40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Esther 2:15-3:15 (Episode 375)

Episode Date: September 9, 2023

Esther wins the favor of the king and is made queen. Mordecai thwarts a plot to kill the king. Haman is promoted and all the people are ordered to bow down to him but Mordecai's refusal to do so sets Haman on a murderous path. Have a listen! Show Notes: 1517 Podcast Survey Support 1517 1517 Podcasts The 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 on Youtube What's New from 1517: Faith and Reason Exchange @ 1517.org 2023 HWSS Conference Livestream Signup Join the 1517 Academy Faith in the Face of Tyranny More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast. Check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. Hey, there's a new podcast that is living over there. It's the newest release from the 1517 Podcast Network. It's called The Faith and Reason Exchange. It's featuring Adam Francisco, who you might know from The Thinking Fellows,

and Dave Anderson, and they're going to be talking about—it's a weekly show— they're going to be talking about the intersection between faith and reason. That's the exchange that they're going to have. How do these things work together? There's an academy that Adam just taught that is now available on Faith and Reason as well. And so this is sort of complementary to that. You don't have to take the academy to listen to the podcast or listen to the podcast to take the academy, but you could do both, and that would probably be beneficial for you.

So check that out. Chad, we are in Esther chapter 2. We got rid of a queen. You know, the king was not happy with the refusal of his wife, the queen, to come and, you know, have all his guy friends gawk at her. She didn't want to do that. Yeah, she didn't like that. So the guys in the kingdom were very concerned that the feminism might spread wild, and all of a sudden the women might start not doing exactly what it is that their husbands told them to do,

so they had to make some decrees. they made sure everybody knew that uh that was not something that uh should be replicated throughout the the kingdom and uh they decided you know what we gotta have to get a new king a new queen for this king and so what's uh let's round up a bunch of virgins uh we'll spend a lot of time you know giving them the cosmetics you know dolling them up and then one at a time we're going to send him on in to the king, and if he likes you, and by sending him into the king, it doesn't mean you go and present yourself, and he takes some notes, and then the next one comes in. This is a night-by-night ordeal. You get the idea. And depending on if he liked you or not,

he might call you back. If not, you just go into the harem, and that's just where you are now you might never see this guy again kind of tragic in that way like this is it uh you know esther is sort of like this this story that you're like oh it's a cool story and it is a cool story but certainly this part of it is it's depressing for esther too but it's real depressing for uh everyone else like there's a lot there's a lot of young women that uh this whole situation didn't turn out great for yeah it's a it's a it's a sad story in so many different different ways you know i uh this is kind of an aside but so i went on a walk this morning and i listened to the whole book of esther i mean it's not like i hadn't covered it plenty of times before but

uh i thought hey i'm gonna i'm just gonna open up the bible app and uh have james earl jones read esther to you yeah whoever it is it's not i wish it were james earl jones but this guy's not too bad but anyway i i got like halfway through my wall maybe 30 40 minutes in and then in this entire book it's pretty short um and i i like doing that because it gives you the whole story of one at one time which is i think the way we should cover a lot of biblical books yeah but yeah when i when i got to that part uh got to part of the story early on of course it's just in chapter two i just was shaking my head thinking man what a what a disaster for everybody in the involved the families the girls just uh the potential husbands that would have married

these uh these young ladies so yeah i don't think they probably went around like as they were rounding up these these women and saying hey you don't have a boyfriend or someone you're interested in do you because i'd hate to break up a relationship uh i don't think that any of that came into it came to an account no they just uh yeah whoever was uh attractive virgins they brought them in and we're talking about of course teenagers here yeah so yeah we're going through all the high schools in persia and uh picking out the prettiest and bringing them to the capital yeah so anyway we we ended in it's uh it's esther's turn that's it's esther's turn yeah yeah so uh she's up verse 15 and that's the way it begins when the turn came for esther and uh we're told her her dad's

name here, the daughter of Abahel, the uncle of Mordecai. So of course, as we learned early on, Mordecai has adopted her, taken care of her, taken her as his own daughter. So it's her turn, and she goes into the king, and she asks for nothing except what Haggai, the king's eunuch, who had charge of the women, advised. Now Esther was winning favor in the eyes of all who saw her. So I'm assuming that what's going on here is that so this Haggai, the king's eunuch, who's very impressed with Esther. We've heard that already. He probably, he knows the king. That's kind of the assumption I have here.

He knows the king. He knows what is going to impress the king. He knows maybe how she should dress or whatever it might be, whatever she takes with her. All we're told is she asked for nothing except what he advised. So whatever that means, I'm assuming that part of that is dress. so whatever the king's eunuch thought was going to you know be favorable in the eyes of the king that's what she took yeah i kind of i kind of read this like uh maybe this guy's like all right what would you uh what do you need what do you want uh for for this night and uh she sort of

has this i don't know you tell me response like yeah i never met this guy yeah you're the one needs to be uh informing me what would be the best way to proceed here so uh that's so anyway whatever it was she uh she took that and verse 16 says when esther was taken to king ahasuerus into his royal palace in the 10th month which is the month of tebet in the seventh year of his reign so leading all up to that so when she goes in in this month of tebet and four four years have passed, by the way, since we've lost Vashti. So quite a bit of time has gone by. So when she goes in, what's the king's response? Well, verse 17 says that 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, or royal headdress, however you want to translate that, on her head, and made her queen instead of Vashti. Now kind of one more verse, we'll finish out this section. Then the king gave a great feast for all his officials and servants. It was Esther's feast. He also granted a remission of taxes.

That had to have made everybody happy. Also granted a remission of taxes to the provinces and gave gifts with royal generosity. Yeah, he's feeling good about this whole thing. He feels like this worked out great. This part is, it seems like, you know uh indisputable that uh no what whatever this means loved you know he loved her more than all the other virgins i don't know what you know so he loved her the most what i'm not suggesting

is that like he's in love with her necessarily whatever uh maybe he is but what it does maybe is but highly doubt yeah but but what um what does seem true is that he's he's pretty enraptured with her i mean he's feeling pretty satisfied i mean he's very pleased and uh so much so he's like i'm gonna have a feast and you know what it's like get rid of these taxes and uh let's get some gifts and uh he's you know he's he's really happy with the the way this has worked out yeah so whatever it was uh yeah she definitely won the uh won the contest with all the other competitors and uh well i mean uh even later on as we'll find out as the story story develops i mean he even though at kind of that climactic moment when she goes into the king and he hadn't

seen her in like a month or something like that he's very pleased to see her so whatever it is uh she definitely uh well won his heart or anyway won his approval so that she is the she's the chosen queen and yeah he seems very happy i mean he's celebrating this more or less he's given a great feast and remitting taxes to the provinces giving gifts of royal generosity so his heart is moved to generosity his heart is moved to celebrate and uh after this long wait of wanting to have a queen to replace vashti he finally has her as her in in esther and he really doesn't know anything about her besides obviously whatever happened that night so there'll be more to discover as as time goes on because you know as we as we've pointed out before he doesn't know

anything about her her background he doesn't know that part that part so that's like so different right it's hard to wrap your head around like man i'm really into this you know this this girl here and uh i'm gonna make her the queen and stuff like you never were like hey have your parents come by let's meet the family that just never happens yeah it is it's so strange to us i mean i guess the closest equivalent would be in those cultures today where you still have arranged marriages but i'm assuming in most of those cases you still know the person you know their family i mean you you know something about them this is just a uh you know a one-night stand basically in the persian world that turns into marriage basically the next day because yeah you would think a king would be

like well let me you know obviously you're the queen now you gotta hook your family up and you gotta bring them in and yeah you just don't get any of that yeah we think that okay so he was very happy with or not together all right well then you know wait a while spend a week two weeks whatever you know before you decide yes she's definitely going to be the queen but anyway he decided right away so now we have a new queen and uh her name is her name is esther so we're at that point in the story what's going to happen next is we're going to find out we're going to take one of these uh kind of side trips into another part of the story and we're going to find out something of course this whole story is woven together as a tapestry so we're going to find out something

about mordecai her uncle or cousin rather uh that's going to be a prominent part of the story later on yeah one of the things that you don't know this so you just have to assume that you have this we're going to see this like sort of mordecai like sitting at the king's gate and stuff but he's not sitting there as like a known you know jewish relative of esther or whatever he's trying to like make sure she's all right and that kind of thing it you it could be that you know maybe esther just lies to like so like where's your family oh i'm an orphan she's been instructed not to do that we don't have that in in the story but that that would seem like a possible scenario that that would that would have happened that she would have basically said i don't have a family

you know in order in order to protect the family that she does have yeah that's true she might have just uh kind of kept everything anonymous you know just uh under wraps for for now um because She's like, hey, bring your mother and father to the castle. I don't have a mother and father. Yeah, yeah. I have a feeling she's playing her cards pretty close to her chest. She's only letting the king know what he needs to know, just for self-preservation. So verse 19 starts out with kind of an odd phrase.

Most commentators don't know what to make of it, and I don't either. It's translated here in the ESV as, now when the virgins were gathered together the second time, mordecai was sitting at the king's gate so i honestly don't know what that means and the commentators that i checked all have different opinions as to exactly what that means i mean so when was the first time when they were gathered together well that's never mentioned so we're not sure what the second time is either and some people recommend amending the the hebrew text to read something differently just to bring some clarity to it but we'll just kind of leave that

aside whatever the situation might be uh when this happens the main point is that mordecai is sitting at the king's gate now there's a couple different ways that we could take this uh it could be that mordecai is just hanging out there i mean we were told that he kind of paced back and forth you know he's wondering how esther was doing he's checking checking in on her there's also the possibility that this uh this sitting at the king's gate indicates that mordecai had been had been or like had been by esther or even before then some sort of official of the king because the the gate here archaeologists have found this gate there's like it's huge it's about 90 yards east of the palace uh 13 000 square feet i mean this is like a

huge like complex more or less by the palace and of course gates throughout the ancient world is where you had all kinds of business transacted you had courts that were held there you had debates were held there you had sometimes commerce that took place there so mordecai sitting at the gate is probably indicative that he has some sort of some sort of official capacity of being there he's not just kind of loitering in other words hanging hanging out there so anyway that's where he's at and uh we're reminded in verse 20 that esther had not made known her kindred or her people as mordecai had commanded her so that jives with what we were saying a few minutes ago certainly she didn't let him know that she was jewish yeah she was she what seems

unlikely is that esther went to the the king and said hey can you hire my jewish uncle to be like your gatekeeper that's that's not what happened no not happening so she had she'd stayed quiet about that because mordecai told her hey uh don't don't let him know you're your people and uh then it adds because esther obeyed mordecai just as when she was brought up by him of course he's been the father figure these many years so in verse verse 21 says in those days as mordecai was sitting at the king's gate these two guys two of the king's eunuchs whose names are big thon and teresh uh they're sitting there they're the ones in charge of guarding the threshold no that's a pretty prominent that's a pretty important position these are the guys who are

basically guarding the the door that would lead in to where the king's at so you know very not only a very important position but also if these guys for some reason turn against you then they have basically immediate access to you so if there's going to be an assassination well these guys would be the perfect ones to carry this out so they're while mordecai's sitting there these two eunuchs who guarded the threshold became angry and sought to lay hands on king ahasuerus and we're not told why what kind of what the situation is but whatever it is uh they're they're upset and they decide they're going to take the king out this verse 22 this came to the knowledge of mordecai and then he told it to queen esther and esther told the king

in the name of mordecai and when the affair was investigated and found to be so the men were both hanged on the the gallows and it was recorded in the book of the chronicles in the presence of the king so this is some sort of you know wooden stake wooden beam that these guys are are are hanged on now this seems like just uh kind of an aside but it's not because not only what mordecai did but the fact that what he did was recorded in the chronicles of the king all that is going to feature later later in the story the important thing to realize now is that mordecai did something to save the king's life and he wasn't really rewarded for it right it was recorded yes but there was it was not like he was uh honored in some sort of public way as being this savior of

the king he did it it was recorded the king's life was saved the two eunuchs were executed and that seems as the story is told it seems as if that's kind of the end of it just like it's adding color to the narrative but it's not this is going to come back later in the story to be a key a key way that god is orchestrating events in order to in the end bring about the uh the the survival and even the thriving of his people as well as mordecai it seems like i mean obviously mordecai doesn't really get rewarded here probably uh due to the fact that he went to esther with it and then esther went to the king with it and they investigate it find out to be true uh this is uh further endearing esther to the king like man i got not only do i got this beautiful wife then

And she's, like, uncovering plots to assassinate me. Save my life, yeah. The best queen ever. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so if she wasn't impressive already. Well, of course, for Mordecai, too. Like, is he, like, a huge fan of this king? Probably not.

But is it better for his niece, daughter, if this king doesn't get assassinated? Because if he gets assassinated, who knows what happens to her? yeah yeah precisely so he's looking out for the king he's also looking out for for esther and all of this of course just makes her glow even more in the eyes of the eyes of the king she's the she's the best the best queen that he can imagine i'm assuming at this point yeah he's got this other wife that won't come when he calls this this queen is uncovering plots against him covering assassination plots okay so that's uh that's the end of chapter two now we're about to

uh to meet uh the the villain of the story so uh here comes here comes haman so after these things king ahasuerus uh promoted haman the agagite the son of hamadatha and advanced him and set his throne above all the officials who were with him. So I think it was the last episode or maybe the episode before then when I mentioned that when he's called an agagite, that's reminiscent of what happened way back in 1 Samuel 15, where you have Saul sent by Samuel to take out the Amalekites who were these ancient enemies of the Israelites. And that's where you have the whole situation where he spares the king and as a result of this you have samuel saying to him the king's ship is going to be taken taken away taken away from him so the king there is king agog and therefore

there's probably more than a hint here of kind of this this rising antagonism that you're going to see between mordecai who's of the the family of the tribe of benjamin and so connected in that way to Saul and then Haman who is from the same lineage that the Amalekites were these ancient enemies of the Israelites so at this point the king has promoted Haman and advanced him and set his throne above all the officials who were with him we don't know why maybe it's because it will find out in a minute he has a lot of money he's it's gonna be he's a rich dude but whatever the reason is he's promoted him to this this opposition and as a result of this first two all the king's servants who were at the king's gate bowed down and paid homage to haman because the king had so

commanded concerning him that that does show me it's kind of odd why does the king have to command all the king's servants at the king's gate to bow down and pay homage to haman is it maybe because if he hadn't commanded it no one would have done it yeah is it like it's a weird character it's also i would buy down to that guy unless the king told me to it's all it's a weird thing too like where typically a king doesn't like you bowing down to other people like regard like unless maybe it's his son or something you know his wife or something but like this guy that's in charge of this stuff, you might have to salute, or whatever, show some

kind of thing. And the reason, you might just be like, oh, this can't be really like a worship-y thing. But we know, going on through the text about what's about to happen, that it very much is. Which is why Mordecai won't do it.

Yeah. That does seem to be the motivation behind Mordecai's refusal. Because that's what it goes on to say. So the king had commanded this, concerning him but mordecai did not bow down or pay homage so uh all you have to do is hear that to realize oh we're gonna have we're gonna have problems here now the problems don't arise immediately in fact uh it's it's kind of a one of these has to be reported situations hayman

doesn't even realize this at first but it's going to lead to a uh to the to the main problem that the book of esther is going to solve so mordecai won't do it he won't bow down or or pay homage presumably then yeah like you said because it's sort of a form of of worship of not the emperor in this case but at least someone who's close close to him so uh verse three says when the king's servants were at the king's gate uh saw this happening they said to mordecai why do you transgress the king's command now one of the things i think i find strange here is the things we're not told i mean we're not told explicitly why he wouldn't bow down or pay homage to him and uh we're not told explicitly how he responded this why did he transgress the king's command i

mean he's going to tell him he's a jew in just a second but there's no other explanation that's given him we're just kind of it's assumed that we're going to figure this out on our own that make sense yeah it's weird because yeah you have this why do you transgress the king's command and you have nothing which makes it seem like mordecai doesn't say anything and then they pester him about it and they spoke to him day after day he would not listen to them then they told haman in order to see whether mordecai's words would stand for he had told them he was a jew so the only thing that he told them so like why do you transgress the king's command what's going on here and then every day they're asking him like what's going on with you man and it seems like the only answer he

gives is i'm a jew yeah that's it it's like that's supposed to answer all of your questions and answer their questions because i mean they keep asking well okay you're so what why you're not bowing down i guess the the implication is that like jews don't bow down to people dude like that's not something we do we don't we bowing down to men is not something that we do especially men like hayman yeah yeah we have uh we have a god and uh he doesn't like it when we do that so that's not this is some shadrach meshach and abednego kind of stuff man like i ain't doing it yeah definitely is yeah that's a pretty good parallel to this so he like mordecai you know uh i suppose prompted by the situation he does reveal

that he's a Jew. Of course, Esther has not yet, but Mordecai lets him know, okay, I can't do that. I won't do that because this is who I am. These are who my people are. I'm a Jew. So verse five says, when Haman saw that Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage to him, Haman was filled with fury. And we kind of have a nice word play, by the way, in Hebrew here. So haman that's haman was haman it was that's a word for fury so haman was haman he was filled with fury this is probably because this is probably because he is so offended that the king's words are not being obeyed oh i'm sure yeah i'm sure it has nothing to do with his ego by the way that's one of the uh recurring themes of uh of esther's guy talk about somebody

full of themselves oh hayman man i'm surprised he can even walk his head is so big and heavy yeah hayman's not over there like listen man i don't care but it doesn't matter to me but just the king said you had to do it yeah this is just you're you're really honoring the king by bowing down and paying homage to me this is not about me listen people not about me this is all about honor and glory to to the king no hayman i mean he is uh this guy is full of himself big time and so he's yeah he's he's mad he's he's infuriated because mordecai will not bow down to him so what's he gonna do well i mean it seems to me like the uh the somewhat logical response would be to take out your anger upon the guy who wouldn't bow down to you i mean would that make

sense i mean somebody insults you in the street then uh you address it to that particular person you know you don't take on his family or his neighborhood or something like that but no that's not gonna work verse 6 says he disdained to lay hands on mordecai alone so as they had made known to him the people of mordecai haman sought to destroy to annihilate all the jews the people of mordecai throughout the whole kingdom of ahasuerus yeah that's that seems like a lot like that so he's uh he's like oh this guy's a jew i'll tell you what i don't want this sort of thing spreading let's just well then we'll kill all of them this yeah i know this is hard to take in it's like to to think of a person who is so infuriated because of what he what he deems

to be an insult to himself he's like you know what i'm not just going to kill this person i'm not going to kill just his family i'm going to kill every single person who is part of his people throughout not just not just in susa but throughout the entire persian kingdom we're just going to wipe out the entire jewish people yeah that's that's that's super weird like that you could wrap your head around i mean not like in a good way but you know uh if somebody did something to you you know horrible and you are an egomaniac you might be like i'm gonna i'm gonna kill you and i'm gonna kill your whole family uh so i'm welsh chad and uh what would be like really crazy if someone was like i hate you so i'm gonna kill you and your family i'm like well that seems like a

lot and every welsh person and you know what that's what do they what do they have to do with anything yeah so this is this is extreme uh in the extreme i can't imagine anything uh more extreme than this desire for revenge but that's haman i mean he uh he is the enemy of enemy of the jews so uh how's he gonna do this well verse seven says in the first month which is the month of nissan in the 12th year of king has worse so some time has gone on i mean this is this is five years later i mean as a reading through it it's like oh this happened the next month or something like that no so half a decade has passed in the first month they cast per and that is the word for for lot that is a cast lots and of course this is going to be this is this is all leading to the

festival of perim or perim however you want to say it which is the festival of lots so that's where we get the name of the festival that's going to come up later in the book of Esther as well so in the the first month they cast per that is they cast lots before Haman day after day and of course the casting of lots I mean we see that in the Old Testament that's the way they divided up the uh the various tribe tribal allotments of land to the tribes of Israel and you have casting allots all over the ancient Near East as a way of deciding what is going to be the you know the best uh best action or best gift or uh best plot of land or what the will of the gods might be so a lot of casting allots in in the ancient new east so here they're casting lots before haman

day after day and they keep doing it they cast it month after month till the 12th month which is the month of adar i don't know i'm not sure exactly how this they're just waiting for the most uh positive result from these casting allots they keep doing instead of doing it once they do it month after month after month, but whatever it might be, they keep doing this until they get to the 12th month, which is the month of Adar. And then Haman said to King Ahasuerus, and this is his speech, and notice what he does say and what he doesn't say. He says, there's a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom. their laws are different from those of every other people and they do not keep the king's laws

so that it is not to the king's profit to tolerate them if it pleased the king let it be decreed that they be destroyed and and here's how we know that haman was a rich man and i will pay 10 000 talents of silver into the hands of those who have charge of the king's business that they may put it into the king's treasuries so one of the things he doesn't say is there are jews right that's the way this starts out there's so there's a certain people uh and they're everywhere throughout your kingdom and the problem with these people hayman says is that they have different laws than all the other people and as a result of this they don't keep your laws they have their own laws they're trying to be their own people and by doing so they're actually undermining your authority

they're undermining your laws they're not keeping your laws and so it's not to your profit to put up with this so here's my solution i'm going to give you a bunch of money uh 10 10 000 talents of silver which is just an astronomical amount of silver so i'm going to give all this to you and let's just take these people out it'll be to your to your benefit to the benefit of the kingdom that they are annihilated. Yeah, it seems that he believes that if he went to the king and said, so there's this guy, and he just really won't bow down. I think I want to kill him.

I don't know if he doesn't think that would work, or maybe he's just so full of rage, he's like, well, maybe the king would let me get rid of this one guy, but I'm going to go way further than that. Obviously, he's got a... There's something about this that... almost sounds like the religious leaders talking to Pilate about Jesus. Where you're like, I have to manufacture why this thing is a threat to you, right?

I mean, this guy's calling himself a king. I mean, what are we going to do here? This is the same kind of thing. Yeah, that's a great parallel. I mean, it's a political move, right? You can't go to the king and say, hey, I've got a personal vendetta against this dude that I don't like. Because the king is probably going to be, well, why are you bothering me with this? Take care of it.

So he's got to couch the problem in terms of, it's not my problem. So I, hey, I don't have a problem. I mean, I'm looking out for your interest. I'm looking out for the interest not only of you as a king, but also of your kingdom. yeah and that's exactly what the religious establishment did with jesus they didn't go and say hey uh pilot we're really jealous of this rabbi from from galilee we don't like his we don't really like we don't like his teaching because pilot would have been like why are you wasting my time with this get out no they've got to present this in such a way that it seems a wise

political move on the part of pilot or in this case on the part of king it has your worst to deal with the issue decisively and of course i mean to pilot's credit at least he wants to know a little bit more and he digs a little bit he digs a little bit the uh this whole scenario and the king goes on to say you know yes to this but this whole scenario strikes me as as uh well of course it's telling about him but it's also telling about the king really the king doesn't even ask who are these people and how are the laws different from mine he does no investigation into this he's basically like oh yeah sounds good to me so uh i'll tell you what i'm gonna i'm gonna take off my signet ring which of course is the seal of uh of authority take off my signet

ring and i'm gonna give it to you which is what he did he gave it to haman the enemy of the jews And that's said explicitly in verse 10. And then the king says, the money is given to you and the people to do with them as seems good to you. So he's all on board. No questions asked. Talk about a dangerous implicit trust in one of your co-leaders of the kingdom. Not even specifying which people it is and just saying, yeah, well, you know, if that's what you want, go ahead and take care of it. Yeah, I do like this, the enemy of the Jews.

So he gave it to Haman, the enemy of the Jews, as if we didn't know. You're letting you know, like, hey, just say, no, this is the bad guy. The Bible does do this sometimes. It's like makes explicit something where you're like, yeah, we pretty much had that one figured out. It wants you to miss it. everything together it does seem like haman is indeed the enemy of enemy of the jews so we we uh we got to get this word out and that's basically what happens in the next section 12 to 15 the king scribes get all the scribes together on the 13th day of the first month and uh they had this edict

according to all that haman commanded it's written to all the leadership king say traps the governors of all the provinces to all the officials of all the people to every province in his own script and every people in their own language they're gonna make sure that everybody knows about this that's the same kind of description we had about queen vashti earlier right that gonna let everybody know what what she did and it was written in the name of the king sealed with the king's signet ring so i mean he's given hayman full authority here letters were sent by couriers to all the king's provinces, with instructions to, and this is heaping up of language here, not enough to destroy. To destroy, to kill, and to annihilate. Just in case, you know, we pull out our thesaurus here,

make sure you get all the verbs. You got to kill, you got to destroy, and you got to annihilate all the Jews, young and old, women and children, in one day, the 13th day of the 12th month, which is the month of Adar, and to plunder their goods. And a copy of that was, that copy of that decree was issued every province by proclamation to all the peoples to be ready for that day. And then we have this Persian pony express that we talked about a couple episodes ago. The couriers went out hurriedly by order of the king, and the decree was issued in Susa the citadel.

And the king and Haman, having done all this, said, you know what, we should just pour a drink. So, the king and Haman, they sat down, and they had a beer, or whiskey, or whatever they were having, but the city of Susa was thrown into confusion. Yeah, I imagine it was. I'm sure they were like, wait, we're doing what? You're kidding, right? I mean, this had to have struck most people as, this is like a sick joke, right? no, actually this was the king's decree and it's not only happening in the city of Sus, but it's going to happen in all the provinces

all over the kingdom one of the things that's interesting here too, like you bring up this Agai there is a, you don't know the motivations of Haman, of course but this is sort

of exactly what Saul was told to do to his people yeah, exactly what he was told to do to his people, which I think is is always going to be in the background of this story so when you know that story about the uh the need to what's the language here destroy kill and annihilate the amalekites that's what that's what saul was supposed to do right everybody including the king and saul of course didn't do that he took out some of them but he you know he saved the cattle he saved the king so uh now we have this descendant of the amalekites wanting to do the

exact same thing to all the jews to kill to annihilate to to destroy so history is coming back now where before you had two nations involved israel and the amalekites now it begins as two men you have mordecai and haman but it's going to spread it's going to spread from there so that's why saul should have went all the way yeah it should should should have gone all the way I mean, this part of the story, if nothing else, is a vivid reminder of how the evil of one person, in this case, Haman, can spread like a plague over vast regions of the world. I mean, that's really what's happened here. So from the wounded pride of one man and the hatred that resulted from this, you have this murderous plot that is going to spread throughout an entire kingdom. And then it's going to be, of course, resolved eventually by one person coming in to act in a very sacrificial sort of way in order to stem the tide of this evil.

I mean, that's a great example of that common theme that you see scattered throughout the Scriptures, which culminates in the Gospels themselves, where one man is going to be the one who is sacrificed in order to stem the tide of evil. So in that way, Esther is already preparing us for the Gospel that is to come. all right well we are out of time but uh we will find out next episode uh how esther feels about this uh when she gets word and and how she's going to choose to to play this but you have to wait till next week for that chad i will see you then all right see you then I'll see you next time.