Introduction

The big … probably the main … theme of this book has been reversal.

God turns trouble round.

He does it to protect His people and His purpose as His people themselves also prioritise God’s people and His purpose.

And that’s precisely what the imperfect, weak but bold-in-the-faith Mordecai and especially Esther have so clearly done before our very eyes as this story of the Book of Esther has unfolded.

God’s people step up and God turns up.

Job done, then?

Not quite.

What next?

This last bit is pretty crucial if the advantage isn’t just to be pressed (which we looked at last time) but ESTABLISHED. 

When God turns things round, you really need to celebrate thoroughly at the time … but you also really need to put what happened in the story of the tribe.

The life changing lessons of what God has DONE need to be learned, but then memorialised and institutionalised for the benefit of successive generations for the well-being and for the strengthening of future generations through the challenges that are yet to come.

And that’s what happens in this last chapter of this remarkable book.

Legacy.

But it’s not necessarily as straightforward as you might think!

So let’s look at how this is achieved …

1) The tables were turned, vv. 1-4

Vv. 1-4: “On the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar, the edict commanded by the king was to be carried out. On this day the enemies of the Jews had hoped to overpower them, but now the tables were turned and the Jews got the upper hand over those who hated them. 2 The Jews assembled in their cities in all the provinces of King Xerxes to attack those determined to destroy them. No one could stand against them, because the people of all the other nationalities were afraid of them. 3 And all the nobles of the provinces, the satraps, the governors and the king’s administrators helped the Jews, because fear of Mordecai had seized them. 4 Mordecai was prominent in the palace; his reputation spread throughout the provinces, and he became more and more powerful.”

Here’s the repetition of the dramatic and far-reaching effects of God’s deliverance of His people.

God calls us to humility, but establishes His faithful people’s dignity … establishing and protecting both His people and (with them) His cause.

Look at v. 2: “On this day the enemies of the Jews had hoped to overpower them, but now the tables were turned and the Jews got the upper hand over those who hated them”

At a point in our history and politics when everything seems to be tolerated except God’s people and His cause, leaving us ‘cancelled’ and denied both a plea and a voice in our national life and discourse, that is a little bit encouraging, wouldn’t you say?

I hope you are following events currently in Scottish politics where a seemingly very capable Christian woman is running for election as the leader of the Scottish National Party and the role of First Minister in the Scottish Assembly.

She does not personally think that ‘gay marriage’ is a great idea, but has committed herself in office already and for the future to defend the freedoms the law establishes whether she personally agrees with them or not.

And she is being attacked, pretty viscerally, with her opponents in the media and in politics explicitly saying that a person who holds her views and faith should have no place in politics or public office.

If you are not praying for her, I am … because I think we’d be facing the same situation in Wales if we had a Bible believing Christian (and that is the ONLY sort of actual Christian) involved in an election to public office in Wales and because I believe the outcome of this situation in Scotland will inevitably affect the situation here in Wales.

The situation was very much worse than that for God’s Old Covenant people in the beginning of the Book of Esther … but look a how things had changed by THIS point in the story!

The reversal is ironic and entire.

The tables were turned.

But there’s something fascinating that emerges in vv. 5-10

2) They didn’t take the spoil, vv. 5-10

Vv. 5-10: “The Jews struck down all their enemies with the sword, killing and destroying them, and they did what they pleased to those who hated them. 

6 In the citadel of Susa, the Jews killed and destroyed five hundred men. 

7 They also killed Parshandatha, Dalphon, Aspatha, 8 Poratha, Adalia, Aridatha, 9 Parmashta, Arisai, Aridai and Vaizatha, 10 the ten sons of Haman son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews. 

But they did not lay their hands on the plunder.”

Now, that’s an awful lot of killing going on, and I for one am very grateful that in New Covenant times the way evil is restrained is not by obliterating the people who won’t let go of it but by the Spirit-inspired and effected preaching of the Gospel.

You will remember we covered that in a previous session when we looked at Esther 7 and Ephesians 6:10-20.

The thing here to notice is not the violent victory that overcame the opponents seeking to destroy God’s people (and His purposes with them), nor that it overcame and wiped out those that might seek to overturn that victory by way of family vendetta.

The thing here to notice is that the Jews didn’t despoil the fortunes or the goods of those they defeated.

Now, you may remember that when we looked at Esther 8 we made reference to Saul, what God had told him to do and the fact Esther is now doing with these historic opponents of God’s cause and people what God told Saul to do but that e failed to do … with really unfortunate on-going results.

Now the armed conflict of Adar 13th., gets reported here in Esther 9 in words that remind us of the Lord’s command to Saul in 1 Samuel 15.

The text really flags up that Esther is doing here what Saul flunked many years before.

But the author is very careful to stress no less than three times that there Jews … in all this killing … did not lay a hand on the plunder.

Now, Mordecai’s decree (the one that followed the demise of Haman and secured the Jews AGAINST Haman’s genocidal earlier decree) had INCLUDED the permission to plunder because it was reversing the exact provisions of that earlier decree of Haman’s.

Haman would have plundered the Jews.

But unlike Haman the Agagite, the Jews understood Mordecai’s decree as being governed by the ancient command off holy war against the Amalekites (including Agag’s offspring).

And one of the regulating rules God put on the way the Jews pursued Holy War for him was that plunder should not be taken.

So, when Abram fought for Sodom because his nephew Lot had been captured, the Kling of Sodom offered Abram a material reward … but Abram wouldn’t take anything lest that evil city became the source of his prosperity.

You can read about it in Genesis 14.

This set a precedent for God’s people.

Later, when the Lord commanded the conquest of Canaan, Joshua and Israel’s armies devoted whole cities to the Lord specifically NOT profiting from their people, livestock and infrastructure.

Jericho was the first attacked with the specific instruction that ‘the city and all that is in it are to be devoted to the Lord’ (Joshua 6:17).

Spectacularly Ai, the little city up the road, withstood the Israelite attack as the Lord did not fight for the Israelites there … and it turned out that the reason for that was that one of the warriors HAD secretly laid hand on the spoils and disobeyed God’s instruction in this matter.

The short story is that (Karen Jobes says) “there was to be no personal profit in Holy War because the destroyers were acting not on their own behalf but as agents of God’s wrath.”

Now, they often weren’t very good at sticking to this.

Israel’s, in so many different ways including this one, often lived no better than the wicked people they were supposed to be warring against in the Lord’s Name.

Throughout its history Israel took illicit plunder, trusted I the strength of its own army rather than in the Lord and stepped out f the bounds of faith and trust in God, taking matters into their own hands and behaving like the people around them.

Saul was the classic case of that where the book is concerned because wicked Haman was one of the peoples God told Saul to deal with in a very specific way and he didn’t do so.

Therefore, in 1 Kings 15:18-19 Samuel the prophet had confronted Saul in these terms:

“Samuel said, “Although you were once small in your own eyes, did you not become the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. 18 And he sent you on a mission, saying, ‘Go and completely destroy those wicked people, the Amalekites; wage war against them until you have wiped them out.’ 19 Why did you not obey the Lord? 

Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the Lord?”

The word of the Lord through Samuel emphasised that Saul had not pursued the wicked Amalekites as executioners of God’s judgement and instead prioritised  the plunder … the personal material benefit they could gain … that they could get from the victory that God had given them for other reasons.

And now here in Esther 9 as Esther completes the job her ancestor Saul had left improperly undone, the text emphasises in vv. 10, 15 & 16 that the Jews did NOT lay had on the plunder … emphasising that the Jews of Persia succeeded where Saul had previously, spectacularly, failed.

3) Pressing the advantage - but not to PECUNIARY advantage, vv. 11-16

Vv. 11-16: “The number of those killed in the citadel of Susa was reported to the king that same day. 12 The king said to Queen Esther, “The Jews have killed and destroyed five hundred men and the ten sons of Haman in the citadel of Susa. What have they done in the rest of the king’s provinces? Now what is your petition? It will be given you. What is your request? It will also be granted.”

13 “If it pleases the king,” Esther answered, “give the Jews in Susa permission to carry out this day’s edict tomorrow also, and let Haman’s ten sons be impaled on poles.”

14 So the king commanded that this be done. An edict was issued in Susa, and they impaled the ten sons of Haman. 15 The Jews in Susa came together on the fourteenth day of the month of Adar, and they put to death in Susa three hundred men, but they did not lay their hands on the plunder.

16 Meanwhile, the remainder of the Jews who were in the king’s provinces also assembled to protect themselves and get relief from their enemies. They killed seventy-five thousand of them but did not lay their hands on the plunder.”

So, Esther presses the advantage her by extending the killing of their enemies the Jews by one more day … just at the heart of power in the citadel of Susa … and putting the sons of Haman out of the picture, doing what Saul did not do to the Amalekites, and ensuring so that there would be no vendetta or counter-coup in the future.

That was another brutal feature of ancient warfare.

Interestingly each of the sons of Haman gets named, and they all have ‘daiva’ names of ancient Persia.

These are names that were originally used of the pagan deities in early Iranian ad Hindu writings but laster came to be associated with demonic powers in Eastern religions.

The ai is probably to show the allegiance of Haman and his family to demonic powers of darkness and evil who were therefore the proper targets in Old Covenant holy war.

But now it was a properly executed holy war … one where no had was laid on the plunder.

It was a victory for the Lord, preserving His people and His great purpose … because the ancestors of the Saviour, His Messiah, were now protected, safe-guarding the birth of great David’s greater son, the One Who was to come.

What would be an appropriate response to that?

4) Celebrating on the day, vv. 17-19 

Vv. 17-19: “This happened on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar, and on the fourteenth they rested and made it a day of feasting and joy.

18 The Jews in Susa, however, had assembled on the thirteenth and fourteenth, and then on the fifteenth they rested and made it a day of feasting and joy.

19 That is why rural Jews—those living in villages—observe the fourteenth of the month of Adar as a day of joy and feasting, a day for giving presents to each other.”

Party time.

There is something in the human disposition that gets healed by partying after privation.

Students celebrate the end of what has probably been the most stressful time in their lives so far … their finals exams.

The wake follows on from the funeral and for many signals the getting together to pick ourselves up after the intense time of the reality of parting that we’ve just been through.

Victory celebrations accompany the liberation of cities ravaged by the turmoil of war.

There’s something that heals about this ‘on the day’ celebration of the relief of some great suffering, stress or pressure that’s been upon us.

There was a celebration on the day, but all that leaves you with to carry forward is a memory, a memory that can be described by future historians but otherwise dies with that generation.

Matters of significance that teach a truth necessary to be grasped for the future need more than a party on the day, they need memorialisation.

5) Celebrating for posterity, vv. 20-32

This chapter and this book end with the institution of a memorial for this day.

Now God’s Old Covenant people had history with God establishing their feasts and memorial days.

There was the annual feast of Passover which was a memorial of their deliverance … their redemption … out of Egypt.

There was the annual Feast of Tabernacles which was a memorial of the Wilderness Wanderings when God led His people even though they were of no fixed abode.

God instituted those for His people.

But the God of the book of Esther is the God Who works quietly behind the scenes Whose agency in the lives of His people is clearly evident, but Whose name is not mentioned at all … so when this feast of Purim is inaugurated to memorialise this miraculous delivery of God’s people in Persian and right across the Empire of Xerxes, it is Esther who inaugurates it.

His people act here on God’s behalf, doing this in His service.

So, firstly …

a) vv. 20-22 Mordecai writes the record

Vv. 20-22 “Mordecai recorded these events, and he sent letters to all the Jews throughout the provinces of King Xerxes, near and far, 21 to have them celebrate annually the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month of Adar 22 as the time when 

the Jews got relief from their enemies, 

and as the month when their sorrow was turned into joy and their mourning into a day of celebration. 

He wrote them to observe the days as days of feasting and joy and giving presents of food to one another and gifts to the poor.”

The deliverance was for all of God’s people, and the message to God’s people was now sent out to all of them.

The time was established to bring unity to the festival … they all celebrated it at the same time together.

The way to celebrate it was also made plain to them:

Feasting … because God gave food to be so much more than fuel.

Joy … because God delights in the strong happiness of His own people.

Giving presents … of food (hospitality, which God also delights in) to one another, and gifts to the poor … because generosity lies at the very heart of God, and is one of the highest of luxuries that God’s favour affords us to enjoy.

But as we well know, politicians declaring ‘objectives’ don’t always result in the action intended … so Mordecai doesn’t stop when he’s written his ‘manifesto’.

b) vv. 23-28 Mordecai gets ‘buy-in’ from the people

Vv. 23-28 “So the Jews agreed to continue the celebration they had begun, doing what Mordecai had written to them. 24 For Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them and had cast the pur (that is, the lot) for their ruin and destruction. 25 But when the plot came to the king’s attention, he issued written orders that the evil scheme Haman had devised against the Jews should come back onto his own head, and that he and his sons should be impaled on poles. 26 (Therefore these days were called Purim, from the word pur.) 

Because of everything written in this letter and because of what they had seen and what had happened to them, 27 the Jews took it on themselves to establish the custom that they and their descendants and all who join them should without fail observe these two days every year, in the way prescribed and at the time appointed. 

28 These days should be remembered and observed in every generation by every family, and in every province and in every city. 

And these days of Purim should never fail to be celebrated by the Jews—nor should the memory of these days die out among their descendants.”

You can send out invitations to your party, and no-one comes.

You can get the memo but leave it sitting in your junk mail ‘inbox’.

The key thing here is this:

“So the Jews agreed to continue the celebration they had begun, doing what Mordecai had written to them.”

And the point gets more clearly made in v. 26 “Because of everything written in this letter and because of what they had seen and what had happened to them, 27 the Jews took it on themselves to establish the custom that they and their descendants and all who join them should without fail observe these two days every year, in the way prescribed and at the time appointed.”

And what’s more it was ‘written in the records’, v. 29

c) vv. 29-32 Establishing the Memorial of God’s deliverance

“So Queen Esther, daughter of Abihail, along with Mordecai the Jew, wrote with full authority to confirm this second letter concerning Purim. 30 And Mordecai sent letters to all the Jews in the 127 provinces of Xerxes’ kingdom—words of goodwill and assurance— 31 to establish these days of Purim at their designated times, as Mordecai the Jew and Queen Esther had decreed for them, and as they had established for themselves and their descendants in regard to their times of fasting and lamentation. 32 Esther’s decree confirmed these regulations about Purim, and it was written down in the records.”

Now, in our terms, the establishment of the memorial of the Lord’s New Covenant deliverance occurred in Matthew 26:26-29 and parallels in other gospels 

“While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take and eat; this is my body.”

27 Then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. 28 This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 29 I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”

That’s the memorial of the great central redeeming act in the history of salvation, the great reversal in the Christian’s existence and experience.

And Jesus memorialises it as the central event that takes us from (as Ephesians 2 puts it) straight from ‘dead in your trespasses and sins I which you used to live’ to ‘he made you alive in Christ … it is by grace you have been saved’.

Conclusion

We’re coming up to a very big celebration ourselves.

We’re heading now into the preparation for Easter.

And as we approach the celebration of that great Christian festival which celebrates the death and resurrection of the Saviour and the consequent passing of the Christian from death into eternal life, it is relevant to reflect that God works the same way today as He did in Esther.

We NEED that, because God doesn’t always do writing in the sky for us when we feel we could do with Him changing stuff … reversing situations … for us.

We too live in a time when OBVIOUS miraculous interventions from God (whilst they do happen) are not so common, but He is clearly evidently at work to secure His imperfect people and His great eternal purposes.

Hebrews 11:1 describes faith as ‘being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see’.

In other words, faith calls us … brings us … to a certainty in the unseen reality beyond or behind the events we do see.

And the Christian’s certainty about these unseen things … the priorities and the promises of God’s Word … that understanding and that certainty relies on the explanations that He gives us of the events that we see.

As Karen Jobes (who has helped us a lot with this Book of Esther) puts it:

“Events as historic as the deliverance of the Jews in Persia as well as those as private as a child’s answered prayer are an encouragement to view all of life and history with the certainty of the unseen reality of God’s presence and power.. Such events reveal that God can and will do just as He has promised, even when we don’t see how He possibly could.”

So often we later discover that the answers to our prayers were already on the way, set in motion by chains of events that would seem totally insignificant … if we ever became aware of them.

Let’s give the last for to Karen Jobes: “We cannot see the end of the matter from the beginning or the middle. The story of Esther assures us that we do not have to.”