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Home Group – Esther and Mordecai Pt 1

by | Wed, Jul 31 2013

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Esther (Es’tair) & Mordecai (Mor’dekh’aye) Pt 1

Esther is the Persian name given to a young Jewish girl whose real name was Hadassah which is a very common Hebrew name which means ‘flowering myrtle’, a beautiful tree in Israel. The name Esther is simply the Persian word for ‘star’ but it comes from the root word ‘satar’ or ‘seter’ which both mean to ‘hide or conceal’, which means the name Esther means ‘I am a hiding place’ or ‘something hidden’.

 

Hadassah was probably given the name Esther when she was taken into the royal Persian court in much the same way as Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, were given the Babylonian names; Beltashazzar, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego when they were in training to serve king Nebuchadnezzar.

 

The name Mordecai is not of Jewish origin and it may be that a certain amount of assimilation had taken place among the Jewish captives and they gave Persian names to their children, Mordecai being one of them. This name means ‘little man’ or ‘worshipper of Marduk or Mars’.

 

The name Mordecai has come to be very widely respected and adopted by Jewish people because of this heroic character in the book of Esther and for the most part, is basically a favourite Jewish name today in the same way Esther is a favourite Jewish name.

 

The stories of Esther and Mordecai can be read in the book of Esther which is 10 chapters long, only 167 verses in total. On the historical timeline this account took place during the reign of king Ahasuerus between 486-465 BC at the height of the Persian Empire. It took place between the 1st and 2nd waves of Jewish returns from Babylon back to Jerusalem. Both Esther and Exodus show just how rabidly foreign powers tried to commit genocide against the Jewish race and how God sovereignly protected and blessed His chosen people while bringing destruction on their enemies…against all odds!

 

Esther and Mordecai were niece and uncle and he raised her as if she was his own daughter.

 

The cast of characters involved in the account as told in the book of Esther are Esther, Mordecai, Ahasuerus and Haman and the first part of the story is as follows.

 

King Ahasuerus threw a party and tried to make a spectacle of his wife – Queen Vashti – because of her great beauty and she refused to allow him to humiliate her in front of all his fawning subjects and guests. It’s believed that what he actually wanted her to do, was strip naked before them and understandably, she wasn’t willing. In his drunken anger at being disobeyed and at the advice of his male advisors, he vanquished Vashti to teach all the women of the empire about the consequences of disobeying their husbands. (Est 1:1-22)

 

Once he came to realise the gravity of his actions he very much missed his wife and his pride wouldn’t allow him to admit his error, so his advisors counselled him to search for a new queen among his realm and so the command went out for the most beautiful women of the empire to be brought to the king to undergo loads of beauty treatments and one by one they would be presented to the king and whichever one he liked the best he would choose to marry. (Est 2:1-4)

 

Hadassah was an extremely beautiful young woman and a very gracious woman as well. She became the immediate favourite of the eunuch in charge of the ‘harem’ and received excellent treatment and when she was eventually sent to the king, he was enchanted with her and she was chosen to become his new queen. (Est 2:5-18)

 

When she was taken into the harem, her uncle Mordecai went to the palace everyday to see how she was faring and he was the one who warned her to keep her Jewishness secret. Why? The answer should be obvious. The Jews had suffered persecution and oppression from many different people throughout their history and rather than risk attacks or even murder, they kept their heritage private in order to stay safe. (Est 2:10-11)

 

One day when Mordecai was waiting near the palace, he overheard some conspirators plotting the murder of the king and he informed Esther about it who in turn sent the warning to the king and the conspirators were arrested and executed. Thus, Mordecai saved the kings life. (Est 2:21-23)

 

While all this was going on, Haman, a long-standing hater of the Jewish people rose in rank within the Persian court until he was the kings ‘right-hand man’ or Prime Minister, and he loved parading through the streets of the capital where the populace would bow in homage to him. That is all but Mordecai and it drove Haman mad that this one stubborn Jew refused to bow the knee to him. (Est 3:1-5)

 

So he came up with a plan to not only murder Mordecai, but to slaughter every Jew living within the Persian Empire and he got the approval for this genocide by convincing king Ahasuerus that this particular group of people within the empire were subversive, dangerous and disrespectful because they didn’t obey Persian law, they only obeyed their ‘own’ specific laws, which was a complete lie. Haman also promised the king that this deal would boost his financial coffers as well. Of course, the Jews did obey Persian law, they simply obeyed their Judaistic laws as much as was possible while in exile, but they were not in the least bit subversive, this was simply Haman’s con-job to legally commit mass murder. (Est 3:6-12)

 

When Mordecai became aware of their plight, he put on sackcloth and ashes and mourned publicly over the imminent slaughter of his people and when Esther heard about Mordecai’s demonstrations, she sent word for him to stop as she was worried about what might happen to him. Mordecai sent word back to Esther about all that Haman had orchestrated against the Jews because being hidden away in the palace, she had no idea what Haman had ordered, and Mordecai ordered Esther to go to the king and beg him to reverse his edict. (Est 4:1-8)

 

What Mordecai was asking of Esther was no small request. Persian law dictated that no one, no matter who they might be, was permitted to simply present themselves into the king’s presence without first being summoned by the king. To do so carried the death penalty. Why this law even existed I don’t know, but this was Persian law in that day. If the king raised his sceptre to the intruder he would be permitted to live, but if he didn’t, then execution was certain. So Mordecai’s request of Esther was a very probably a death sentence for her, particularly since the king hadn’t had any interest in seeing her for an entire month. (Est 4:10-11)

 

Mordecai once again responded to Esther’s very real fears by assuring her that she would die anyway if Haman’s law was actually carried out and simply being in the palace would not protect her. The law applied to every Jew in the Persian Empire of which she was one. This is when Mordecai said that most famous line, “And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?” (Est 4:13-14)

 

Realising that she was doomed to die anyway because of the edict against the Jews, Esther was convinced that she would have to risk the wrath of the king, but she called for the Jews in the capital of Susa to join in a fast with her and her maids for 3 days and then she would present herself to the king. This is when she said her most famous line, “And thus I will go in to the king, which is not according to the law; and if I perish, I perish.” (Est 4:16)

 

Mordecai was a well-respected leader within the Jewish community and he’d raised Esther well, so he knew that what he was asking of her could very well result in her death. I don’t imagine that it was an easy thing for him to ask of his daughter, but he also knew that if she didn’t approach the king she would be killed as a result of this edict regardless of where she lived. She would die one way or another, at least taking the option of appealing to the king might bring about a means of escape and as he pointed out to her, the sovereignty of God may very well have been behind her rise to royalty so that she would be in a position to save her people.

 

Esther was quite probably terrified. As a Persian subject she knew very well what had happened to Queen Vashti; so she knew that being a queen was no guarantee of protection where the king and Persian law was concerned. She knew that the result of her unapproved approach of the king would more than likely result in her death. She was very brave to do what she did, but she didn’t do it without spiritual preparation as she, her maids and the Jews in the capital Susa, all fasted for 3 days. She made no move without first seeking and petitioning God.

 

God may not have been mentioned in the book of Esther by name, but He is most definitely seen in His sovereignty throughout the entire book. Without doubt, God leads and directs by His sovereign will, the affairs of men and for those of us who know and love Him, it’s comforting to know that all our days are in His hands and He determines the direction our lives.

 

Shalom

Mandy