40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Esther 9:1-10:3 (Episode 381)

Episode Date: October 5, 2023

Chad and Daniel wrap up the book of Esther in this episode. The Jews rise up and defeat their enemies. A feast day is inaugurated. And Mordecai becomes greater and greater. Have a listen. Show Notes: Support 1517 1517 Podcasts The 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 on Youtube What's New from 1517: 2023 HWSS Conference Livestream Signup Free 2023 Advent Resources 2024(May 3-4) NWA Tickets are Now Available! Join the 1517 Academy All Charges Dropped, Vol. 2 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 and check out all the other podcasts that are living over there while you're over there. Make sure you register for the Here We Still Stay in regional event in Bentonville, Arkansas. That's the first weekend in May. You know you want to come to the Ozarks in the spring. It's a great time. It's a great town. Chad will be there. I'll be there. A whole bunch of other people will be there. We're going to be talking about grace and peace in Christ. Only in Christ. In Christ, got that grace and peace. Not in Christ, no sir. You do not have

that grace and peace. We're going to be talking about that. So there's a link in the show notes, and you can just click on that, and you can get registered, or you can go over to 1517.org. Go to the events page and scroll until you find that particular event. Get registered up. We'd love to see you there. It does sell out every year, so if you want to go, don't think about it too long, you know, just do it. Chad, we are in Esther chapter 9, gonna finish Esther one way or another this episode. We've got 9, and then the shortest chapter, and like all the Bible, maybe. We got a three-verse chapter on the heels of that, so we're not going to save that for its own episode. We're going to go ahead and do both of these chapters today. We kind of ended with Haman

getting hung on his own gallows. He's out of the picture. And the Jews, of course, they still got this decree out there because they have this horrific system in place where once a decree goes out, you can't just say, you know what, we're going to void that. I don't know if that means that, you know, it's like the Pope. Once you say it, that's the way it is. That's what it is. I don't know how just issuing another decree that is sort of opposite of that decree doesn't do the same thing by basically letting everyone know that you didn't like that first decree, but whatever. That's what they have to do. So he sends out the decree that says that, hey, these Jews are going to be able to defend themselves, so think long and hard

how you want to pursue this decree. And that's kind of where we ended. Mordecai's, you know, going around, people are loving him. He's being honored and basically has Haman's job now, and people like him. And so now we're going to see how does this shake out with the Jews and their enemies. The major enemy, Haman, he's done, but now we got another problem, sort of the final piece of this puzzle. Yeah, Haman's been the main focus of the antagonism so far, well, really through the whole story but we learn in the opening verses of of esther 9 that there are also some others out there well we're so you mentioned we're done with hayman he has a bunch of sons too so we we're going to hear about uh their uh well for them not a happy ending

in in just a few minutes but we also hear in these opening verses about those who hated the jews so that's the end of verse one the jews gained mastery over those who hated them and then the next verse mentions those who sought their harm and these would have been not only here in in the capital susa but scattered throughout all the provinces that uh we've talked about in earlier episodes so whatever the source of this widespread deep-seated antagonism was it was out there so So Haman just happens to be the kind of the representative Jew-hater, I mean, for lack of a better term, in the narrative so far. But yeah, there's a whole bunch of people out there. And evidently, when they heard about this decree, they thought, oh, great, now it's our chance to take our revenge out legally.

I mean, this is like state-sponsored or at least state-okayed pogrom that was going to be against the Jews. so yeah like you mentioned uh you can't undecree something and so you just add another decree and these are gonna really not cancel each other out but at least we'll give the jews the legal means whereby to defend themselves and in defending themselves also to go on the offensive against those who hated them and who and who sought their harm so we're going to see a lot of warfare a lot of bloodshed and uh we're going to have another exchange between esther and the king also after the first day of fighting is over so anyway let's get to it uh first of all we have a long uh date that's set here to make sure that we understand that this is coming up on that date

that was decided early on by by haman when he was casting lots the 12th month which is the month of adar on the 13th day of the same so it's finally come when the king's command and edict were about to be carried out on the very day when the enemies of the jews hope to gain mastery over them so this is an old setup on that day when all the enemies were wanting to be victorious over the jews and we have this beautiful phrase and this this phrase is in a sense a a summary statement that captures the whole essence of the story of esther the reverse occurred so on this day on this month when this decree was go go into place when the enemies of the jews were were hoping to gain mastery over the jews the reverse occurred and i think that really i mean that sums up everything

we've been talking about especially in the last episode about the reversal that happened with Haman he gets hung on the very gallows that he constructed for Mordecai the very thing and earlier than that the very thing that he hoped to gain for himself to be honored by the king he is forced to give to Mordecai as it leads him through the streets so there's been all kinds of reversals where when evil thought it was going to have the upper hand it ended up being destroyed by the very thing that it had planned so it falls into the very pit which it dug haman ends up being hung from the same gallows that he constructed so here the reverse is going to occur and the reverse is this and this is the end of chapter end of verse one the jews gained mastery over those who hated

them so here's what here's what's described verse two the jews gathered in their cities throughout all the provinces of king ahasuerus to lay hands on those who sought their harm and no one could stand against them for the fear of them had fallen on all peoples and then verse 3 continues this all the officials of the provinces and the satraps and the governors and the royal agents also helped the jews for the fear of mordecai had fallen on them for mordecai was great in the king's house and his fame spread throughout all the provinces for the man mordecai grew and grew more and more powerful then verse 5 the jews struck all their enemies with the sword killing and destroying them as they and did as they pleased to those

who hated them in susa the citadel itself the jews killed and destroyed 500 men and also killed And then we have a whole list of names here, which I won't read, uh, Parshandatha and Dalfon and others. And these are the, these are some of the enemies of the Jews. And then verse 10 says the 10 sons of Haman, the son of, I got to back up here. Those are the 10 sons, right? Um, let's see. uh three four five six seven yes it is okay okay good yeah i mean you got it and also killed and i won't read these names but these are the 10 sons of haman the son

the son of hamadatha so the 10 sons of haman also were killed and then haman is identified once more as the enemy of the jews and then at the very end of this paragraph we have a statement that's going to come up i think a couple more times here where it says they did all of this but what they didn't do is they didn't lay hands on any of any of the plunder and we can talk about that in a minute as well but that's what goes down on this day that was supposed to be according to hayman's plan for the destruction of the jews so that all those who hated them would be able to legally take them out the opposite happens and the jews were able to stand up against these enemies and actually to gain mastery over those who had wanted to gain mastery over them

So this is like the full reversal. A partial reversal or like a thwarting would be, all right, I'm telling the Jews they can defend themselves. Maybe I'm even going to give them the arms to do so. So if anyone attacks you, you feel free to take these weapons that we've supplied and any weapons that you have of yourself and you defend yourself. That's like the plan is thwarted. The great reversal is, no, the Jews go on the offense against the people that hate them. They're showing up at your house now. Yeah, this continues kind of in a bigger and broader scale, exactly what happened between Mordecai and Haman.

So this is like, you say you have Haman, the guy who hates the Jews. You have Mordecai, the Jew. Okay, that focus of those two individuals is now kind of universalized, as it were. Now you have all the Hamanites, we might call them, and all the Mordecaits, we might say. So Haman had all these people who, like him, hated the Jews. And, well, they are the ones who end up being mastered instead of mastering. And then the end of that, verse 10, where it says they laid no hand on the plunder, we're not told why that is significant but it's mentioned three times so evidently this was

something that the writer wanted to get across to us my suspicion is that it was emphasized in order not to kind of get the impression that the jews were just simply out to enrich themselves yeah it's like uh we're like vikings going around plundering to uh just to gain stuff yeah this is uh sort of uh some righteous war or some just war kind of stuff like on a much smaller scale right so not showing up uh and fighting you because you know i want to take your house and your livestock and all the goods out of your storehouse it's not it's not anything to do with that it has to do with the fact that you want to kill my family and so i'm going to make sure that you can't do that because you also have this you know it's i don't know this but

this seems like they are killing men so like it doesn't seem like they are going to people's house isn't, like, obliterating entire households, but it says, like, they killed 500 men. Now, sometimes, of course, the Bible only counts the men, and they don't say anything about women and stuff, but I kind of read this as that's what it is. It's like, the men who hate us, we're going to remove that threat. They are actually—because they are a threat not just to our men, but to our wives and our children and this kind of stuff. And so, I think—you can tell me if you read this differently chad but i i see it as they they killed a lot of men um i don't think it doesn't seem to me that they went and killed a lot of women and children and it also doesn't seem like

they impoverished them um in the sense of they didn't take all their stuff either no yeah that's it's very accurate i mean it's pretty uh so a lot of the critics of esther of the story itself you know will point to this as uh like a kind of a wholesale slaughter like the jews were just like just out to kill people you know no better than that it's sometimes uh even couched in the rhetoric of what they did was no better than what hayman intended to do now you can't get that from from the story itself i mean there's there's limits that are indicated in the story itself so first of all these were these were men there's no mention whatsoever of women and children being killed and secondly all these were their enemies and they were the enemies who actually hated them

and sought to harm them and so you can certainly describe this as in as an offense on the part of the jews but it's only an offense it's prompted by the necessity of a defense right so it wasn't like they just came up with this plan hey you know what there's a lot of people that would like to kill us so let's just go out and kill them first you know this was this is entirely in response to what was begun by hayman and you know like we've talked about there were there was still the decree that said on such and such a day you can take out the jews yeah so you've got two decrees you got in both decrees one side that is given the legal recourse to go on the offense or to go into the defense and so of course you're going to have the necessity of the jews taking out those who

wanted to take them out instead for their very for their very survival there is a saying uh this is mostly a sports saying, but I think it applies to this as well. The best defense is a good offense. And what this means is that sometimes you don't have to play defense if you just take them out offensively. And yeah, so you can do, what are you going to do here? You can say, well, there's a bunch of guys, at least 500, that want us dead. And we can wait around and see if they show up at our houses or our properties,

you know one by one or five by five whatever just be ready for it or you can just say like we're not willing to do that i'm not gonna i'm not gonna let them have like the element of surprise or like they're gonna dictate where this happens we're just gonna go and eliminate this threat that's what we're gonna do like this is a threat we're gonna eliminate it we're not gonna kill women we're not gonna kill children we're not gonna take their stuff uh we're just defending our our property our families and we're defending it by going and removing the threat and so you're doing offense and defense at the same time here by saying I don't really want you

showing up at my house where my family is I mean that makes total sense to me I mean if you find out someone is planning or 10 guys or 100 guys are planning to show up at your house kill your whole family you might get all your friends together be like I'd rather

not fight that battle at my house where my family is I mean that's just that's just what you would do I would think and so wise tactical decision Yeah, that's what I would do. I'd be like, I'm not really interested in my family being involved in this if I can get out in front of it. And then you also have this, which is interesting, more reversal stuff. The governors and the officials, they're like, what do you need? Let us help you out. yeah they they chose sides right yeah listen okay i got this decree on the one hand i got this decree saying the jew haters can kill the jews okay on the other hand i got this decree

saying the jews can defend themselves and it turns out the the new prime minister is a jew and the queen is a jew hmm i wonder what the best political moves i feel like these officials were like hey uh do you guys need a list of the people that were planning on carrying this out because i got one some spears swords uh shields anything we will uh here's the key to my armory yeah they gave him a they gave him a uh a hit list and uh yeah and full access to the storehouses of weapons yeah interesting here i forgot to point this out so back in verse two it says the fear of them had fallen on all peoples uh i was like that that sounds like something that uh would be said a reference to like egypt for instance so i did a quick search and turns out it does so in in psalm

105 it says uh psalm 105 38 says egypt was glad when they that is israel departed for the fear of them or the dread of them had fallen upon it so it's the idea there that okay you got egypt and this dread of israel this prompted of course by the god of israel had fallen upon the egyptians And so they're, like, happy when the Israelites leave. That's a perfect parallel to what's going on here, where you have those who sought to put the Israelites to death kind of paralleling the Egyptians. Fear falls upon them because, of course,

they realize that God is with them. Yeah, and they know this because, like, look at how, you know, this is relatively quickly, this is, like, totally the power has shifted. This is the tides have turned, right? And, like, the people know it. The officials know it. The governors know it. Mordecai is, like, going through the streets, you know,

being second in command of everything. At this point, they probably know. It's probably, like, common knowledge that as Haman's, like, hanging off his gallows, that, like, the queen is a Jew. I mean, the tides have turned, man. like this is like if you're not if you're just like in self-preservation mode if you're just a regular person who wasn't like a jew hater you're like i'm with the jews if you're an official you're like i'm with the jews why uh well because the king is married to one and he seems really like

her and his second in command is one and the prime uh you know like a double plus jew hater is hanging from gallows uh that are 75 foot tall yeah i think it's safe to say you don't want to be on that side of this yeah yeah they don't have to be expert politicians to realize now that is the winning team from here on out yeah so that's the first 10 verses uh then we have a conversation that takes place so verse 11 says that very day the number of those killed in susa the citadel was reported to the king and the king then turns to queen esther and says uh in susa the citadel the jews have killed and destroyed 500 men and also the 10 sons of haman it doesn't stop there it's like he's letting her know then he says basically what do you think we should do next

what then have they done in the rest of the king's promises so what's your wish it should be granted to you what further is your request it shall be fulfilled now this is kind of a strange statement on the part of the king i mean first of all it's hard to read the tone it's hard to understand the tone in which he says this i mean is he is he surprised uh is he upset is he happy it seems to me that he's kind of uh there's a bit of maybe happy is too strong a word to use but uh a sense of satisfaction like hey do you hear took out 500 jew haters in the citadel uh what do you think we should do next i don't know that's a that's a tone that i hear it kind of almost a an eagerness on his part to see what she's going to suggest should be the next step well i think

that probably uh of course you know i mean the ego on a king like this is enormous but still you know this is his wife and he's into her and you know he he we've pointed this out throughout the entire book like he comes across looking like hayman played him like yeah and he doesn't and I'm sure he doesn't love this. His wife had to reveal to him that his right-hand guy was playing him like a flute, dude. And so I think part of this certainly comes across to me as him saying, look, I did this other decree, and yeah, it's going great. So my plan worked.

What do you want to do now? What should we do now? So this is a sort of – is there an eagerness there for him to sort of redeem himself in the eyes of his wife that he's not a fool, that he is not one that can be played so easily, that sort of stuff? That's what it seems to me, that he's like, what else do you want for me to show you that whatever you need done, I can get done? because I feel I don't know like regardless how big your ego is

by what played out last episode there's no way for you to not feel diminished I mean he's enraged he's upset I mean he's hanging Haman from the gallows

and all that stuff but there's there's no way for him to not feel like why did my wife have to uncover this yeah he hasn't

the whole story has not painted him in any kind of positive colors I mean I mean throughout the entire thing he always has to turn to other other people for uh advice what do you think i should do you know so his first wife you know won't come out and stroll around and show off

her beauty and he's all upset and so his counselors have to tell him what to do and then hayman tricks him into this and then esther has to reveal the plot and you know even here he's like uh he doesn't make a decision he's not like you know what we should do next is this he's turning to her so yeah he's a he's a bit of a a pitiful character throughout the whole story but here he's trying to redeem himself a little bit get on the good side of the queen if your wife found out that like your guy was trying to kill her whole family because you said he could you might you might have some like making up to do like you might you might have to ask her what do you want what else do you want anything else you want because like i feel like i kind of

owe you one for because i did i kind of stepped in it here and that's that's what it seems like for all the husbands out there yeah like this is a pretty big blunder in your marriage dude where you're like i sanctioned the murder of like all of your relatives yeah well i want to go out of your way to make your wife happy for a while yeah and you might be like it was an accident i didn't know and she'd be like that's because you're a moron but instead of beginning her answer with you moron she no she's smart she's smart she knows this guy's still got an ego she's smarter isn't that yeah yeah so if it pleased the king that's the way she starts out verse 13 so i mean i'm just kind of going to leave this in your court but if you're happy with this let me suggest

that uh let the jews who are in susa be allowed tomorrow also to do according to this day's edict and let the 10 sons of haman be hanged on the gallows they're already dead so they were killed in the the day's fighting so they're already out they're not going to be hanged as it as it were put to executed but their bodies will be suspended just like their dad had been so uh that's her basically her proposal is hey today went really well let's do the same tomorrow she's not she's not exactly over it is she no i don't think so i think she still has uh she still wants to make sure the threat is eliminated entirely.

There's only so many hours in a day for taking out your enemies, so we're going to add another day to make sure we get even more. This is like a two-step plan here. So first, this is how this usually goes in something like this. It's eliminate the threat.

Are you done? No, no, no. Now make an example. Yeah, yeah. The second day is the making the example day. yes for sure gonna hang the 10 sons on this uh this big pole that be seen all over the city where hayman's body is is probably still still hanging uh and so his 10 sons are going to be up there too while the king commanded this to be done a decree was issued in susa 10 sons of hayman

were suspended up there and the jews verse 15 the jews who were in susa gathered also on the 14th the day of the month of Adar, and they killed 300 guys in Susa. And then we're told once more what they didn't do. They laid no hands on the plunder. A lot of guys dead in Susa. I mean, we got 500 here, 300 here. So a lot of dead bodies of a lot of Jew haters,

those who wished them harm, those who plotted against them, those who wanted to take them out, instead are taken out themselves so evil gets destroyed evil ends up falling on its own sword here gets destroyed by by its own evil evil plan which i love i mean we brought this up before but it's a it's such a great uh perpetual theme in the scriptures where those who think they're going to take out god's people are taken out by their very own plans uh this is it's a story after story you see this and uh it just it's a it's a wonderful uh tracing of a theme that finds

its ultimate fulfillment in the cross so uh here you have once more this this uh destruction of evil by evil uh arising in the story buster so verse 16 now the rest of the jews who were in the king's provinces so we've just been hearing about what happened in susan the rest of the jews were in the king's provinces also gathered to defend their lives and got relief from their enemies and killed you ready for this dan i'm ready 75 000 75 000 of those who hated them but and you could probably already guess what they didn't do they laid no hands on the plunder that's a big number it's a big number man you know this is like so many of the numbers in scripture you don't know what to do with them you know we've seen this so many times over the course

of the of the episodes uh it's obvious i mean the first thing we i think everybody has to agree on is that it is uh not to be taken literally why do you really think i mean it so those who would like press the literal number so there weren't they didn't kill like 74,999 right at yeah 75 000 didn't kill 75 000 in one so i mean we can all agree that the number is is uh rounded the the real question is i mean how literal is this to be taken sometimes you think about okay like 75 000 people die like that's like that happens in wars it happens in modern wars like with like guns and and uh when there's like the population's not the same man like it's it's different like the 75 000 is a lot of people at any time 75 000 is an an insane amount of people

at this time i mean so many people and these aren't just like persian citizens i mean these are specifically again people who would have been plotting against the jews and going on the offensive against the jews that the jews defend themselves against so anyway what however you want to take the number uh 75 000 is what is what's present here in the text i think you're supposed to understand that they killed a lot of people yeah that's the way that i take these numbers there were a lot of folks out there that tried to attack the jews instead were attacked by the jews and ended up losing their lives but just like happened in the capital so also in the provinces they didn't take the plunder they weren't out to just uh line their pockets with the stuff

from the people they had killed they were only out to defend themselves this silver 17 this was on the 13th day of the month of Adar. And on the 14th day, they rested. I bet they did. They rested and made that day a day of feasting and gladness. So this is going to come up again. I mean, this is the whole story of Esther, of course, is behind the festival of Purim or Purim. And so this is going to emerge then as the etiology. This is the explanation of why you feast, why you exchange gifts while you're glad while you party on on this particular feast but to get there first of all you have to do something with the dates here so verse 18 says the jews who were in susa where esther was and where mordecai were they gathered on the 13th day and on the 14th day and rested on the 15th day

and made that a day of feasting and gladness so if you were in the capital then you you engaged in this fight on the 13th and 14th and then on the 15th is when you had your feast and you were glad but if you were in the provinces then you did your battle on the the 13th and then you rested and you feasted and you had this party on the 14th so we got we got two different kinds of celebrations going on here so verse 19 says therefore the jews of the villages those who lived out in the country they hold the 14th day of the month of dar as a day for gladness and feasting as a holiday and as a day on which they send gifts of food to to one another the reason this is important is this going to kind of set up uh the the verses that follow because you got to

kind of get you got to get the feast kind of universally celebrated the same sort of way that's that's going to bring up the next issue that we we encounter here so verse 20 says that mordecai recorded these things and sent letters to all the jews who were in all the provinces of king ahasuerus near and far so he when he says he recorded these things i don't think it's not talking about writing the book of esther it's just probably i'm guessing there was some short summation of the events that had transpired so you know the book of esther in brief so here's what happened i'm going to put this in this letter i'm going to send it out everywhere near and far and mordecai was obliging them to keep the 14th day of the month of badar and also the 15th day

of the same year by year as the days on which the jews got relief from their enemies and as the month that had been turned for them from sorrow into gladness and from mourning into a holiday there's that great reversal going on once more that they should make them days of feasting and gladness days for sending gifts of food to one another and gifts to gifts to the poor so more or less mordecai sends out these letters and says hey why don't we celebrate two days yeah so yeah it this has been an issue in in different uh different ways throughout the years with christians too there was a time when well it was still like this i mean when are we going to celebrate easter right this is there's a if you're in the if you're in non-orthodox traditions you

celebrate it one time and then if you're in the orthodox tradition you celebrate another time and so the the whole celebration of different days is not just something that's restricted here to to mordecai's time that's something that's been debated in other other centuries as well but they have kind of come up with a plan we're going to celebrate two days 14th and 15th wherever you're and make sure we have a uniform calendar celebration of Purim. So the Jews accepted what they had started to do and what Mordecai had written to them. And then we have a kind of a summary statement here

of the events that have transpired. Verse 24 says, For Haman the Agagite, the son of Hamadathah, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them and had cast Pur, P-U-R, that is cast lots that's the persian word to crush and to destroy them but when it came before the king he gave orders and writing that his evil plan that he had devised against the jews should

return on his own head and that he and his son should be hanged on the gallows therefore they call these days perim or perim after the term per therefore because of all that was written in this letter and of all they had faced in this matter and of all that had happened to them the jews firmly obligated themselves and their offspring and all who joined them that without fail they would keep these two days according to what was written and at the time appointed every year that these days should be remembered and kept throughout every generation in every clan province and city that these days of Purim should never fall into disuse among the Jews never nor should the commemoration of these days cease among their descendants basically just a long section there

that briefly recounts the reason behind the celebration and the days on which they are to celebrate it. And the reason, I think, probably was, first of all, to keep uniformity, and secondly, to just explain why this non-Mosaic festival is being celebrated in the first place. I mean, this is not something, of course, obviously that Moses instituted back in the Torah

because the whole reason for it being celebrated didn't happen. But most of your celebrations, at least in the Bible themselves, are of a Mosaic origin. They're in the Torah themselves. So it's a new celebration, and so they're trying to get everybody to celebrate it the same way and understand why they celebrate it as well. Kind of a weird thing to celebrate, right? I mean, it's not, but imagine we had a day where we—

this is the day where we killed 75,000 guys. Everyone gets a day off. We have, like, sort of, you know, Fourth of July. you celebrate your independence and stuff but you get like narrowed down and get like real specific here you know like this is the days like where we really slaughtered a lot of people uh not where we declared our freedom or anything so just different back then man yeah yeah i do love the name so the name is ironic so you're calling it parim after the lots that hayman cast to determine the day on which the slaughter was to take place and so the lots themselves are iconic at least originally

were iconic of the evil intent that haman intended against the jews but they are even though that has all this negativity attached to it the jews themselves embraced that in this ironic sort of way and said you know what we're actually going to call this festival where all of your evil plans were reversed after the lots that you cast to destroy us it's a little rub your nose in it right there oh yeah yeah i was thinking in that way it's it's it's like the cross i mean you take christians all the time i mean we wear crosses we paint crosses we have crosses all in our churches we have holy cross day good friday could be called cross day so we're not ashamed of the cross even though the cross of course historically was a roman instrument of execution so what was intended

to be the destruction of the messiah actually we embrace that in this ironic sort of way because it is the the place where our redemption took place so a cool connection there between this festival and that other great reversal that takes place well that's where christ destroys death by his own death yeah that's what's awesome about good friday is that good friday is the the day that you know where we recognize that uh god was put to death on this particular friday and we come along and say yeah we're gonna call that good friday yeah what like where your god was murdered yeah yeah yeah it's it's kind of like uh they could call this good parim in the sense those lots were they were supposed to be bad but well we worship a god who uh specializes in taking evil

conceived against us and then turning that back on the very ones who intended to perpetrate the evil yep wrapping up this chapter queen esther the daughter of avahel and mordecai the jew gave full written authority confirming this second letter about parim letters were sent to all the jews to the 127 provinces in words of peace and truth that these days of parim should be observed at their appointed seasons as mordecai the jew and queen esther obligated them and as they had obligated themselves and their offspring with regard to their fast and their limiting the command of esther confirmed these practices of parim and it was recorded in writing so more or less you got uh you get the twofold authority you got uh the queen and you got mordecai the prime

minister the grand vizier both saying hey this is what we're going to do and presumably then it was universalized and made uniform uniform practice among the jews way back when of course it's still celebrated by uh by jews today all right now for this super super long chapter astor 10 i have no idea why uh someone along the way in history thought that you know what these three verses need to be their own chapter but here we are i guess uh 10 chapter just sounds better than nine it's a good good biblical number so anyway esther chapter 10 wrapping everything up king ahasuerus imposed tax on the land and on the coastlands of the sea and all his acts of power and might in the full account of the high honor of mordecai to which the king advanced him are

they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of media and persia it sounds very much like a line we would see in first and second kings how many times you know if you want to know more check out the chronicles of the kings of kings of israel but this here is the kings of media and persia for last verse for mordecai the jew was second in rank to king ahasuerus And he was great among the Jews and popular with the multitude of his brothers, for he sought the welfare of his people and spoke peace to all his people. So this is he, along with Esther, fall into a significant list of Jews over the centuries, beginning with Joseph and then continuing into this intertestamental period with guys like Daniel. who were placed by god in high positions of power away from the land of israel precisely in order that his people might have friends in high places basically you know through joseph he saved not

only the egyptians but his own family through the work of daniel he brought a lot of good things to to the jews there in babylon and of course through esther and mordecai he was able actually to save his people from the threat that was leveled against them. So God's not mentioned in the book of Esther, but he's all over the place. He's between every line because he's the one who is putting his own people in these positions of power and authority in order that he can use them to reverse the evil intended against the Jews. And so in the end, yeah, God might not be mentioned, but the whole story is impossible without him being embedded in the narrative of itself. Yeah, man. And that's it, man. We did it in 40 minutes. We were able to get through

9 and 10. That is the book of Esther. And so next week, we will be moving on to a real positive story that is very encouraging, the story of Job. We'll get into that next episode. Hey, make sure you go over and register for the regional event. It happens in May. You want to make sure to get those tickets before they sell out. There's a link in the show notes. Make sure you do that. Chad, I will see you next week for Job. All right. See you then.