Esther Chapter 3

My loyal readers,
You'll be excited to know that here at last is the long awaited Terrina's take on Esther Chapter 3!! I learned something today and I can't wait to share it with you!!

It may have been a while for you so lets just go back and recap the end of Chapter 2. Mordacai had gone to the gate probably to see Esther. Two of the gate guards conspire to kill the king. Mordacai over hears the plot and tells Esther. She in turn tells the king. The conspiracy theory is tested, found to be true and the two men were hung on the gallows.

Chapter 3 starts off with one of the king's men Haman, son of Hammedatha, the Agagite being given a promotion by the king. All the royal officials at the kings gate knelt down to pay homage to Haman as ordered by Xerxes. Everyone that is except Mordecai. Some of the officials at the gate take notice of this and proceed to ask Mordecai why he didn't obey the king's command to bow before Haman. This questioning continued for some time, but Mordecai still refused to comply with the command. These men decided to go tattle to Haman and see if his behavior would be tolerated or not. It is important to note that here we see that they make sure to draw attention to the fact that Mordecai is a Jew. The author of Esther, as I found out from Beth Moore does this for a reason. Notice that the chapter starts out by the author telling us the info about Haman. They tell us his nationality. Then, they go on to tell point out that Mordecai is a Jew. The fact that they show the nationality of the two men puts them against each other as rivals. As I found out, this rival actually goes back a long way. In order to see what I mean, I'm going to tell you what Beth pointed out in the video session. I'm a history geek so this is really cool to see how this all comes together. Hang with me here for a few minutes...LOL!!

In chapter two we find out a lot of info on Mordecai. We find out that he is a Jew from the tribe of Benjamin and that he is a descendant of Kish. You need to go back to 1 Samuel to find out more info here. Kish is King Saul's dad. Let's take a look at Haman. He is a presumed Amalekite and a descendant of Agag a king during Saul's reign as king. I want you to take a look at 1 Samuel 15:10-23, 30.
Here is what it says: "The word of the Lord came to Samuel: 11 “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.” And Samuel was angry, and he cried to the Lord all night. 12 And Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning. And it was told Samuel, “Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he set up a monument for himself and turned and passed on and went down to Gilgal.” 13 And Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him, “Blessed be you to the Lord. I have performed the commandment of the Lord.” 14 And Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the oxen that I hear?” 15 Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God, and the rest we have devoted to destruction.” 16 Then Samuel said to Saul, “Stop! I will tell you what the Lord said to me this night.” And he said to him, “Speak.”
17 And Samuel said, “Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. 18 And the Lord sent you on a mission and said, ‘Go, devote to destruction the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.’ 19 Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you pounce on the spoil and do what was evil in the sight of the Lord?” 20 And Saul said to Samuel, “I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. I have gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me. I have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and I have devoted the Amalekites to destruction. 21 But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.” 22 And Samuel said,
“Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,as in obeying the voice of the Lord?Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,and to listen than the fat of rams.23 For rebellion is as the sin of divination,and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.Because you have rejected the word of the Lord,he has also rejected you from being king.”

Pay close attention to verses 17-19. Now take a look at Deuteronomy 25:17-19. “Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you came out of Egypt, 18 how he attacked you on the way when you were faint and weary, and cut off your tail, those who were lagging behind you, and he did not fear God. 19 Therefore when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your enemies around you, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven; you shall not forget.”

So here is the rival plain and simple. Mordecai's relative Saul was ordered by God to put to death everyone and everything that was Amalekite. No exceptions! God doesn't get any more clear here than to say blot out Amalek from under Heaven. Then he goes on to say DON'T FORGET!! An Saul in true Israelite fashion, does just that and forgets. Did you notice what Samuel told Saul because he didn't listen to God's command? Go back up and look at verses 22-23. Wow and we are only getting started.

OK so now back to the book of Esther. Haman begins to look for a way to get rid of all the Jew's throughout Xerxes's kingdom. (Doesn't this sound a little familiar to our recent history and WWII?) We are told that in the 12th year of King Xerxes, in the Jewish month of Nisan, Haman and his buddies cast lots to determine the day this mass annihilation of the Jews would begin. The day falls on the month of Adar. Keep this in mind, we are going to come back to this.

Haman goes to the king and tells him that there are certain people in the kingdom that are different from the other people and don't obey the king's laws and it's not in his best interest for him to tolerate them. He tells the king that he would line the pockets of the royal treasury with 10,000 talents of silver (by the way, that amount of talents equals 375 tons of bling. I can't imagine why on earth Xerxes would have said no can you?) for the men who would be willing to carry out this evil business. Being greedy as he was, Xerxes gives Haman his signet ring and pretty much lets him do as he wants.

On the 13th day of Nisan, the royal decree went out to all the providences with the decree that all Jews--young, old, men, women and children, were to be put to death on a single day, the 13th day of the month of Adar. I will give it to Haman, at least he was up front about what he was going to do and gave the Jews of Persia a year to think about what was going to happen to them, unlike Hitler. I have to tell you that this is the part where history is very cool my friend! I decided to look up the Jewish calendar and see just when the 13th of Adar corresponds to our calendar today. What I found out is that TODAY is the 13th of Adar. This is where I got goose bumps! Over 2000+ years ago the Jews knew that they were going to be facing sure annihilation on this day. It reminds me of the promise that God made to his people that he would aways save a remnant of His people from these situations.

The chapter ends by telling us that the couriers went out and issued the edict in the citadel of Susa. As this was happening the King and Haman sit down to have a drink, while the city of Susa was bewildered. I have to say that Beth couldn't have said it better than "a casual drink over chaos!" Can you imagine the sight?!

Thanks for hanging in there with me! Stay tuned for Chapter 4!