well we're going to explore the book of Esther and obviously starting with chapter 1 but this is a book that on the one hand is so attractive so enticing that some people are skeptical that it even is really part of the Bible Luther didn't think so by the way and others didn't but it's also an obscure book to many many Christians failed to really jump into this for a lot of reasons it's a story of human love it's a story of palace intrigue and it takes place in probably the most flamboyant glittering Empire in history the Persian Empire and it's a story of a Jewish maiden that's elevated to be to the throne of the known world that's Queen and she's used by God to preserve his people against a Hitler like Holocaust if it wasn't for this episode there wouldn't be a Jewish nation there wouldn't be the temple finish there wouldn't be a messiah so it's an that it it commemorates of course very specifically one of the Jewish holidays you won't find otherwise in the Old Testament we have the seven feasts of Moses were familiar with those this is the feast of Purim and it's it's a colorful in its own right but there's some very strange puzzles about this book you will find no mention of the name of God that's the official line let me whisper a year yes you can if you know how to look and we'll come to that when the time comes there's no no reference at all to worship her faith I can't think of another book in the Bible that about which you could say that there's no prediction of the Messiah in here Wow there's no mention of heaven or hell there isn't any religious flavorless anywhere it's just a saga in fact it's been made into a recent movie and they did it relatively little Hollywood in it but it was a relatively faithful story that's a gripping tale so why is it here in the Bible why is it here in the Bible well one of things going to reveal God's invisible hand behind his people of course Martin Luther believed it could it should not be part of the canon and he's joined by many scholars of the past that very skeptical about its appropriateness being here the name Esther it's amazing how many commentators missed the point but gassiness was one of the great extras indicates that that her name comes from a meaning something hidden well you can tell that caught my attention a long time ago what's it that's a that's a invitation you can't resist okay but your and we're going to discover before this study will be finished not tonight but the study at that hole that the name of your tea buffet is hidden inside the text in a whole number of different ways and I'm indebted to my dear friend Yaakov Russell who pointed out something to be that is a corker and I don't think you'll find that in any some of these you'll find in the Talmud and elsewhere some of these are really unique but we'll take that when we get there all through here one of the things our models are types Paul our apostle reveals the the historic incidents that happen Israel are intended as types or models for all of us remember at first Corinthians ten eleven Paul says now these things happened unto them for examples and it was as a warning and they are written for our admonition or instruction if you will that's what they're there for all these stories in the Old Testament are they're deliberately designed for us and our challenge as we go through is not only to enjoy the story you can't miss that one but also to extract Croat the lessons for ourselves that's also what he advises in the book of Romans 15:4 for whatsoever things how many is that all of them right for whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope so models and types what are some examples the feasts of Israel every one of the feasts are commemorative historically every one in there also prophetic and when you unwrap it creates a whole new insight what the text is all about the days of Noah it's more than just a flood there's a whole thing behind it Abraham's offering of Isaac as you get into that story the subtleties you can see where the Holy Spirit nudged some of the things around so it had a whole nother implication and of course Jonah and is three days and if you accept our Lord's reference to that it implies that Jonah did die in that whale and was resurrected but that's all another study and the story behind the story what is the story behind the story of Esther you and me what do I mean by that well we'll see as we go and of course the whole the the issues that bite is that thought the Bible and to know God and from that to understand better ourselves now the time period here it antedates nehemiah by about 30 years and Esther makes possible Nehemiah it was Esther's marriage to the king of Persia that ultimately leads to the rebuilding of Jerusalem the temple and the whole sequence of making the Messiah making his appearance and this is an actual history the story is so colorful it's easy to sort of regard it as a Arabian Nights tale or something no it actually happened and it's not one of these Aesop's fables - you exemplify a story or something no no it deals with an escape from annihilation of the entire Jewish race in the known world at that time and this is after the return from the Babylonian captivity and it enables a whole chain of events that of course leads to the Messiah 500 years later it takes place in the Persian period call it the sixth century BC through the third century fourth century BC after many Israelites had returned from exile from the land of - the line of the Palestine to rebuild the temple and not all of them went by the way this really deals with some people who chose not to go but with that most is like captives chosen not to return to their homeland Cyrus gave them financial incentives to do so donations for the temple and for Nationals m's ago in less than 50,000 win it should have done so because both Isaiah and Jeremiah that that exiled nation to come out of battle and after their 70 years servitude and return where the Lord could bless them under the promises of Deuteronomy 28 and as yes just in some of our previous studies Deuteronomy 28 to halves the blessings and the curses you want to understand those and it's interesting member we just finished Hosea and God for a while had him name his child lo ami ye are not my people and this sort of alludes to that period yes they are God's people they will be again but he is invisible we see him watching over the people but invisibly that's what's so interesting here and the events of this book but extend over roughly 10 years from 43 BC which is Xerxes third year through 473 BC the end of his twelfth year so that decade that 20-year period is our focus for this book and they if you try to tie this it's ahead of Nehemiah probably about between chapter 6 and 7 of Ezra if you want to get a flavor of where it fits in the scenario here let's just jump in now it came to pass in the days of hazardous this is hazardous which reigned from India even to Ethiopia over a hundred and twenty seven provinces that's a bunch hazardous his Persian name is unpronounceable cassia Raja which in Hebrew somehow becomes a hazardous and in the Greek language we would know him from our secular as Xerxes a very very despotic flamboyant impulsive leader his father was Darius the first his grandfather was a guy by the name of Cyrus the Great we talk a lot about him for a lot of reasons Daniel 5 and so on but hazardous that that is actually a title sort of like Pharaoh or a Caesar those are really titles not names and there's three possible candidates here the father Darius the Mede was so labeled Daniel 9 1 he was probably the sire oxys that nobody in in profane history the king of media and the Conqueror of Nineveh and then there's a king mentioned in ezra four or six probably the campuses of profane history his son and successor of cyrus that we think it's the son of Darius hispidus which is the king named in the book of Esther he ruled over the kings of Persia media and Babylonia from India to Ethiopia literally Ethiopia being really cushioned anyway this was all probability the Xerxes of profane history some people have arguments about this but the abundance of Scholastic evidence ties it pretty well to the guy we know in history of Xerxes and by the way in the Septuagint version of Esther the name art exerts ease occurs there but that's really his son that comes later and we're going to talk about him before we're through anyway the King we're talking about rain for about 21 years and led vast armies against Greece so so vast that the historians are of that period or doubted we'll see some examples of that shortly I'll take you through some of that the two countries that are listed here India and Ethiopia are chosen because they apparently are the the the boundaries from Maine to California so to speak okay and so the word ethiop is actually cush it's a term for the Upper Nile region which included present-day southern Egypt all of the Sudan and northern Ethiopia and so then in those days when the king of Hazard sat on the throne of his kingdom which was in Shushan the palace that's about two hundred miles east of Babylon the capital of Alam or what we would know today as Iran or also called Persia and this was the sushi on the side of the winter residence of the Persian kings it was also the residence of Darius who authorized the rebuilding of the temple Xerxes the SS husband that we're talking about the story and artaxerxes the first who's the one that authorized nehemiah to protect the city which of course triggers the 70 week prophecy of Daniel 9 so he's a very important person in history but that's the son of the one we're going to be encountering here now it's interesting that the Shushan area they found an inscription as follows my ancestor Derek built this palace in former times in the reign of my grandfather Arctic Circle T is the first 425 425 425 it was burned and I have restored it and it's interesting that a later period might not have even have known about the palace so we get all kinds of evidences that this story that we're gonna read was written by an eyewitness interestingly enough we've confirmed it by subsequent discoveries archaeologically and we'll get into some of that as we go and they've they've been located the Kings gate of chapter 4 the inner court of chapter 5 the outer court of chapter 6 the palace garden it's referenced in chapter 7 and one of the dice that is which they cast lots that's going to be important in our story the idea of poor us we're poram gets that holiday gets its name from this idea of chance throwing the dice so to speak okay and the third year of his reign they made a feast at wallace princes and servants the power of Persia and media which it was actually a coalition backing Cyrus's day because he was part mede part anyway I'll get all here the nobles and the princes of the province being before him now he has breaking parties were well known they're well documented by Herodotus and others and he had an irrational temper occasionally exhibiting fits of his rage when a bridge bridge craft you took a strap and he beat the the ocean in a rage for having there's strange stories about Xerxes he's apparently quite an immature character in some respects he didn't have a palace in Sousa which here is called Shushan Sousa is the Greek name for it and he had a large harem there and the pilloried halls of the priciple and Persepolis tongue and the Susan palaces could accommodate hundreds if not thousands of visitors the power Persian media the nobles and princes of the provinces were brought before him for a six-month party now it doesn't mean they were all there for all six months but for six months it was a special time and the presence of those all the heavies all the governors all his top people came they gathered at Sousa and why was he putting on this big show because he's getting them conditioned because he wants to conquer the world starting with Europe okay literally so the president has persons gathering were prepared Tory to a Grecian war that's where he's going to start as witnessed in Herodotus records all this and he refers to these banquets in his history yeah Herodotus is known as the father of history by the way he wrote extensively and and he states that hazardous was conferring with his leaders about a possible invasion of Greece it was his father Darius the first that invaded Greece and had been shamefully defeated at marathon it back in 490 which is a few years before the area were watching now so while preparing to return to Greece and get revenge Darius had died and now his son our Xerxes friend is I mean he is now he felt compelled to avenge his father and expand his empire at the same time and so it's Hirota disappoints out he'd planned to invade all of Europe and reduce the whole earth to one empire that was his dream now it's not invented by Alexander the Great this precedes him here anyway a rota says quote my intent is to throw a bridge over the Hellespont and March an army through Europe against Greece and thereby I mean obtain vengeance from the Athenians for the wrongs committed by them against the Persians and against my father so according to Herodotus he confronted Greece with 2.6 million and walked away with seven thousands the whole story we'll get to here in a minute the King's uncle art de baños strongly opposed the plan but the King persisted and succeeded in convincing the princes and the offers to follow him that's what that six-month party is all about and according to wrote us it took Zurich a Xerxes for years to get ready for the invasion he launched in 481 and those four years would begin from the beginning of Xerxes grain to about 485 okay and no doubt the hundred eighty days was were planning sessions in effect in which all the provinces leaders were being prepared for the war effort and he will marry Esther four years later in the seventh year his reign will get to that before the evening is over but that's still ahead of us here and unfortunately this ostentatious display of wealth couldn't guarantee them a military victory because in 480 the Persian Navy was destroyed in Salamis while the King sat on the throne watching the battle in 479 the Persian army was defeated in Plataea and they ended a hazardous dream of world empire that's a glimpse ahead and obviously it's a Naval Academy graduate I will not let you pass by the victory at Salamis before the evening is over we're going into that a little bit but oh there are three banquets here described and it took at least six other feasts a record in this book this is a party animals book here so pay attention the other six are wet esters coronation banquet Haman is the who's the villain of the piece he will have a celebration feast with the king in Chapter three Esther throws two banquets and that's a whole story that's own right and the Jews banquets when they heard the new decree and then the feast of Purim is the climactic go on which is celebrated to this day by the Jewish community but let's get on here verse four when he showed the riches of his glorious kingdom the honor of his excellent majesty many days even a hundred and four score days fourscore being twenty one hundred eighty days and so uh ostentation is the main feature here huge army that he invaded Greece as I say Herodotus pens it and literally lays it out by 2.6 million most historians think that's a gross exaggeration but they do recognize it was a vast outnumbering of the of the Greeks and so anyway but most of that even even his army was more display than service they were obviously not very effectual and and that will be evident from the way the Greeks deal with it and it's going to be especially evident when Alexander later puts it into it all but vain parade is available as a visible apparent everywhere we go here and so exhibits all these riches of his King news officers and so are these out of a sales job here and that all these details incidentally are confirmed in archeological things we won't spend time on that here when these days were expired the King made a feast unto all the people that were present intrusion on the palace both under great and small seven days in the court of a garden of the king's palace that court of the garden by the way is about 350 d feet long 250 feet wide with a square of 145 taken out of it in the central building that exceeds 60,000 square feet that's a party place huh Wow there were white and green and blue hangings fashioned with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rings and pillars of marble the beds were of gold and silver upon the pavement of red blue white and black marble those are not colors by the way those are actually four different materials in the in the text that's just the way it's been translated the so called pavement thing there okay and they gave them drinking vessels of gold the vessels being diverse from one another and the royal wine in abundance according to the state of the king strange little remark it's a minut point but it implies an eyewitness recording it not the kind of thing that somebody would just you know watch over it's a detail it's interesting and the drinking was according to the law none did compel for so the King had a point of to all the officers house that they should do according to every man's pleasure that's unusual because the usual custom was to force them to drink it was required but this was great liberty you can drink as little or as much as you want that's some kind of freedom the persons were very hard drinkers and frequently drank to excess and that's recorded by several of the ancient historians they're well known for that and now we meet Vashti the Queen made a feast for the women in the royal house which belonged to King has errs the women of the men stayed separate which shows she the queen through her own party for the gals okay Vashti the name by the way it means beautiful woman which gives us sort of a problem is that her name or is that a title because of some debate exactly there's some issues I'll come to in a minute and that she's identified as the granddaughter of Nebuchadnezzar in some rabbinical sources interesting Lee enough but a mistress is the way it's there are some Greek records the only wife of Xerxes known to the Greeks was a mistress which is a the daughter of Atanas one of the seven conspirators according to Herodotus Jacques Ortiz took her to wife as soon as use of a Marable age and before he ascended the throne he had a son by her who in his seventh year was grown up that son would become harder Xerxes launched a modest the one that gives Nehemiah his authority rebuild Jerusalem the city and that's that triggers the whole 70 week prophecy so he's a key guy but that's the son of whoever this gal is whether it's Vashti or whether it's the stepson so to speak of Esther's that is at issue it would seem to be certain that if a hazardous mazurka sees Vashti must be a mistress as the title goes baby maybe not that again could be a title and then the women didn't take their meals together unless and except in the privacy of domestic life and so the women would have their own parties in effect what it says in the royal house and the janae qiyam which is the harem which was probably on the southern side of the great pillared hall so on let's move on verse 10 on the seventh day when the heart of the king was married with wine he commanded a bunch of names all mispronounced the human Vista harbona big van de Baca fella zefr and carcass the seven Chamberlain's that served in the presence of hazards the King to bring Vashti the Queen before the king with the crown royal to show the people and the princes her beauty for she was fair to look on this is an unusual procedure unusual request incidentally but the Queen Vashti refused to come at the Kings commandment by his Chamberlain's therefore was the King very wroth and his anger burned in him that's very unfortunate because he was going to parade his wife before this drunken crowd she didn't want any part of it she was more right than he was but he's King and pride driven impulsive so he is really feels upstaged and this is he's showing less character than she did she had the strength of character to say no but his anger burned within him then the king said to the wise men which knew the times that sounds like their astrologers or what-have-you for so was the Kings manner toward all that new law and judgment and the next to him was carshena Sheth our ad matha Tarshish marah's marsinah and mem Yukon will be important the seven princes of Persia and media which saw the Kings face in which the first in the kingdom this is his first level of advisors and so what shall we do unto the Queen Vashti according to the law because she hath not performed the commandment of the King has this by the Chamberlain's big deal here maybe can answer before the king and the princes Vashti the Queen hath not then wrong have not done wrong to the King only but also to all the princes to all the people that are in all the provinces of the king of his errs your girls will recognize the illogic of that conclusion what's that got to do with anything but these are the sycophants that are there to tell the King what they think the king wants to hear right and for this deed of the Queen shall come what brought done to all women so that they shall despise their husbands in their eyes when it shall be reported the king of a hazards commanded Vashti the Queen to be brought in before him but she came not in other words there arguing that because of her tis if they allow her disobedience it's going to affect all the households baloney anyway this I guess is what you'd call a a Persian stimulus package and anyway likewise she'll delays a Persian media say to this day unto all the Kings princes which have heard the deed of the Queen the shall there arise too much contempt and wrath if it please the King let there go a royal commandment from him and let it be written among the laws of the Persians of the means that be not altered that the notes by the way their laws are not alterable we find that in Daniel chapter 6 as a key point in that whole story - there's a consistency be sensitive to anyway let it be written among the laws of Bursley the Greeks and the Medes that it not be ordered that Vashti come no more before the king of hazards and let the king give her royal estate to another that is better than she boy she's the only one showing some character because she wouldn't parade herself before these this drunken rebel you would think that he would think more of her than even exposure that kind of stuff it's the other way around though it turns out and so it's interesting though we find examples of the decrees of a temporary character were sometimes attached to a code for the express purpose of rendering them unalterable that's the trap that the advisors got Darius in and Daniel chapter 6 because the he now you've been appointed to the meetin Persian head up the the median magistrates Magi and that it was a hereditary priesthood they resented it so they cooked up that whole lamb thing but anyway let's move on and when the Kings decree which he shall make shall be published throughout all his Empire for it is great all the wives shall give to their husbands honor both to great and small that's the logic they're trying to sell the king and the saying please the king in the princes and the king did according to the word of them you can resent letters and all the king's provinces in the heavy province according to the writing thereof and to every people after their language that every man should bear rule in his own house that it should be published according to the language of the people one of the things you get a print impression here is they had a Pony Express kind of thing that his decree could be published rather quickly and here of course it's foolishness in a sense but that turned out to be very important before we get the story over because there's another decree that saves lives that goes out fortunately fast enough and so we'll get into that but be sensitive fact that there is apparently a fairly well-organized what I'll call in our parlance a Pony Express kind of communications in network after these things when the wrath of King now by the way we're in Chapter two we just got from chapter 1 to chapter two and there's about four years in here we want to talk about after these things with the wrath of king of hazards apiece he remembered Vashti years have gone by in the meantime what has happened those years I'll tell you and so let's take a look at this between chapters one and two there's at least four years during which Xerox went on his disastrous Greek campaign there are a series of battles 490 BC is the Battle of Marathon that's the one he wants to avenge when his father was humiliated by the defeat that Greece gave them at the Battle of Marathon then came the Battle of thermopile then the Battle of Salamis and the Battle of Plataea let's take a quick look of these marathon is the one that's historic that happens before Xerxes that took place between the Greeks of the Persians at marathon that's a plane in Athenian territory about 25 miles northeast of Athens and Herodotus describes all this in great detail that has that being initiated against the Greek cities of athens and eretria by Darius the first in revenge for their support of a revolt within the Persian Empire a decade earlier okay so at the same time he portrays the Persian motive as the conquest of all of Greece there that was really what they're after now the Persians were enormous what the real number is is only a matter of guests but the most the smallest number by the scholars is probably at least about 90,000 they outnumbered the Greeks by out virtually ten to one okay according to notice the dead numbered 192 Athenians died and over six thousand Persians so despite the fact they're outnumbered like ten to one they clobbered him enough so that now the Persians are going to seek revenge ins for their shameful defeat we could follow the logic so would that lead you to thermopile II and that's a term in the Greek which means the hot gates it's a hot springs kind of area and in the vicinity and it's the scene of the first major battle that fought by Xerxes in his attempt to conquer the world mortally partly by on vengeance basis but partly as ambition for expansion and so he had already won over some parts of Greece through a diplomatic initiative and the threat of force the remaining Greeks under the leadership of Sparta these are tough guys abandoned the hustling frontier made a stand instead at the pass of thermopile a thermo-pile ax is the scene that is now immortalized in movies and other things see if their part was the main route by which an invading army could penetrate from the north into southern Greece in the ancient times it was about a 50 foot wide pass and it's different today but that's what it was then and that many people regard her Otis's recording of this as a gross exaggeration but Herodotus actually claims that 2.6 million in their army most of the army was vain show they weren't real trained military and those 2.6 million or whatever they really were we're about against about 7,000 Greeks and they won immortal Fame there because they the the leader got killed and his 1,400 men and a fabled 300 Spartans held them off long enough for most of them to escape and they lost yes they were betrayed by a vessel in which in the into the heads of persons who by following a path over a mountain attacked the Greeks from the rear so despite the heroics that have been immortalized in movies and and poetry and other things the fable 300 if you will the the Greeks lost it but and the Persians went on after having suffered their losses there they want to take Athens and the Greek Navy will ultimately defeat them at the Battle of Salamis halting Xeroxes advance and let's take a look at the Battle of Salamis as the Naval Academy graduate I gotta lay this on you because it was probably one of the big naval victories in history and occurred in the Strait near the island of Salaam it's not far from Athens the Persians under desert seas had been advancing all the way through Greece and by 480 BC they had actually captured Athens but both the Greek and the Persian supplies were getting low and the Greeks had an argument of what their next move should be some advocated that you withdraw out of Corinth but an Athenian general Themistocles argued that it would be more effective to pursue an aggressive naval policy and hold their position and when he threatened to leave with the Athenian Navy they all finally agreed to his plan you know it's my ball you may let have to let me play any kind of thing so I'm by some accounts to me Themistocles then sent a secret message to Xerxes saying that his Athenian Navy was prepared to turn against the rest of the Greeks and that the Persians had only to attack to secure a victory and Zook seized apparently fooled by this ploy attacked with his fleet of about 400 ships and when the Persian Navy advanced the fleet of 380 Greek ships back further into the bay a tactical maneuver designed to suck in the Persians if you and crowded in the narrow strait of Salaam is the Persian ships were rammed sunk and boarded by Greeks for him to in combat the battle was a decisive victory for the outnumbered Greece who lost only 40 ships compared to the more than 200 lost by the Persians this halted the advance of Xerxes and ended the Persian threat to Greek civilization now there's one fourth and final battle we will get in the detail but as a clean up in the Battle of Plataea and that's the final battle of the Persian Wars in which the remaining Persian 4 of Greece were defeated and driven out so that ends the the the Persian ambitions it's going to be a century later that Alexander the Great you know really sets the stage but will that's ahead of us here all authority comes from God right not from guns and ships and whatever Pharaoh had to learn that in Egypt in Texas 7 Nebuchadnezzar had to learn that in Daniel 3 and 4 Belshazzar learned it at in this blasphemous banquet in Daniel 5 and so Necker have learned at the gates of Jerusalem and Isaiah 36 and 37 parent Agrippa learned it as he died eaten by worms in acts 12 the US may be learning that today but that's another story let's go on here chapter 2 verse 1 after these things when the wrath of King has arose was appeased he remembered Vashti and what she had done and what was decreed against her and small word is he missed her so he came home a bitter man can you imagine after those military setbacks it was only natural he would seek some kind of comfort in his own home but they remember the course pass he had been dethroned and was without a queen and he doesn't dare reinstate her because his advisors know that's the end of them right so he's a call for a new queen he had invaded grace as I say with two million soldiers only five thousand had been returned to him that's kind of a rough setback and that and then of course it's after this Esther's chosen he'll live another 13 years from here she will live into the reign of her stepson artaxerxes and Nehemiah's request to rebuild Jerusalem and that's the Daniel 70 week story which you can put in context by doing a little homework there verse 2 then said the king's servants that minister on him let there be if it be fair young virgins sought for the king they're not about to want Vashti reinstated that would be their death there'd be a gas to that and so let the King appoint all officers and all the provinces of his kingdom that they may gather together all the fair young virgins and the xuxa and the palace to the house of the women under the custody of Hege the Kings Chamberlain keeper of the women and let their things there for purification be given to them and let the maiden which pleases the King be Queen instead of Asti and the thing please the King so he did so you know for a despotic leader he seemed to be kind of a pushover to his advisers you know really and the the average didn't want circus to reinstate Vashti because that would she would obviously turn against them so and so this anyway appealed to the king and he followed it now intrusion on the pass there was a certain Jew whose name was Mordecai the son of jr. the son of shimmy I the son of Kish a Benjamite he's a Benjamite there was a family of Kish who came from the family of Kish huh Saul the King you bet but also these others solace he saw was son of kitchen of the tribe of Benjamin don't forget that in fact Josephus refers to Esther as of the royal family the royal family being Saul's okay as king but I want to talk about something that's overlooked by many Mordecai's is some of your error set of Shem II I who is shimmy I whenever you see a detail in here the rabbi's will tell you if you see a detail it seems unnecessary that's a signpost says dig here there's something there's a treasure hidden shimmy I apparently son of Gera and Benjamite of Saul's house but there's a story you need to know about when David fleeing from Absalom others have many years before right reach the edge of the valley between the road of Shania's house shimmy ran along the ridge over against the road cursing and throwing stones and dust at him at David and his mighty men still as he went and saying come out come out now bloody man thou men of Belial that the Lord hath returned upon thee all the blood of Oz of Saul then the Lord hath delivered that Kingdom into the hand of Absalom my son and thou art taken in my mischief because thou are a bloody man he's sounding off to the king who's surrounded by his mighty man dumb move right abba shy that's one of the mighty men would have taken off his head then and there that's a dead dog presuming to curse the king got the picture but david interesting felt this was y'all was doing let him curse for the LORD hath bidden him it may be that the Lord will look on shine affliction mr. miner fiction and requite me good for his cursing shimai i was wisely was the first of the house of Joseph to meet David on his victorious return over Jordan this is later he returned with a thousand Benjamites and ziba his 15 sons and twenty servants are with him he fell down before the king confessing his sin and begging David you know David's in power now is he in banking David not to impute iniquity to him or remember and take to heart his perversity really again - I would have slain Jimmy I but David felt his day of restoration to the kingdom was no day for avenging wrongs and said thou shalt not die no he'll get later on into another trouble in world but they get killed because of his own doing but what's interesting here I want you to be sensitive to some genealogical ironies because David spared Shem AI there was a Mordecai in our story you're going to discover on our next session that Saul spared a gag which he wasn't supposed to and that leads to Haman the two protagonists in the book of Esther are Mordecai that we always cheer and Haman that you blew okay but that beause they both go back to having been spared death semi I wasn't killed by David therefore we have a Mordecai Saul was supposed to kill kingag and he did not and that's why we have Haman let's get back with a story here verse 6 who I've been carrying away from speaking back of Mordecai had been carried away from Jerusalem of the captivity which had been tearing away with Jack and I the king of Judah he was he was captured he has one of the captives whom and then he came as the king of Babylon had carried away that deportation under Jeconiah began some 88 years earlier there are at least three captivity zuv Judah the first was when Daniel was carried away in the third year of Josiah Kim the second was that is he referred to is too high a chin or Jeconiah and when he was made prisoner and then the third was Zedekiah was taken to Jerusalem and it was Burt finally in the third siege so you need to understand those three see just because a lot that deepen your understanding will hang on that stuff and Kitsch belonged to the second captivity anyway and he brought up Hadassah that his Esther his uncle's daughter that's Mordecai's uncle's daughter for she had neither father nor mother and the maid was fair to beautiful who Mordecai when her father and mother were dead took for his own daughter okay I'll give you a genealogical chart here a little bit Hadassah that is Esther that's as we know her his uncle's daughter for she had neither father mother and her maid was fair and beautiful who Mordecai when her father and mother were dead took for his own daughter and gassiness is one of the greatest Hebrew authorities says that Esther is taken from the word to hide it means something hidden and let me tell you before we're through with the study you're gonna be surprised you'll be astonished that what's lurking underneath the text but we'll move on now she was a Jewish named Hadassah which means Myrtle but when she entered the Royal harem she received the name by which she was henceforth become known and she was the daughter Abigail a Benjamite her family does not avail themselves of permission granted by Cyrus of the excellent to the Exile is to return to Jerusalem she resided with her cousin Mordecai held some office in the household of Persian king at Shushan metallus so these both she Mordechai were residuals they didn't go back to Jerusalem and from our point of view it's good that they didn't because they had their became major instruments of God's providence there they came to pass when the Kings commandment and his decree was heard and many and when many maidens were gathered together into xuxa in the palace to the custody of Haggai the the that Esther was brought also unto the king's house to the custody of Haggai the keeper of the women that name by the way occurs in her onethis as an officer of cirque sees in her otis about chapter 9 verse 24 anyway and the maiden pleased him and she obtained kindness of him and he speedily gave her her things for purification with such things that's belong to her and seven maidens which were meat to be given her out of the king's house and he preferred her and her maids undo the best place of house of the women you know so he's very similar Joseph in Egypt somehow caught the patronage of the jailer so to speak well she's in the same boat she's in the similar situation she's a captive in effect but the one in charge takes a liking to her and he sort of knows the ins and outs of the system there Esther not showed her people nor her kindred for Mordecai had charged her that she should not show it she had not showed her people other what she is Jewish but neat and Mordecai tipped her off not to let anyone know that that would not serve her purpose it's an interesting issue here Mordecai walked every day before the court of the woman's house to know how Esther did and what should become of her he couldn't go in but he could get some clues from the eunuchs what's going on he Keith the staid as best he could inform of what's going on now when every maids turn was come to go into the King has arose after that she had been twelve months according to the manner of the women for so were the days of the purification accomplished two went six months without Homer and six months with sweet odours and with other things for the purifying of women now I don't know how many of you gals go through that for your husbands but Wow you know then thus came every maiden unto the king whatsoever she desired was given to her to go with her out of the house of the women unto the king's house in the evenings and on the morrow she returned into the second house of the women to the custody jaha's guys the Kings Chamberlain which kept the concubines she came in unto the king no more except the king delighted except the king and light in her and that she were called by name you need to understand their harem janae qiyam is comprised of three houses a residence for the Queen herself corresponding to that which Solomon built for the daughter of Pharaoh on first King seven a second house for secondary wives or concubines a third house for virgins upon returning from her first visit the King's Chamber she ordinarily would become an inmate of the second house and it was under the care of this other eunuch okay now in the turn of Esther the daughter of a beheld an uncle of Mordecai who had been taken in her for his daughter was come to go in unto the King she required nothing but what heguy the king's table and the keeper of the women appointed and that's to obtain favor in the sight of all them that looked upon her let me at this point just insert a gene a bee hail is the uncle of Mordecai literally the paternal uncle of the father's brother the genealogy to give you a perspective here under kiss was Mei and he had two sons Dar and Emma Hale jr. was the father of Mordecai abigail was this father's brother has a daughter Esther but he and his wife died so Esther falls under the guardianship of Mordecai got the picture okay and so so Esther was taking on the king of Harris into the house royal and the tenth month which is the month of Tibet in the seventh year of his reign the great feast that we talked about was four years earlier just keep it keep that in focus here the month to Beth is this the only mention of it in the in the scripture by the way it follow kislev and corresponds to the end of December early part of January on our skin on our counter and the king oh here's the big news and the King loved Esther above all the other women and I will I wouldn't presume that he has the capacity to really love her as we would use the term but he obviously had a preference here that turns out to be very operative because she obtained grace in favor in his sight more than all the virgins so that he's the royal crown upon her head and made her Queen instead of Ashley praise God that does that have an impact on human history it turns out then the King made a great feast unto all his princes he's going to find any excuse to throw a party I guess anyway made a great feast under Wallis princes and servants even Esther's feast and he made a released get this he made a release to the provinces and gave gifts accorded stay of cake he forgave their taxes orally some portion of them he gave a release that was a big deal for everybody and so here this how a humble Jewish maiden an orphan depend upon her living as a cousin on my cousin's charity became the first woman in all Persia the wife of the greatest of living monarchs the queen of the empire which comprised more than a half of the known world Wow that's how it happened and when the virgins were gathered together the second time Mordecai sat in the King's day now we're going to get into a little episode here this is a little plant this is the kind of thing that should catch your attention Esther not yet shoulder her kindred nor her people is Mordecai charged her for Esther did the commandment of Mordecai like as when she was brought up with what she did what she was told and so even though she was just a you know a ward of Mordecai she followed his directions precisely and it was it'll prove to be very important anyway in little episodes going to career in those days well Mordecai set in the Kings gate now apparently Mordecai suddenly has been upscaled here probably we guess that with Esther's being favored she whispered in the right ears and got Mordecai promoted because he's now in City Hall he's in the Kings gate that's the the legal place things are decided he sat in the Kings gate while he was there two of the Kings Chamberlain's big fan and tarish of those which kept the door these are insiders were Roth and sought to lay hand on the King azeris Mordecai somehow picks up there's a plot to kill the king okay and this so he's a very key position to do that and by the way just so you know Xerxes later on actually lost his life through a conspiracy formed by our table honors the captain of the guard and as spam interests a eunuch and the Chamberlain so he was later on they victim of the intrigues in the palace but let's get on with this one the thing was known to Mordecai who told it to Esther the Queen and Esther certified the King Vera in Mordecai's name so Esther communicates the king there's a plot to kill him and gives Mordecai the credit for having revealed it right but and by the way Josephus even had some details here that a certain foreign Abaza a slave of one of the conspirators betrayed them to Mordecai that's how he found out that's in Josephus for what it's worth and when Inquisition was made of the matter it was found out therefore they were both hanged on a tree that's not quite true I'll come back to that and it was written in the book of The Chronicles before the king now don't think there haned like a gallows many of your English translation gives you the impression they were hung on the gallows that's the word they use know they were crucified they were impaled on a post crucifixion was invented by the Persians about 90 years before the Romans picked up on it and the Romans of course use it widely crucifixion wasn't a Roman thing was something they learned from the Persians that's what they're really talking about here it's a translational issue okay so so rather than being hanged in a modern type gallows they apparently were impaled on a stake or post and that was not an unusual method of execution because Xerxes father Darius apparently crucified 3,000 men on one occasion so this was a way they did things and the record of this is incidentally the record of this assassination attempt was then written in the annals that is the official record that it was discovered the perpetrators would be perpetrators were executed and Mordecai's name is there for credit and this is going to be a plant in the plot this is a this is cool now a couple of genealogical things a mistress is the term it shows up in the Greek literature was the mother of art exerts ease who ruled from 464 to 425 she probably was vasty Vashti was deposed in 482 it was a year before that our exactly's was born so apparently Vashti was her his biological mother but she apparently is the stepmother then of our exertions and apparently influenced him greatly so what's what we don't know we know that his mother was a great influence on her but that would probably not be vast you'd be Esther because she would be the the what we would call a stepmother it was her son artaxerxes who ruled during the times of Ezra and also in Nehemiah and that's what leads of course to the 70 week trigger which is big stuff that's kind of fun okay we have this little plant we're in discover that Mordecai is never acknowledged because God knows when the time is right and we're gonna see a very very interesting plot twist coming later on in the story but we've talked about Mordecai we've talked about Esther we've gotten a glimpse of this guy Xerxes and he's tall dark and handsome but not very mature very impulsive but there's another guide to be introduced into the story next time and the malachite by the name of Haman so I want you to study for next times Esther chapter 3 and chapter 4 and we're going to introduce the villain of the piece you want to take a look at Haman's background you'll find some of that in 1st Samuel 15 because Saul is supposed to kill King Agag and does not and he goes to the penalty box because of that whether there's a thread here that actually begins in Genesis and involves a notable ancestor of mark i's family the first king of israel namely saw so the story of Esther in a sense starts back there with Saul with a why okay sound of kish in two ways so you're going to also want to study for next time review Mordecai's background in second samuel 16 and 19 in first Kings 2 and you can use your resources to poke around to that but study that 3 and 4 and the plot gets thicker it's going to be one of the most dramatic dramas that you'll ever encounter so much so it's irresistible as a story and you're going to discover that this guy Haman is bad news and this guy Mordecai is in refuses to yield to him shows character and in earns a death sentence because of that but God has a way of introducing twists that no playwright would have dreamed up it's just the kick and so very very interesting time all it's a prelude to some really huge huge dramatic scenes so great time let's stand for closing word of Prayer book of Esther it's interesting what diversity of books make up the Bible what diversity of books make up the Old Testament this narrative is so different but almost everything else in the Bible very colorful very enticing a real kick let's bow our hearts
