Today, I am reading and commenting on Esther 8-10.
In order to fully understand how the edict which Mordecai composed worked to counter that which Haman had sent out I needed to go back and read what was recorded in chapter 3 about Haman’s edict. The two edicts were remarkably similar. Haman’s edict ordered that all of the Jews, men, women, and children, be killed on one day and that those who killed them would be given their property. Mordecai’s edict gave the Jews the permission to defend themselves by killing those who attacked them or their kin and take their property. Haman’s edict caused confusion, people did not understand why the Jews were targeted. I perceive two reasons for the success of Mordecai’s edict. The first being that Mordecai was alive and in a position of power when the two edicts went into effect, while Haman had been executed. Everyone would have understood that the king may have officially issued both edicts, but he stood behind that of Mordecai, not that of Haman. The second is a little more nebulous. People were uncomfortable with Haman’s edict, which called for the murder of women and children. Mordecai’s edict on the other hand only called for the death of those who threatened the lives of Jews. Another key factor in how things turned out: Mordecai’s edict allowed the Jews to take the property of their enemies but they did not do so.
The exchange between Mordecai and Esther contains themes we can all understand. Mordecai publicly mourned over the threat to the Jewish people posed by the edict Haman had issued. We have lost a sense for petitioning God in the way that Mordecai was doing here. Throughout the Old Testament we see numerous examples of this sort of prayer and petition to God. I am not even sure how to give a generalized description for what they did, for what Mordecai was doing here. It seems to me that Mordecai spent the time he would normally have spent on his personal grooming crying out to God for rescue. And because he was not going to take any care of his clothes, he wore only the cheapest possible clothes. I was not planning on going this direction with this, but as I read the passage and began writing I felt a need to write about it. As a society today we could use a revival of this very public abandonment of decor in order to cry out to God, whether in repentance for our sins, or for rescue from our troubles.
Now, back to the point I was going to make before I took that detour. When Mordecai asked Esther to use her position to address the threat to her people, she was reluctant to approach the king. To be precise, she was afraid to do so. I can only imagine Esther thinking, “Why me? Why do i need to do this? Couldn’t someone else do it?” Mordecai’s response to Esther was a message we all need to hear, “You are where you are because God put you there for this very purpose. If you don’t do it, God will use someone else, but this is your purpose in life.” We can all sympathize with Esther’s dilemma, hopefully we will also act as she did. When Esther decided to act, she asked her support group to fast and pray for God to guide her actions and intervene on her behalf.
I want to make one final point about the contrast between Haman and Mordecai. Haman sought glory and recognition. His actions were intended to advance himself. Haman was angry because Mordecai did not stroke his ego and was not afraid of him. He acted in ways to increase his importance and in order to make sure everyone knew how important he was. Mordecai, on the other hand was humble. He had saved the king from assassination and then went on about his business without any special recognition. Haman’s arrogance and pride led to his downfall, while Mordecai’s humility led to his elecation.
The Book of Esther is in many ways a perfect model for storytelling. Each of the first three chapters is a self-contained story which sets up the one which follows. Each one of them contains lessons we can learn from. The first chapter can be used to illustrate many mistakes which can be made in a marriage relationship. However, I believe that only one of them was put there on purpose by the writer. Herodotus wrote that when the Persians had a big decision to make they would get drunk and debate what should be done. Then when they sobered up they would review their decision, and only if it still seemed like a good idea would they implement it. In this story, King Xerxes and his advisers made a decision while they were drunk, and immediately implemented it. The decision making process described by Herodotus may have some merit, if used carefully. The decision making process described here will lead to many regrets, as we see in the next chapter.
The second chapter builds upon the first. King Xerxes came to regret his decision to depose Queen Vashti. His advisers came up with a plan to avoid losing their position for giving him advice he regretted. Again, there are many lessons which this passage can be used to illustrate, but there are only two to which I want to pay particular attention. When Esther was brought into the king;s harem, she was humble and friendly. She acted in a manner which earned her the friendship of the eunuch in charge of the king’s harem. She could have been haughty and dismissive of the eunuch as many beautiful women would have done. Or she could have been resentful and angry towards him, as many other women would do in a similar situation. (Note: I am not saying that these are failings which are unique to women). Instead, Esther acted in a way which earned the man’s friendship. Then when she was called to the king’s bed, she took the eunuch’s advice. She did not connive or scheme how she could manipulate the king. Once gain she displayed humility and friendliness, which earned her the king’s favor.
The first two chapters were introduction. They set the stage. Here in the third chapter the story actually starts. The chapter begins by introducing the last of its characters, Haman. The first thing we come across is that Mordecai got away with not obeying the king’s command to bow to Haman, which brings us to the second lesson from the second chapter. Mordecai could do this because he had demonstrated his loyalty to the king by revealing a plot to assassinate the king. If Haman had tried to punish Mordecai, he would have been revealed as the petty man that he was and because Mordecai had revealed his loyalty to the king previously doing so might have also cost him his postion. So, when Haman realized that he could not make a direct example of Mordecai, he sought another way to make him pay. And Haman had the power and cunning to pull off this plan. He was able to convince the king, through slander and bribery, to allow him to order the death of all of the Jews, which only “incidentally” included loyal Mordecai. Which gives us a fourth lesson. Standing up to powerful people may cost us a price we did not anticipate.
Earlier in the Book of Nehemiah, when the wall around Jerusalem was first completed, Nehemiah had noted that few people lived within the city and most of those who did were government officials. At no point does it explicitly address this, but the implication was that there were not enough people in the city for it to be economically viable. Today’s passage begins with the solution Nehemiah came up with to this problem. He had the Returned Exiles living in villages outside of Jerusalem all draw lots for a few from each village to move to Jerusalem. Those who remained in the villages provided support so that those who moved to Jerusalem could afford to do so. This provides a model upon which much modern missionary work is supported.
The Book of Nehemiah ends with what appears to be a hard-line approach to Jews marrying non-Jews, or even to non-Jews joining and becoming part of the Jewish people. When Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem and resumed his governorship over Judea, he expelled all of those of foreign descent from the assembly. However, this took place after it was discovered that the priest put in charge of the Temple storerooms had made one of the larger storerooms available to Tobiah for storage. Tobiah was one of the non-Jewish local officials who had opposed Nehemiah’s restoration of Jerusalem. The storeroom turned over for Tobiah’s use had been intended as a storage room for offerings given for the support of priests and Levites working in the Temple. As a result of its misappropriation many of the Levites had been forced to leave Temple service in order to support themselves. In addition, in Nehemiah’s absence many of the leaders of the Jewish people had resumed doing business on the Sabbath, despite having signed the “confession of faith” where they stated they would not do so. So, overall, this hard-line stance came in response to the fact that rather than demanding that those who wished to join with them in worshiping God abandon all of their pagan practices, the Jewish people had begun adopting some of those practices. I want to note that it is likely that Tobiah wanted a room in the Temple to store his goods because by doing so he could bypass taxes on those goods.
A few weeks after completing the Festival of Shelters the Returned Exiles gathered once more in an assembly. This time they gathered to grieve over and confess the sins of themselves and their ancestors. As part of this exercise they stood and listened to a reading of the entire Book of the Law which took three hours. Then when the reading was completed they spent three more hours standing there confessing their sins and worshiping God. The passage does not describe what that was like, but I have an image of what happened based on the prayer of confession which the Levitical leasers prayed. I imagine that the leaders read out excerpts from Exodus through Chronicles of the sins which the people of Israel had committed, interspersed with songs and opportunities for the people to think over their own lives and how they had failed to obey God’s Laws just as their ancestors had failed. As part of their confession they acknowledged that God had repeatedly given their ancestors opportunities, which they and their ancestors had squandered in their wickedness.
At the conclusion of this six hour service the leaders of the people presented a document which they had prepared to the people. This document was a confession of faith which the leaders had all signed and which they called on the people to affirm. This confession of faith highlighted areas where they believed that failure would lead to all of the other sins which they and their ancestors had committed. Further they believed that following the practices laid out in the document would make them and their descendants more likely to obey all of God’s commands. So, they did not just grieve over what they had done wrong. They made a plan to do better and committed themselves to follow that plan. To my mind the confession of faith had three key elements. First, they agreed not to intermarry with those who did not subscribe to this confession of faith. Second, while they would not prevent outsiders from doing business on the Sabbath, they would not do so themselves, not even with those outsiders. Third, they committed themselves to an annual tax for the maintenance of the Temple and its priests.
When the wall around Jerusalem was rebuilt, Nehemiah delegated governing the city to his brother and another trusted subordinate. Reading the instructions he gave them suggests that he wanted Jerusalem to be like a gated community. No one to be allowed into the city without giving a valid reason for doing so. Further, he set up what sounds an awful lot like a neighborhood watch for the entire city: “Appoint the residents of Jerusalem to act as guards, everyone on a regular watch. Some will serve at sentry posts and some in front of their own homes.” This leads me further down my interpretation about the Returned Exiles having once before this rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem. The walls and gates had been destroyed because a criminal element had been coming in and out of Jerusalem, using its lack of secure governance as a way to launder stolen goods and bypass taxes. Related to that, I think that was why Nehemiah registered who actually lived in the city. I think when the walls were completed and everyone had to pass through a check point where they were identified that he was surprised to realize how few people actually lived in the city. This made him realize that many of those who had seemed to fill the city were doing things for which they would prefer no one knew they were in the city.
Once the project to restore security to Jerusalem was completed and the workers from outside of Jerusalem had had a chance to put their lives back in order, the Returned Exiles gathered once more in Jerusalem for a festival. As part of the gathering, Ezra the priest read the Law of Moses to the people and explained what God commanded them to do in it. The people responded in much the same way that King Josiah had before the Exile. They mourned the failure of themselves and their ancestors to obey God’s Laws. They did so to such an extent that their leaders needed to remind them that they had gathered, according to that same Law, to worship God and celebrate the great and wonderful things He had done for them. The people responded to this command from their leaders because they realized what a wonderful thing it was to be able to hear and understand what God’s word for them was.
We should encourage new believers to follow the example set here. They should rejoice that they have learned God’s will for their lives and celebrate that He has offered them an opportunity to be transformed by His love. Even the part where the following day the people discovered the Festival of Shelters offers a model. It is good for new believers to spend some extended time away from their ordinary cares in fellowship with those who worship and obey God when they first come to know the Lord.
When Nehemiah started construction work on the walls of Jerusalem, Sanballat and Tobiah were angered by the work and tried to discourage the workers. Both Sanballat and Tobiah were officials of the Persian government and had seen Nehemiah’s letters from the King of Persia. Neither Sanballat nor Tobiah had any official authority over Jerusalem. However, both had unofficial interests there and their official positions had given them significant clout with those who had had authority in Jerusalem before Nehemiah’s arrival. The passage does not spell it out, but I believe that at least part of their opposition to Nehemiah was related to his economic reforms. An account of one of those economic reforms is sandwiched in between passages describing how Snaballat and Tobiah tried to intervene in Nehemiah’s governance of Jerusalem.
When Nehemiah became aware of how the wealthy were using their economic power to further impoverish the poor, he took action. I am going to read between the lines a little bit here. It appears that to one degree or another, the wealthy described here had built their wealth, at least in part, on the basis of being descended from those who had been taken into Exile from Jerusalem or the surrounding area. However, they used that wealth to gain more wealth from other Returned Exiles who failed, for one reason or another, to capitalize on that heritage. The wealthy were using their wealth to take advantage of the misfortunes of those who were not wealthy. Rather than helping their coreligionists when they experienced misfortune, they were taking advantage of their misfortune. The passage does not spell out the point I am about to make, but I think it fits what the passage does say. The wealthy had gained their wealth because of favorable business arrangements which they were able to gain because they were members of the Returned Exiles. However, rather than offer similar favorable arrangements with the less well off members of the Returned Exiles, they took advantage of their misfortunes to pad their own wealth. Once they had gained their wealth they began to see themselves as having more in common with the corrupt officials of the surrounding peoples than with their fellow Jews.
The corrupt officials among the surrounding peoples realized that they were going to be unable to stop Nehemiah from refortifying Jerusalem. Further, he was convincing the Jews to close ranks and support each other rather than take part in the corrupt practices from which these officials profited. So, they tried to set up a clandestine meeting with Nehemiah. Again the passage does not say this, but the wording suggests to me that they implied an opportunity for Nehemiah to collaborate with them for both to profit. Nehemiah, however, believed that they intended to ambush him if he went to the meeting. When that failed, they attempted to blackmail Nehemiah with false accusations. Again, the passage does not clearly say this, but the blackmail appears to have been, “Either cut a deal with us, or we will tell the King that you are plotting rebellion.” That failed because Nehemiah was acting within the mandate he had received directly from the King of Persia and Nehemiah knew that it would take more than mere rumors and unsupported allegations to undermine his position. They next attempted to take advantage of Nehemiah’s paranoia to make him an ineffective governor. They hoped to get him to hide from assassins, which would have served the dual purposes of making him less aware of corruption among those under his authority and discredited him with his supporters for taking protective measures which were not available to them.
As I read this today I thought about the news Nehemiah receives from those who recently visited Jerusalem. When they tell him that the walls have been torn down and the gates destroyed by fire I have always understood that, and have even heard preachers preach, this goes back to the fall of Jerusalem. If the walls of Jerusalem had never been rebuilt since the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem, this would not have been news to Nehemiah.. Which suggests that the walls of Jerusalem had been rebuilt earlier by the Returned Exiles, and torn down again. It also puts the commission Nehemiah receives from the King of Persia in a different light. Actually, it puts Nehemiah’s trepidation in making his request in a different light as well. By asking permission to go and rebuild Jerusalem, Nehemiah risked the possibility that Jerusalem’s condition was actually the king’s policy and also risked suggesting that the king had failed to keep control over his kingdom. This understanding also gives new insight into why the King of Persia sent a military bodyguard with Nehemiah.
My thoughts concerning the end of today’s passage go in a completely different direction. Usually when I read this account of the people who rebuilt the different sections of the wall I wonder why I should care who built which portion. However, today I noticed something I was aware of but never thought about before. Many of the sections of Jerusalem’s walls were built by people who did not live in Jerusalem, or even very close to it. When I paid attention to where the people were from, it reminded me of Mennonite Disaster Service crews going into an area after a disaster. While some of the sections of the wall around Jerusalem were repaired by residents of Jerusalem, many of the work crews came from several days travel away. The walls of Jerusalem were not rebuilt by people taking a few hours a day away from their normal activities. Those who worked to rebuild the wall were not just people looking out for their own interests as would be the case if everyone who did so lived within the city.
This passage has always bothered me. A casual reading suggests that the sin of which many of the Returned Exiles were guilty was marrying wives from outside of their group. Further, the solution goes against one of my most deeply held beliefs: that marriage should always be for life. However, the problem was NOT that some of the Returned Exiles had married women from among the locals. The problem was that they were following the detestable practices of the local people. They were taking part in the idolatrous worship practices of the pagans living in the land. Rather than have these women convert to Judaism* and give up their pagan religions before marrying them, the Jewish men were trying to have it both ways; they continued to practice Judaism but also joined their wives in their pagan religion.
*This is the first point in the Bible I am comfortable with using the term Judaism to refer to the religion of the Old Testament. This is not because I think the practice or beliefs changed. Rather it is at this point that the people who practiced this religion began identifying themselves as Jews and their religion as Judaism(although that last part might not be for another few centuries).
So, an assembly of all of those whose claim to property was based on being one of the Returned Exiles were summoned to an assembly in Jerusalem or risk forfeiting their property. That sounds like a fairly severe penalty for not making a trip which might cause someone significant hardship. However, they included a clause which stated that the forfeiture would only happen if the elders and leaders so decided. Then when they got together to discuss what should be done about the problem of men of the assembly practicing idolatry because of their pagan wives. They decided that all members of the assembly married to a pagan wife should divorce her and separate themselves from the people who practiced pagan rituals. This sounds harsh, men must divorce their wives if those wives were not Jewish (that is, not one of those who returned from Exile. However, this is where it gets interesting. They decided that each man who had married a pagan wife should come before the elders at a scheduled time. This suggests to me that it was not just a matter of divorce your wife or else. I think the point of the meeting with the elders was to allow the man to argue that his formerly pagan wife had abandoned her pagan practices and converted to Judaism.
I would guess that some of these women continued, and encouraged their husbands to join them, in pagan practices because they did not understand the conflict between Judaism and their pagan practices. When that conflict was made clear to them, many of those would have been willing to give up their pagan practices.
I am unsure why the letter sent to King Darius requesting that the Persian records be searched for Cyrus the Great’s edict was sent. On the one hand, the overall passage suggests that the sender believed that the copy of the edict presented by the Jews was a forgery. On the other hand, their reaction to King Darius’ reply to their letter suggest they may have been genuinely seeking clarification. In either case, the reply from King Darius was unequivocal: the Jewish efforts to rebuild the Temple were not only to not be interfered with, they were to be supported to the full capability of the local government. As a result, work moved forward on restoring the Temple and it was rapidly rebuilt.
Once they completed rebuilding and rededicating the Temple, the Returned Exiles conducted a Passover feast at the appropriate time. Here we learn that despite having rejected the call to take part in the rebuilding effort from the locals, the Returned Exiles welcomed those who wished to do so to join them in worshiping God. The key part of that welcome, one which we can learn from today, was that those who wished to join them needed to abandon the pagan practices which had been added on to the worship of God and follow the Law of Moses as practiced by the Returned Exiles. I do not put that statement, “as practiced by the Returned Exiles”, in there to imply that the practice was not consistent with the Law of Moses. Rather I include it to note that they did not hold the people of the land to a higher standard than they did themselves. The fact that the Returned Exiles welcomed those locals who were willing to follow their practices supports the idea that the offered help to rebuild the Temple had been offered either in bad faith or as an effort to alter the worship practices described in the Law of Moses.
With Chapter 7 we begin the account of Ezra, after whom this book is named. It is my belief that the material from here to the end of the book were based on a record written by Ezra himself with editorial content from the scribes who combined Ezra’s record with the material earlier in the book. The letter from King Artaxerxes commissioning Ezra contains some interesting thoughts. It mandates that Ezra be given gold and materials for use in the Temple. These items were to be used to petition God to look favorably on Artaxerxes and to bless him. While Artaxerxes did not express the position of a Believer that God is the Creator and Supreme over all, he did acknowledge that God had authority and power and requested that God be petitioned on his behalf. We should do for our government officials what Artaxerxes requested of Ezra, whether they so request or not.
Perhaps the biggest lesson we can learn from Ezra was about handling money and valuables dedicated to the Lord. When Ezra realized how much wealth was being sent with his group to Jerusalem his first concern was security. However, he was embarrassed to ask the king for soldiers to accompany them because he had been bragging about how God protected those who served Him. We learn from this passage that until this moment, Ezra believed, but he did not have faith. However, rather than admit to the king that he did not have the faith to rely on God, he chose to rely on God. It is a lesson we can all learn from. Sometimes we need to step out in faith that we don’t quite have. He trapped himself into depending on God. One must be careful about doing this, because we can easily find ourselves trying to trap God into doing our will. We can trap ourselves into doing God’s will, but we cannot trap God into doing ours. I will also note that Ezra did not do this on purpose.
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