Strange Providence

The Book of Esther

It is a strange thing that the book of Esther is in the Bible. This historical narrative is very different than many of the other 66 books of inspired Scripture. There is no mention of God, no mention of the Law, no mention of Israel, no mention of worship, and no mention of prayer. It is a distinctly ‘Jewish’ book because of its prominent theme: the deliverance of the Jews (who are mentioned some 38 times in the book) from the hand of vile Haman and the tyrannical rule of Xerxes. Nonetheless, there is a good deal of ‘moral ambiguity’ in the story, such as the disturbing idea that Mordecai would allow his niece (whom he was raising as his daughter) to become a concubine and plaything of a pagan king . There is the dubious nature of Mordecai’s insistence that Esther not make it known that she is a Jew. What are we to make of Mordecai’s indignant defiance of Haman’s demand for honor (there is no biblical reason, necessarily, that Mordecai could not bow before Haman) which sparks the whole crisis in the first place? And what of the brutal slaughter of the enemies of the Jews in chapter 9? How are we to treat this difficult verse, “the Jews struck all their enemies with the sword, killing and destroying them, and did as they pleased to those who hated them” (9:5)? And this is not to mention the historical difficulties the book presents, there being very little external evidence to support the story. It is difficult to pinpoint when all this occurred and find compelling archaeological evidence which might verify its claims.

Have I provided you with enough distrust of God’s Word yet? I know , I know. None of this was presented in the movie, “One Night With the King” (I won’t waste time with the ridiculous veggie tales story- but I will ask, why is it ok to twist and fabricate God’s Word for our children? Just a question…) In fact, in that strange quasi-evangelical-hollywood-esque portrayal of the book of Esther, Xerxes is a hunky dude with a lot of charm and a hankerin for postmodern notions of love and romance. The real Xerxes, or Ahasuerus (which sounds a lot like ‘king headache’ in Hebrew)- as he is called in the text, was an awful, vile, twisted tyrant who was as incompetent as we was impulsive and as violent as he was foolish. But, he had a way with motivating his subjects (he buried hundreds of slaves up to their necks for the animals to snack on their heads for not completing a highway in time), threw a great party (a 187 day feast we read about in chapter 1), and was quite a fierce warrior from all accounts.

I won’t answer all the questions I raise here. I raise them all simply to lead you to the ultimate theme of the book of Esther: the strange and glorious providence of God. The book opens with a pagan fratboy of a king ruling over a drunken, chaotic empire. God’s people are introduced in chapter two as exiles in this pagan and godless land in the person of the lovely Esther who seems tragically caught in a web of sin and destruction. We are meant to ask some important questions as we read. We are meant to ask the questions that faced the exiles of Babylon (which is the historical period of the narrative, circa 486-465 B.C.). These are the questions of all who wander as ‘aliens and strangers’ in a seemingly godless and chaotic world. Where are you God? Why don’t you speak? Why don’t you act? What is to become of your people? Why do the righteous suffer and the godless prosper? If you are all powerful, why won’t you reveal your power now? Real exiles feel such questions. And, by God’s grace and inspiration, the book of Esther was given to all such exiles. That they may see the invisible hand of providence in all circumstances through the eyes of faith. That they may continue to call upon the name of the God, though he seems silent and distant.

The theologian Louis Berkhof defines the doctrine of divine providence in this way, “the cooperation of the divine power with all subordinate powers, according to the pre-established laws of their operation, causing them to act precisely as they do.” That’s a good definition, but maybe you are still scratching your head. So I’ll let the Heidelberg Catechism speak on this doctrine as well:

Providence is the almighty and ever present power of God by which he upholds, as with his hand, heaven and earth and all creatures and so rules them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and lean years, food and drink, health and sickness, prosperity and poverty- all things, in fact, come to us not by chance but from his fatherly hand. (Catechism Q/A #27)

The book of Esther makes this glorious doctrine known. It seems that Persia is ruled by a godless tyrant. But, this is not so. Xerxes is under the mighty hand of God to serve his purposes in the world for his own glory. Vile Haman rolls the dice to choose a day on which the Jews might be destroyed. But, ‘though the lot is cast in the lap, every decision is of the Lord’ (Prov. 16:33). What an awful situation that Esther is in, but we soon discover that ‘she has come to the kingdom of Ahasuerus for such a time as this’ (4:14). We see over and over again that God confounds the plans of men and turns the tables on the evil. The book is urging us to be of good courage in the struggle against sin and the plans of the wicked, “for we walk by faith and not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7).

In this book we see mighty men brought low. We see orphans become heroes. We see ordinary people face extraordinary struggle and become portraits of God’s redeeming love and prevailing grace. The book begins with a godless feast, with each man ‘doing as he desires’ in the kingdom of this world. The book ends with a triumphant remnant of warrior exiles feasting and worshipping their wonderful God who has, “turned their sorrow into gladness and their mourning into a celebration; that they should make days of feasting and gladness, days for sending gifts of food to one another and gifts to the poor” (9:22).

Aren’t you glad for the strange books of the Bible? Aren’t you glad for the strange, yet wonderful, providence of our God?