![]() ![]() Evidence of this is that Esther not only concealed her Jewish identity from Ahasuerus (at the instruction of Mordecai), but participated in the king’s immorality-and to such an extent that she earned his favor overnight, becoming queen in place of Vashti. Like many other Jews who had remained in foreign lands despite the fact that the return to Jerusalem had already been allowed decades prior, these two were both spiritually compromised. Among the women taken into the king’s harem was Esther (also known as Hadassah), who was under the care of her cousin Mordecai. ![]() Thus, he hosted what could only be described as a depraved beauty pageant, in which the most attractive women throughout his entire kingdom were summoned for a sexual audition to see if they could please him. Far from being an accidental absence, God intended to use Vashti’s royal vacancy to advance His own redemptive plan.Īfter he had time to reflect, Ahasuerus realized he needed to find a new royal mate (cf. He not only governs current events, but antecedent events. Through this event, we see that God’s providence is preemptive. When she refused, he immediately deposed her, both to protect his own ego as well as the egos of all the male heads of houses throughout the empire. During the final day, however, when ambition got the best of him he decided he wanted to parade his wife Queen Vashti in front of his guests as a human trophy. To raise support, he wined and dined not only his empire’s highest leaders for an astounding one hundred eighty days (showing off his own riches as an example of the post-war bounty that could be theirs), but then treated all the citizens in the capital city of Susa to a seven-day citywide festival (cf. ![]() Transpiring circa 483 BC, the book begins with the Persian King Ahasuerus (also known as Xerxes I) looking to rebuild national momentum for war against the Greeks. 1:3), He orders it all according to His will. As the omniscient, omnipotent, omnisapient Creator and Sustainer of all things (cf. Instead, it unmistakably teaches that God governs all aspects of His creation-not only events, circumstances, and actions, but even human emotions, intentions, and desires. This governance is God’s providence, which can defined as “God’s preserving his creation, operating in every event in the world, and directing the things in the universe to his appointed end for them.” Though many people claim that such an understanding of providence raises a theological “tension” in the Bible between God’s will and man’s will, the book of Esther illustrates that no such tension exists. Yet, this account teaches just the opposite: far from passively observing life’s circumstances, God actively governs every single one of them with meticulous sovereignty (cf. But what about in the ordinary moments of life? Is God a deistic watchmaker who winds up the gears of life’s events, only to sit back and watch them spin? Since the book of Esther makes no mention of God anywhere, it would be easy to assume that He was absent in the affairs that it depicts. ![]() God’s sovereignty and power are obvious in the depictions of miraculous events, such as the worldwide flood (cf. ![]()
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