Esther 2:7 Mordecai was bringing up Hadassah, that is Esther, the daughter of his uncle, for she had neither father nor mother. The young woman had a beautiful figure and was lovely to look at, and when her father and her mother died, Mordecai took her as his own daughter.

OUR first introduction to Esther is a detail that reflects the two cultures around her. She is called Hadassah in her native Hebrew tongue. It means “myrtle”. The myrtle tree is a low-growing tree that produced dark leaves and fragrant flowers. An area around Bethlehem was one region the myrtle was plentiful in Judah. People from the tribe of Benjamin, Esther’s ancestors, lived in that area. Likely Hadassa’s parents so named her because of her dark skin. Perhaps, too, her name was a tribute to their homeland in which her family had not lived for three generations. “Hadassa” was about beauty, honor and refuge.    

Another interesting note on the myrtle tree is that it is a symbol of the Jewish relationship with God in the book of Zechariah. Myrtle – beauty and refuge, fragrant and secure – relates to God’s care on his people. Let’s keep this in mind as we see Hadassa’s (Esther’s) mission to the Jews unfold before us.    

“Esther”, is of Greek origin and means “star”. The Persian’s name also indicates to us her singular, physical beauty.  See, too, that Mordecai, her cousin, is more as a father to this orphaned woman. In their relationship, he has some authority over Esther. He is older and more aware of the culture in which Esther will soon find herself. She’s the country girl who goes to the city. But unlike many who venture forth to seek a different life, Esther had no plans to do so. Sudden change happens for many reasons, doesn’t it? The question is, “How will we respond to the changes?”    

Esther will learn the answer to that question. Her morals and her faith will undergo great challenges. She will need Mordecai’s sturdy, God-fearing guidance for the uncertain and fearful steps into which God is about to direct her.

Prayer: Lord God Almighty, you know the changes that will come to our lives. Help us to prepare for them with a solid foundation in you. Help us to respond to them with a great desire to please you. Amen.

 
re to edit.

Esther 2:5-7 Now there was a Jew in Susa the citadel whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jair, son of Shimei, son of Kish, a Benjaminite, 6 who had been carried away from Jerusalem among the captives carried away with Jeconiah king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away.
 
HERE is our introduction to Mordecai (more dah ky). There are two reasons to read this carefully. First, we learn here of his lineage. He is without question a Jew. To see the way God protects his people, we must know this is an account of a real person of Jewish descent who lived in Persia under King Ahasuerus.
    Second, on a casual reading you might understand that Mordecai was “carried away from Jerusalem among the captives carried away with Jeconiah king of Judah.” But if that were so, he would be about 115 years old here. Instead, let’s understand the writer to refer to Mordecai’s great-grandfather Kish as the one who was taken captive. Mordecai is the third generation of his family to be born away from Judah. He has never seen Judah, his ancestors’ homeland, the Promised Land of God. I mention this to remind us all to read Scripture carefully. And when we have questions, it is right to ask and seek true answers.
    We will see how Mordecai becomes a type of Christ, an anointed one who saves his people from destruction. How would this man three generations removed from Judah and Jerusalem qualify to act into the role of a savior for the Jews?
    Surely he had learned of God from his grandfather and father. He also would have learned from the priests and the teachers of the law who taught the Jews in this foreign land (Remember the faithful Ezekiel, whose writings we have examined, was in the first generation of priests in exile). When we see Mordecai’s righteous obedience of God’s law, we can be assured that Mortdecai’s family obeyed Deuteronomy 6:5-8 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. (underline mine) 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 
     This Scripture is Moses’ admonition for God’s people to live with integrity into the ways of God. They were to make God’s commands a very real and present influence on their households and on their childrens’ lives.
    Certainly the same holds true for us today. As grandparents and parents, we must receive Moses’ teaching and Mordecai’s example as an urgent call to faithfully teach and live God’s Word for the education of the next generation. In the great gift of God’s Word, we are to bind God’s Word to our minds, hearts and hands to demonstrate the wonders and power of living in worshipful love toward our Lord.
    Mordecai knew who he was because he had been trained in God’s commands to know a heart love for God. As a result, he will literally stand up to make a great difference for his people and for God’s plan of salvation to move forward to the next generation – on to you.
 
Prayer: Thank you, Lord, for people who have spoken and lived your Word before me. Help me to be a voice to teach the next generation. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Esther 2:1-4 After these things, when the anger of King Ahasuerus had abated, he remembered Vashti and what she had done and what had been decreed against her. 2 Then the king’s young men who attended him said, “Let beautiful young virgins be sought out for the king. 3 And let the king appoint officers in all the provinces of his kingdom to gather all the beautiful young virgins to the harem in Susa the capital, under custody of Hegai, the king’s eunuch, who is in charge of the women. Let their cosmetics be given them. 4 And let the young woman who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti.” This pleased the king, and he did so.
 
WE continue from yesterday as we looked at the ways women were dishonored in Persia. In contrast to this sin, let’s see the ways Jesus honored women, how he rescues women from such evil as described in this Scripture.
    As you are a woman in Christ, give special thanks for the ways he loves and honors you. No other religion gives such honor to women as does the true gospel of our God. When we look to history and to today, we see the manner in which many men have formed and proclaimed their own revelations from God. Those false religions always put women into a lower class. Separation and dominance is the reality of our sin nature. Outside of the Bible and a true reading of Holy Scripture, women are treated as less than men at best. At its worst, too many cultures see women only as property to be used at a man’s desire. Nowhere in Scripture does God designate women into the category of property or being less than a man. As he formed Eve out of Adam’s rib, he formed woman to be alongside the man. He formed woman to complete the man in a loving, one-flesh relationship through marriage. Men and women are to love and respect each other.
    Read carefully God’s law and see how it defends and protects a woman’s value. Our Lord put great restrictions on sexual abuse (See Leviticus 18-20). God’s rule gives widows the means to receive food and shelter (See Ruth). Jesus ministered to women to restore them from poverty, sickness, demon possession and sin (John 4 & 8).  And our Savior upheld and defended the sanctity of marriage (Matthew 19). In addition, the Apostles celebrated the ways God had gifted women to minister the gospel (See Romans 16). In coming days, I’ll focus on such teachings as Ephesians 5:22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.”  to see how this is also God’s way for a woman to be honored.
    Men, what women are in your life? Thank God for them. Be as Christ to them. Honor them with a patient, kind love. Women, do you know how deeply your Lord loves you? Honor his love. Live chaste and pure in his sight. If there is some sin in your life that continues to accuse you and cause you shame, give it up to Jesus. Understand he died that you might be free in his forgiveness.
 
Prayer: Father God, you formed them “male and female (you) created them.” (Gen 1:27). Grant us faith to live honoring one another. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Esther 2:1-4 After these things, when the anger of King Ahasuerus had abated, he remembered Vashti and what she had done and what had been decreed against her. 2 Then the king’s young men who attended him said, “Let beautiful young virgins be sought out for the king. 3 And let the king appoint officers in all the provinces of his kingdom to gather all the beautiful young virgins to the harem in Susa the capital, under custody of Hegai, the king’s eunuch, who is in charge of the women. Let their cosmetics be given them. 4 And let the young woman who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti.” This pleased the king, and he did so.
 
HOW often the world tells us to, “Be happy. Do it your way. Put yourself first.”
    Based on everything we know from the Bible, though, this is the way of sin and destruction. “Have it your way.” is the way Satan tempted Adam and Eve. (See Genesis 3.) It is the way Rebekah maneuvered Jacob to cheat his brother Esau of Isaac’s blessing. (See Genesis 27.) “Your way” is the way of Joseph’s brothers who sold him into slavery. (See Genesis 37.) “Your way” is the way of the authorities to crucify Jesus. (See Pilate’s words in Matthew 27:22-24.)
    It has been four years since the end of Esther 1, and King Ahasuerus’ angry rejection of Queen Vashti. In that time King Ahasuerus had taken an incredible army of 1,700,000 soldiers and a 1200-ship navy to battle Greece. His campaign had suffered a terrible loss as only a few thousand soldiers returned. As “he remembered Vashti and what she had done and what had been decreed against her”, King Ahasuerus may have been more humble in his attitude toward Vashti. But his self-serving advisors quickly gave him a plan to forget his defeat and to pursue his lust. They were also protecting themselves. If Vashti would regain any power, their lives may have been on the line!
    The plan to replace Vashti is as disastrous to the human soul as the military campaign was to Persia’s army. Satan attacks mankind to fill us with physical lust, leading to indecency and degradation of innocent women. See how virgins - young, unmarried women – are to be gathered from the Persia to form them into objects of sexual pleasure for the king. Furthermore, these women will be subject to the whims and directives of those who oversee them. Certainly this is the kind of sex-trafficking that wreaks havoc on innocent and unsuspecting children, teenagers and women throughout the world today.
    Again, I point out this reality of King Ahasuerus’ reign and the pagan Persian culture to help us understand the darkness into which Esther will enter and live. She is about to go into a world rife with self-seeking men whose pursuit of pleasure and power rule their minds. Women are property to be used and abused as desired.
    We’ll continue tomorrow on how woman are to be treated as we look at women in Jesus.
 
Prayer: Our Father in Heaven, deliver us from evil, for yours is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

Esther 1:20-22 “So when the decree made by the king is proclaimed throughout all his kingdom, for it is vast, all women will give honor to their husbands, high and low alike.” 21 This advice pleased the king and the princes, and the king did as Memucan proposed. 22 He sent letters to all the royal provinces, to every province in its own script and to every people in its own language, that every man be master in his own household and speak according to the language of his people.
 
RIGHT. “All women will give honor to their husbands.” I can just picture my wife’s reaction if I walked into the room and said, “Barb, you will give honor to me.” Her appropriate response would be, “Why?” And she wouldn’t be satisfied with, “Because I said so!”
    Barb’s response would be that way not because she doesn’t love and even want to honor me, but it would be an appropriate response because honor cannot be a forced obedience. There is no honor to you if it is forced. Instead, honor must come from a loving heart, willing to uphold another.
    Yes, it is true we are commanded to honor in Exodus 20:12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” And in Leviticus 19:32 “You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am the Lord.” These are commands to honor in a way God commands us to love. Honor here begins with the parents and the elderly. They are to act in God’s truth toward their children and grandchildren. Ungodly parents and grandparents are not to be honored in their sin. See this in Proverbs 26:1 Like snow in summer or rain in harvest, so honor is not fitting for a fool.
    Honor comes from a mutual relationship of love, obedience, blessing, kindness and gentleness. My wife is willing to honor me as I live in these ways toward her. I am eager to honor her as she honors me in these ways, as well. Parents, do you want your children to honor you? Then honor them with godly wisdom, integrity, truth, discipline, love and leadership for your home.
    As you must love to be loved, you must honor to be honored. Whether you’re a king, husband or wife, honoring relationships can never be forced. They must begin with love and respect.
 
Prayer: Lord, teach me to honor all people you have brought into my life with an active love. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Esther 1:15-19 “According to the law, what is to be done to Queen Vashti, because she has not performed the command of King Ahasuerus delivered by the eunuchs?” 16 Then Memucan said in the presence of the king and the officials, “Not only against the king has Queen Vashti done wrong, but also against all the officials and all the peoples who are in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus. 17 For the queen’s behavior will be made known to all women, causing them to look at their husbands with contempt, since they will say, ‘King Ahasuerus commanded Queen Vashti to be brought before him, and she did not come.’ 18 This very day the noble women of Persia and Media who have heard of the queen’s behavior will say the same to all the king’s officials, and there will be contempt and wrath in plenty. 19 If it please the king, let a royal order go out from him, and let it be written among the laws of the Persians and the Medes so that it may not be repealed, that Vashti is never again to come before King Ahasuerus. And let the king give her royal position to another who is better than she.”
 
IT is interesting to see how these firsrt verses of Esther can be viewed as a handbook on relationships. Yesterday we saw how King Ahasuerus became enraged as his wife declined to come into his presence. He needed to put his anger aside. Such emotions would cause great harm to his wife and to many in his kingdom.
    Today we can see what happens when one makes assumptions. The “advisors” to the king are plainly self-serving men. They are sure Queen Vashti’s disobedience will be a license for all women in Persia to disobey their husbands. These men seem to be very insecure and afraid. Who said one’s disobedience would cause others to do so?
    Then notice how King Ahasuerus quickly agrees with them. He takes the hard line approach with no discussion. “Good idea! Let’s do ths evil thng!” We’ll see again in this book how the king’s advisors easily convince him to do evil. He rules a vast kingdom with the evidence of a small mind. This is a very dangerous combination. Indeed, history shows us his 20-year rule was disastrous for Persia’s army and its people.
    How do you respond to people who disagree with you and even oppose you? What the Bible says to do is to pray for them, love them and to talk with them. Many verses from Proverbs, the Psalms, Job and Ecclesiastes teach us of right living. Read also the Kingdom truths from Jesus, Peter, Jude, John and Paul. See the ways of reconciliation and peace. All of these ways begin with our own attitudes and actions. If someone has wronged us, they may not know. Instead of issuing an unforgiving, accusing mental “decree” agaisnst such a person, instead of complaining to others about the wrong done to you, instead of being a gossip and a slanderer, we are to go to them in peace to talk with them.
    If we know we have wronged others, we are to go and seek forgiveness. Remember this from 1 Corinthians 13:7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
 
Prayer: Forgive me my sins, Father, as I forgive those who have sinned against me. In Jesus’ name, amen. (Jesus taught us to pray this, you know.)

Esther 1:9-12 Queen Vashti also gave a feast for the women in the palace that belonged to King Ahasuerus. 10 On the seventh day, when the heart of the king was merry with wine, he commanded Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha and Abagtha, Zethar and Carkas, the seven eunuchs who served in the presence of King Ahasuerus,11 to bring Queen Vashti before the king with her royal crown, in order to show the peoples and the princes her beauty, for she was lovely to look at.12 But Queen Vashti refused to come at the king’s command delivered by the eunuchs. At this the king became enraged, and his anger burned within him.
 
KING Ahasuerus is a vain man, isn’t he? He’s everything a man shouldn’t be regarding his relationship with his wife. He’s demanding. He’s unfair. He is easily angered. Certainly he is the opposite of 1 Corinthians 13:4 “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful.”
    Yes, the king could control anyone he wanted to manipulate. But that didn’t mean he should behave in this demeaning way toward his wife. And further, she’s the queen of an enormous and powerful kingdom. Surely she has her political status, too.
    As we see Ahasuerus’ vanity, we are introduced to the kind of evil Esther will face as she becomes queen. There is no power on earth greater than that of King Ahasuerus. This emotional, ungrateful, angry and impulsive man will act to bring God’s people to the brink of annihilation. His actions will compromise Esther’s ethics. This fit of anger will also ultimately cause many of his subjects to be killed. Paul’s words on love give us an antidote to anger, impatience, distrust and pride. Let’s all live mindful of the Bible’s true love words as we strive to live into our Lord’s commands: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.” (Leviticus 19:18)
    Does the Scripture reference surprise you? God speaks of love a book of the law? Yes, we must know the law comes to us because God is patient and kind. He is not arrogant, prideful, irritable or resentful. We must love this way, too.
 
Prayer: Father in Heaven, forgive me my anger. Teach me to love others in the ways you command me through your Holy Bible. In Jesus’ name, amen.   

Esther 1:2-8 in those days when King Ahasuerus sat on his royal throne in Susa, the capital, 3 in the third year of his reign he gave a feast for all his officials and servants. The army of Persia and Media and the nobles and governors of the provinces were before him, 4 while he showed the riches of his royal glory and the splendor and pomp of his greatness for many days, 180 days… 8 And drinking was according to this edict: “There is no compulsion.” For the king had given orders to all the staff of his palace to do as each man desired. 

THESE verses describe a very common occurrence among ancient nations. Ruling monarchs offered great feasts to celebrate their rule. Here we see that Persia’s King Ahasuerus held a large, sustaining feast for nobility. Then he offered a feast for everyone in Persia – an astounding event!
    A feast is a celebration, isn’t it? Do you know God loves a good feast? He even commanded the Jews to feast. He told them to celebrate the Feast of the Passover to remember their deliverance from Egypt (We now celebrate as Easter as we are delivered from sin.), the Feast of First Fruits – Pentecost – to remember the giving of the Law (We now celebrate as the beginning of the church). And he ordained the Feast of Tabernacle – or Booths – that the Jews would remember how he had sheltered them for 40 years on their desert journey (We now celebrate continually as the Holy Spirit “tabernacles” or dwells in us).
    Note now, that there is something fundamentally different between God’s feasts and Ahasuerus’ feasts. The Persian King’s feasts were designed to point to his power. They were feasts of boasting. He also allowed people to do as they pleased during the feast. This can only lead to chaos, especially when wine is involved.  
    God’s feasts, though, pointed to God’s sovereign power to establish a loving relationship with his people. Passover freed them to worship God. Pentecost taught them God’s right ways. Tabernacle protected them physically. Ahasuerus’ royal splendor was based on his worldly wealth. God’s royal splendor is based on his love for his people as he gave them specific ways to celebrate and remember the ways he had physically saved, taught and protected them.
    Then remember this: Jesus calls you to another feast, too, doesn’t he? It’s called Communion or the Lord’s Supper. This is the other three feasts formed into one. See here in Luke 22:19-20 And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me (underline mine).” 20 And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”
    When you sit down to a meal, when you take a drink, when you break some bread, remember this: Matthew 20:28 even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” 
    Jesus frees us from sin, teaches us Kingdom truth, protects us from evil and saves us into eternal life.

Prayer: Thank you, Father, for teaching us to remember the magnificent ways you teach us to feast on your love. In Jesus’ name, amen.