reading this in the niv it just says xerxes oh does it okay i mean that's how certain they are yeah yeah i've yeah i've never i've never

come across any scholar who thinks it's anybody but but xerxes and every time i say his name i see that image of him from the 300 it's like burned in my mind he's on that huge throne and uh looking very very strange in the way that he was uh he was all done up but yeah that's that's the guy um so he's from from india to uh well most will translate this as ethiopia uh the hebrew there is uh kush which is referring to uh to upper egypt uh doesn't necessarily align with modern day ethiopia but anyway that's usually how it's translated he uh he comes to power he's got a he's got a squash from rebellions you know as typically happened in the ancient world when you have a new king a lot of the kind of the far-flung provinces want to rebel maybe establish your

independence again so he had to squash rebellions in in egypt and whatnot and then uh kind of you know settled down he was uh firmly in power now when when this is taking place now chronologically this is right before his invasion of greece so some people think that the one of the reasons that he gave this huge party was to try and get everybody together to convince him hey you know we should do we should invade greece so maybe that was the purpose of getting his the army of persian medes and nobles and govern governors of the provinces and everybody together because this was the time to consolidate power to get a consensus together that hey this is what we should do we should we should invade we should invade greece so uh anyway that's that's the

that's what's going on here here in the background they're in susa which is not the only but one of the capitals of this area um if you check out the commentary some people will say wait a minute 127 provinces you know the most that's ever listed is something like 31 of uh these satrapies probably what's going on here is these uh these provinces which referred to as a medina in in hebrew are talking about smaller like smaller administrative uh subdivisions and not the the the satrapies that are usually referred to but either way there's the overall impression here is of a worldwide worldwide power so it gets them all together and has this long party for uh for six months some uh some hyperbole going on there no doubt the verse five says when

these days were completed so we get past this this bigger party then the king gives another party so he gave for all the people present in susa the citadel both great and small a feast lasting for only seven days in the court of the garden of the king's palace i guess the locals you know they kind of got gypped they only got a seven day instead of a six day a six month party and uh verse six says this verse six is providing some color to this uh again this is to to make sure you understand the opulence of the party and the lavish nature of the king's palace we have white cotton curtains and violet hangings fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rods and marble pillars and we have couches of gold and silver on a mosaic pavement of porphyry

marble mother of pearl and precious stones man is there more they could have added to that that's You almost have to like pause at every phrase and get this visual of extreme wealth that's being displayed here. I mean, does that describe your bedroom and your living room? Definitely. It also sounds unsustainable. You're like, how long can you keep this going? Right. Yeah.

Pouring a lot of money into this. So that's the decorations. What about the drinks? well they've got drinks too and you're not drinking out of your solo cups no you're being served in golden vessels vessels of different kinds and royal wine was lavished according to literally according to the hand of the king which esv translates correctly as the bounty of the king probably it's just talking about basically his uh his generosity so liberally according to the hand of the king verse 8 is a little bit uh difficult to to translate your versions do this

uh in different sorts of ways but esv has drinking was according to this edict there is no compulsion for the king had given orders to all the staff of his palace to do as each man desired this just sounds like an open bar pretty much pretty much yeah you know he has by the king's command each guest was allowed to drink in his own way for the king instructed all the wine stewards to serve each man what he wished yeah i mean the the the was it the new living translation living translation whatever the paraphrase would be and the king commanded that there be an open bar yeah pretty much yeah so you want to drink a little bit fine you want to drink a lot fine so after after all of this uh you know very verbose very uh very lavish uh display and

description of all these things going on for the dudes for the guys kind of keep in mind all these all this banqueting was for the men we have one verse and one verse only that describes another feast that was going on and this is described in a very conservative sort of way no doubt to contrast with what we've already been covered. Queen Vashti, we'll come back to her in just a second, also gave a feast for the women

in the palace that belong to King Ahasuerus. So we're going to find out more about her in just a minute. Herodotus, who was the Greek theologian, gives a different name for this queen, a mistress. So people

explain that different way. Some people say, well, there's a contradiction here, but it need not be that. Maybe she went by different names or, you know, maybe there were multiple queens. Probably there were. So the queen that we have here in the Book of Esther is named Vashti. So she gives this feast for the women in the palace that belong to King Ahasuerus. So all of this is kind of a setup for what's going to happen here with a problem that I already alluded to earlier. And this is going to begin with verse 10.

on the seventh day so this is after the second feast when we've had a seven day open bar on the seventh day when the heart of the king was literally good with wine which is translated to as merry with wine he's drunk that's what it was yeah this is the the bible's way of saying the dude was sloshed his heart was merry with wine yeah he's he's he's intoxicated seventh day this is the last day of the feast so he's been uh over consuming for quite a while what does he do he's going to give a command to seven of his uh palace officials which is usually rendered as eunuch this can refer to not to actually to guys who have been castrated and serving for instance in the harem but it can also be used to refer to just officials so maybe

they were actual eunuchs maybe this is just a uh a term uh kind of a technical term for those who are chief officials either way we'll go with the eunuchs seven eunuchs and we have their names here uh which i won't i won't read to you but he commands these seven eunuchs while he's drunk these seven eunuchs who served in his presence to bring queen vashti before the king with her royal crown now we know from inscriptions i mean we know from monuments that this isn't like your we think of as a crown you know like you think kind of european kings and queens but this was like a tall stiff cap that had jewels on it so it was a royal headdress maybe is a better way to translate this but anyway she's supposed to come before the king with a royal headdress with

the royal crown why in order to show the peoples and the princes her beauty for she was lovely to look at so that's the command i mean this is the rule of the world not it not not you know not the president of the united states uh you know not uh whoever it might be that you would compare it to in modern terms this guy rules from india down to ethiopia he's got 127 provinces he has enough money and enough uh enough power enough organization enough wine enough food to throw a six-month party followed by another seven-day party the dude has it all he seems to be you know god on earth as it were and so when he commands these seven eunuchs and talk about pomp circumstance you know he could have just sent one guy says hey go get the queen it's seven he's got

to get seven eunuchs so all of this uh and then verse 12 says queen vashti refused to come at the king's command delivered by the eunuchs i like her already well i mean okay let me let me paint this in like a modern picture of course we're not in this isn't a modern thing but i dare you to try this uh where you get like blitz drunk and then send seven people to go tell your wife to doll herself up so that you can like show her off to all your friends and see how that goes for you yeah report back to us please like you don't go ask her you say you said seven people to be like hey babe i need you to come out here make look cute make sure you look cute i'm gonna show you off a little bit do your do your hair makeup put on your your hottest outfit that you that you have

and come out here i'm gonna let everybody ogle you yeah all my drunk friends want to want to check you out like that yeah it's not it's not like the most shocking thing in the world that she wasn't like real into this yeah so uh you know kudos to kudos to the queen uh i like her already she's gonna suffer as a result of her refusal now there is a big difference between listener the dear listener trying to pull this off and uh his wife refusing which i'm sure his wife refuses uh and this guy trying to pull it off this guy has a lot more power than anyone listening to this yes i mean you this is i guess this is the first time in the book that we have somebody in this case the queen somebody standing up to uh standing up against what is wrong and for

what is right yeah we're going to see more examples of that and and you know and it was a risky move she suffered we don't know i mean we know to some extent what she suffered she's replaced uh but you know this could have gone a lot of different different ways but she does what's right and and suffers the consequences and we're going to have other instances where people stand up for what is right and at least place themselves at at risk so uh no surprise i mean i do think it's safe to say that you and i are told no more times every day than this guy has been told no in his life that's pretty pretty safe pretty safe assessment yeah can you imagine who who says no to the guy who rules from India

to Ethiopia, who has all power, all riches, 127 provinces. Well, I'll tell you who. His wife. That's who says no. The queen says no to him. Makes you wonder too if this has happened before.

She's like, no, I'm done. It's hard for me to believe that this is the first time in this king's life where he's totally drunk and he's like, I'm going to show off my wife. yeah yeah anyway maybe this is the last time but uh last row he doesn't love it i mean so you can see in verse uh and the second half of verse 12 i mean he became enraged and his anger burned

within him so like and this sounds like uh yeah of course this isn't a guy that likes being told no but like this is embarrassing too oh very embarrassing i mean i'm thinking of it it's it's in no way fully analogous, but you know, you think of when Herod was having his birthday party and he's got all the people there, no doubt showing off. And, uh, he says to his, uh, his, his stepdaughter, yeah, yeah, just whatever, whatever you want up to half the kingdom I'm going to give to you. And then urging him for mom, she says, well, give me here on a platter, the head of John the Baptist. And because of his oath, because of his guests, even though he didn't really want to that's what he did so here you have you know another powerful figure of course

much much more powerful than here it was and he's been refused and so yeah his ego is bruised uh his his own wife has said no to him so uh yeah he's gonna become enraged his anger is gonna burn within him and we'll see uh we're we're about out of time here so we'll see in verse 13 and following what what they do as a result now what they do as a result i find to be humorous because just to kind of give you a feel for it now that she she's not going to the penalty is she is not going to see the king again she's probably like oh that really hurts so in other words the penalty is i get to do what i wanted to do in the first place not see his face again it ends up being to her advantage.

Well, we didn't get far, but we have set, I mean, this has set the stage for, cause you're like, where's Esther? Well, she's coming. This is directly connected. Yeah. This is kind of like Nehemiah. You have to get a watch or, or Ezra. You got to wait, get a ways into Ezra before you actually meet Ezra. You got to get a ways into, into Esther before you actually meet, meet her. But yeah, that, that sets the stage for, it kind of gives you a feel for some of the background and some of the themes

are going to be looking for. It's going to be a fun book. It's one of those books that is a great reminder that it's fine to laugh when you're studying the Bible because there's humor and there's rage

and there's everything else on the emotional spectrum that's kind of woven into this book. So it's going to be fun. Awesome. All right. Well, we will no doubt meet Esther next episode

and hopefully you guys will join us then. Chad, I'll see you next week. All right. See you then. We'll see you next time.