Bible Women: Esther: The God of Extremes

and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this? Esther 4:14b

and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish. Esther 4:16b

Life is Not a Chance

The extremes in this book have an eerie note.

One is the extreme feast which it opens with. It lasts for over three months. And king Ahasuerus’ empire stretched from India to Ethiopia!

The king’s major purpose was to show off “the riches of his glorious kingdom and the honour of his excellent majesty’s.” Showing off for God’s glory is not a crime, because all things come from him. But showing off for no other purpose than to satisfy one’s ego is bad and it rarely ends well.

So queen Vashti went to bed one night as a queen but the following morning she had lost her throne. 

And of course the other extreme is the rise of Esther to the throne to replace her as queen. It is fast and seamless. The favour which attends her every move is extreme.

And Esther obtained favour in the sight of all them that looked upon her. 2:15b.

And the king loved Esther above all the women, and she obtained grace and favour in his sight more than all the virgins; so that he set the royal crown upon her head, and made her queen instead of Vashti. Est 2:17.

A striking similarity with Ruth is her quiet demeanor. She doesn’t protest to her handlers. She does everything as she’s directed. She trusts because she knows her fate is not in her hands. “My times are in thine hand,” cried the psalmist, and so we cry with him too.

Haman’s Pride and Fall

Next is the extreme hate of one man over a whole race of people because of his pride.

He had just been promoted in the kingdom and that power run amok in his head. Everybody in the empire bowed to him except one man. And in his anger for that one man he condemned a whole race to extinction. His malevolence is shocking. His pride reaches to the clouds. Can something like that happen to a man in our day?

But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play. 1Co 10:5-7. 

So we meet Haman, the over boisterous and overbearing “enemy of the Jews”. God’s favour is extreme, but so is his anger.   

The Providence and Sovereignty of God

The other quiet extreme in the book is that there is no mention of God by name anywhere in it.

Though he is hardly mentioned by name, but his signature mark is felt throughout. It is marked in his providence and sovereign acts.

He walks and enters the rooms without notice. But when we draw near he is gone. He leaves the house, but his shadow stays long after he has left. Thus we hide our sorrows, and publish our joys because God is forever in our midst. Is he in your house yet? Open the doors and look again.

And that brings this small book’s suspense to the extreme!

Mordecai, on the other hand, tears his clothes when he hears about Haman’s plot. He is madly grieved, and his courage tears through the roof of heaven. There is no sleeping, and there is no respite but death.

So Esther quietly comes to her “a time like this” moment. The die is cast. The cudgels come down. And few scenes of the Bible can hold up to suspense like this.

The King agrees to see her. He can’t resist. He tries to sleep but he can’t. He tries to think but we know it is God thinking through him, “The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will” (Pro 21:1).  

God hides behind the clouds, but his shadow traverses the whole earth. Tomorrow comes, and the second banquet is here. And Haman, not Mordecai, ends up in the gallows Haman himself had prepared for Mordecai, while Mordecai is promoted to Haman’s place!

Can God really master such irony? Of course he does, and much more! So the Jews are spared from extinction. It wasn’t the first time. And it won’t be the last.  

And he saved them from the hand of him that hated them, and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy. Psa 106:10 

A Song of degrees. Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth, may Israel now say: Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth: yet they have not prevailed against me. Psa 129:1-2  

A time comes when it is no longer our own life but other people’s lives which matter. It might mean death. It might mean loss of everything. Such a time came for young Esther. It came for Paul. And it came for Christ. How would you react if you were called to such a time as this?

The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the LORD. Pro 16:1  

A man's heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps. Pro 16:9 

There are many devices in a man's heart; nevertheless the counsel of the LORD, that shall stand. Pro 19:21  

Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. 1Co 10:11  

 

  

Bible Women: Jezebel: The Queen of Defiance

But there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the LORD, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up. And he did very abominably in following idols, according to all things as did the Amorites, whom the LORD cast out before the children of Israel. 1Ki 21:25-26  

From Hell With Love

Jezebel is a complex character. Not less because she’s our own blood and flesh, but more so because she’s a woman. And a woman is the mirror of God. She’s the home, the hearth, the hot meal and the children.

And Jezebel emitted royalty from head to the foot. She was a king’s daughter and a king’s wife. But she was evil.

It is easy to understand wickedness in a man because, well, the devil is a man. But a woman is the string in the bow of life’s music. But that string breaks, and the music dies, when it is a woman who has ascended to the throne of darkness.

Yet to some Jezebel is a hero.

To this lot she’s the ultimate feminist because she conquered male patriarchy in history. To this school she wasn’t wicked but “a vocal and assertive female.”

But though I respect all opinions, but I fear this is giving a very simple answer to a very big problem.

Life is Complex

Three things have a powerful influence over our lives.

One is flesh which rules our passions.

The other is the devil, whom we cannot see. But his influence covers the whole earth.

The other is the world. It is beautiful, but it is impossible to love it without being submerged in its excesses.

And Jezebel’s seat stood prominently in this kingdom, with her four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal, and four hundred prophets of Ashtoreth. “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph 6:12).  

So a woman is an awesome being, because when she loves she loves unreservedly (though the world call her husband a fool). But when she hates she also hates without reservations. And Jezebel hated God from the beginning up to the end. And she killed his prophets without remorse.

True Love is Tough

In the spiritual sphere of present age there is now neither Jew nor Gentile. All are children of God. But in the sphere of authority man is still ordained as head of the home, as Christ is the head of his bride, the church.

But Jezebel fought God. So who was man? And “rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry,” so offered the prophet. Jezebel dug the earth, she lifted up the soil, and she threw it in God’s face.

It isn’t that men had not done this sort of thing before, for Satan is the head of all rebellion. And men hang Christ on the cross and killed him. But Jezebel was the first woman to dab in hard-core rebellion.

Yet it is Christ who has largely liberated the woman for good, and not Jezebel’s teachings.

For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly. Joh 4:18.  

And upon this came his disciples, and marvelled that he talked with the woman: yet no man said, What seekest thou? or, Why talkest thou with her?  The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men, Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ? Joh 4:27-29. 

The thirst of the woman at the well had lasted for years, coming and going, but in Christ all that came to an end. It is what Christ still does to this day. And he can do the same with you too. Pray to him for courage to believe that.

And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. Joh 6:35.  

He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. Joh 7:38.  

So obedience is not really subjugation but just tough love. “Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth” (1Co 13:4-6).

And Christ is at work even now towards giving God a pure bride in the end. Will you endure? But what God has started he will surely bring it to pass. So endure, because God serves the best wine last.

Jezebel’s Last Act

She struts the Old Testament history like a colossus (1Kings 16:31; 18-19; 21:1-16; 2Kings 9:30-37).

But God’s patience also runs out. And nothing hastens that than the oppression of the poor.

And Jezebel took the fight to God’s doorstep when she orchestrated the murder of poor Naboth and took away his land. “Rob not the poor, because he is poor: neither oppress the afflicted in the gate: For the LORD will plead their cause, and spoil the soul of those that spoiled them” (Pro 22:22-23).  

And with that God’s patience had run its course. He immediately pronounced her death. And it happened exactly as God had said. But her death was still a spectacle in high defiance. So Jezebel’s hatred of God ran to the end. And Ahab’s entire family died in the process.

But the one thing which strikes the keen observer is the extraordinary patience of God.

He had endured both Jezebel and Ahab’s evils for so long, and too long, because of his mercy. But sin had blinded them. So God is still pleading:

Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord GOD: and not that he should return from his ways, and live? Eze 18:23.  

Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? 

But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; 

Who will render to every man according to his deeds. Rom 2:4-6.