Mordecai's charge and Esther's decision

The book of Esther is set in the Persian empire in the reign of King Ahasuerus, who is almost certainly Xerxes I, who ruled 486 to 465 BC. Most of the story takes place in Susa, one of the Persian capitals. The Jews in the story are descendants of those carried from Judah to Babylon (Esther 2:5-6). Most did not return when Cyrus allowed them to (Ezra 1). Many lived across the empire's 127 provinces, and Esther and Mordecai are among them.

The book does not name its author. A tradition in the Talmud (Bava Batra 15a) credits the men of the Great Assembly with writing it. Its date of composition is uncertain, and is usually placed in the fifth or fourth century BC, though some scholars propose a later date. Scholars also disagree about how to classify it. Some read it as history, pointing to its knowledge of Persian customs and names. Others read it as a historical novel or comedy, pointing to its irony and exaggeration, and to the absence of Esther and Mordecai from known Persian records. This class reads it as the Bible presents it, a narrative about events in the Persian court, and it does not depend on settling that debate.

Chapter 4 comes after the setup. Esther, an orphaned Jewish girl also called Hadassah, has become queen after Vashti was removed (Esther 1-2). On Mordecai's order she has kept her Jewish identity secret (2:10, 20). Haman, an Agagite, has risen to be the king's chief official. When Mordecai refuses to bow to him, Haman resolves to destroy all the Jews in the empire. He casts lots to fix the date, offers the king a large sum of silver, and sends out the decree (Esther 3). The Jews are to be killed on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, nearly a year away.

Esther is Hebrew narrative, and an unusual one: the name of God does not occur anywhere in the Hebrew text. There is no prayer, no temple, no sacrifice and no mention of covenant. The story is told with careful irony, reversals and well-timed coincidences, and the reader is invited to see the hidden hand behind events. In Esther 4 this silence is sharpened. The only religious act is the fast, and the one statement closest to a statement of faith (verse 14) never says who will bring deliverance.

Two rules help here.

• First, read the speeches as characterization. Mordecai and Esther each reveal who they are by what they say. Esther begins as obedient and cautious. She appeals to law and to the danger. Mordecai replies with three things: a warning, a promise and a question. By the end Esther is the one giving the orders, and Mordecai does what she says (verse 17). The chapter is the hinge of the book.
• Second, read the story with the memory of earlier Scripture in mind. Haman is an Agagite, a descendant of Agag, the Amalekite king whom Saul spared (1 Samuel 15). The LORD had declared war on Amalek from generation to generation (Exodus 17:14-16), and Mordecai is a Benjamite whose ancestor Kish bears the same name as Saul's father (Esther 2:5; 1 Samuel 9:1). The conflict seems to continue an old struggle between the house of Saul and Amalek.

Verses 1–3

Mordecai learns of the decree and tears his clothes, puts on sackcloth and ashes and goes out into the middle of the city, 'wailing loudly and bitterly'. These are the standard signs of mourning for the dead or for a national disaster (compare 2 Samuel 1:11-12; Joel 1:13). He goes only as far as the king's gate, because sackcloth was not allowed inside. The court tolerates no public grief. In every province, wherever the decree arrives, the Jews fast, weep and lament, and many lie in sackcloth and ashes. The fast is not commanded, and no prayer is recorded, but fasting with sackcloth in the Old Testament is a way of seeking the LORD (Jonah 3:5-9).

Verses 4–9

Esther's maids and eunuchs report Mordecai's state, and the queen is overcome with distress. She sends clothes, hoping to stop the mourning, but Mordecai refuses them. She then sends Hathach, a eunuch assigned to her, to learn the reason. Mordecai tells him everything, including the exact sum of silver Haman promised for the king's treasury, and gives him a copy of the written decree to show and explain to Esther. He urges her to go to the king, implore his favor and plead for her people. The detail about the money shows that Mordecai knows the plot in full. It also suggests that Esther, who lives in seclusion, may not have known the full plot until now.

Verses 10–11

Esther's reply states the law. Everyone in the empire knows that anyone who approaches the king in the inner court unsummoned is put to death, unless the king extends the gold scepter. She adds that she has not been called to the king for thirty days. This suggests her favor may have cooled. She is not refusing but explaining the risk.

Verses 12–14

Mordecai's answer has three parts.

• The first is a warning: she should not imagine that she, in the king's house, will escape when all the Jews perish.
• The second is a promise: if she stays silent, 'relief and deliverance' will arise from 'another place', but she and her father's house will perish. Mordecai does not say where the deliverance will come from. Many Jewish interpreters have read 'place' (makom) as a veiled name for God, since later Jewish usage did use it that way. The text itself does not say so. What it shows is that Mordecai is certain the Jews will be delivered. That certainty rests on something other than the palace, and it would fit the promises to Abraham that his descendants would not be wiped out.
• The third part is a question: 'Who knows if perhaps you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?' The phrase 'who knows' expresses hope, not certainty. It is used of the LORD's mercy in Joel 2:14 and Jonah 3:9. Mordecai suggests that her rise to queen had a purpose, and leaves the choice to her.

Verses 15–17

Esther's answer reverses their roles. For the first time she gives orders. She asks Mordecai to gather the Jews of Susa and fast for her for three days, with no food or drink, night or day, and she and her maids will do the same. Then she will go to the king against the law. 'If I perish, I perish.' The decree had been dated the thirteenth of the first month (3:12), so the three days of fasting would have fallen over the time of Passover, a point Jewish commentators have noticed. Esther accepts the risk and does not claim to know the outcome. Mordecai does all she says.

The central doctrine is divine providence. The book never says that God arranged events, but it arranges them so that the reader can see he did. Vashti's removal, Esther's rise, Mordecai's uncovering of a plot and the timing of the decree all prepare for this moment. Mordecai's reasoning in 4:14 holds two truths together. God's purpose to save his people will stand whether Esther acts or not, and Esther's own action matters. Scripture does not set these against each other. Joseph said the same of his brothers' evil and God's purpose (Genesis 50:20).

The second doctrine is God's covenant faithfulness to the people of Abraham. He had promised that those who curse Abraham's descendants will be cursed (Genesis 12:3). Haman's scheme is the attempt of a pagan official to end the people of promise by decree. The LORD's long conflict with Amalek (Exodus 17; Deuteronomy 25:17-19; 1 Samuel 15) forms the background. The book belongs among the five scrolls read at Jewish festivals, and Esther is read at Purim, which commemorates the deliverance (Esther 9:20-32).

Third, the book teaches how God's people live in a foreign empire. Joseph and Daniel also served in pagan courts, but those two are explicitly shown trusting the LORD and speaking his name. Esther and Mordecai act in hope without a vision, a sign or a prophetic word. Their faith appears as courage taken at cost to themselves.

The first connection is promise and preservation. Salvation, Paul says, was entrusted to Israel, and from them, according to the flesh, is the Christ (Romans 9:4-5). If Haman had succeeded in wiping out the Jews, the line leading to the Messiah would have been cut. That is an inference drawn from the larger story, not something Esther itself states. Galatians 4:4 speaks of Christ's coming 'when the fullness of time had come'.

Second, Esther as intercessor is an echo of Christ. She is a member of the people, with access to the king, who risks her life to plead for them. The New Testament never cites Esther, so this is an echo and not a type. The difference is part of the point. Esther might perish and had no assurance she would be received. The Son does perish, and rises, so that his people may draw near. Hebrews says believers may approach the throne of grace with confidence (Hebrews 4:16; 10:19-22), and that Christ always lives to intercede for those who come to God through him (Hebrews 7:25; Romans 8:34).

Third, the fight with Amalek, and the figure of Haman who seeks to destroy God's people, belong to the larger conflict that runs from the promise of the seed of the woman (Genesis 3:15) to the defeat of the enemy in Christ.