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