Esther & Ruth

Iain M. Duguid

• Publisher: P Publishing
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9781596384545
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

Shows a gracious and sovereign God at work, one who uses obviously flawed people—unable even to help themselves—to rescue his people and prepare for the coming of Christ.

Esther

THE HIDDEN KING DELIVERS

1

STANDING FIRM AGAINST THE EMPIRE

Esther 1:1–22

If it please the king, let a royal order go out from him, and let it be written among the laws of the Persians and the Medes so that it may not be repealed, that Vashti is never again to come before King Ahasuerus. And let the king give her royal position to another who is better than she. (Esth. 1:19)

Imagine living life teetering on an unstable perch in a hostile world, while trying to perform a difficult task. This is the metaphor that dominates the classic film, The Fiddler on the Roof. The main character, the Russian Jew Tevye, explains his life in these terms:

A fiddler on the roof—sounds crazy, no? But here in our little village of Anatevke you might say every one of us is a fiddler on the roof, trying to scratch out a pleasant, simple tune without breaking his neck. It isn’t easy. You may ask why we stay up there, if it’s so dangerous? Well, we stay because Anatevke is our home. And how do we keep our balance? That I can tell you in one word: Tradition!

FIDDLING ON THE ROOF

The image of the fiddler on the roof applies to the Jews in Persia in Esther’s time just as much as it does to early-twentieth-century Russian Jews. They were not like those who lived around them, and they knew that their overlords could not be trusted. The Persians held all the power in their hands and the Jews had none. Even though these Jews had been born in Persia, they were exiles far from their homeland, surrounded by strangers. Their property could be seized or their life ended in a moment on the whim of some petty bureaucrat. On the other hand, if fortune smiled on them, they might yet survive to a good old age and make a reasonable living. As Tevye put it, “It isn’t easy . . . but it is home.” In such a difficult situation, why should the Jews take the risk of living a distinctive lifestyle? Why not just give in to the empire’s demands and allow themselves to be assimilated and become invisible? To reverse the old Japanese proverb, “The nail that doesn’t stick out is much less likely to get hammered.”

But is that the right way of putting it: “If fortune smiled on them . . . ?” Wasn’t there a God in heaven, a God who had committed himself to the Jewish people in an ancient covenant? Didn’t he take care of their forefathers when they were strangers and aliens in a land not their own? Didn’t he bring them out of Egypt with a strong hand and a mighty arm? Wouldn’t he look after his own people even in the midst of this present darkness? Or would he? After all, it had been a long while since that wonderful story of the crossing of the Red Sea, and why would he deign to look down on ordinary folk eking out very ordinary lives in distant Persia? They couldn’t see this God, they hadn’t heard from him lately, and in any case, they were living miles from the land he called his own. Did this invisible God still have what it takes—in terms of power and interest—to reach out and touch their lives?

When we think about it in these terms, it becomes clear that the situation of Tevye and that of Esther are not so far distant from ours as we might first have thought. We may not personally face direct persecution based on our nationality or our faith, although many of God’s people today in different parts of the world are confronted with exactly such a reality. However, we too are strangers in the land in which we live, called to be in the world but not of it. We may be citizens of the country in which we live, yet we are in a profound sense the subjects of a different king, with loyalties and allegiances different from those of our neighbors. Sometimes that difference doesn’t seem particularly important; we are all part of the same community. Yet at other times it becomes painfully clear that we are not operating under the same management as those who live all around us. In a pluralistic society, we too face the struggle to stand for our primary allegiance, and in a culture where those who stand for truth regularly find themselves getting hammered. It isn’t easy—but it is home.

What is more, we too struggle with the invisibility of God. The God who can part the Red Sea and raise Jesus from the dead does not choose to exercise that same power very often in our experience. We struggle when the goals and dreams we had for our lives are trampled underfoot by circumstances, even though perhaps they were good and godly dreams that God could easily have brought to fruition. Tevye dreamed of being a rich man and wondered what cosmic scheme of God’s would have been ruined if he had been given a better life. Perhaps all we ever wanted, though, was to be happily married, or to have children, or to raise those children, but God didn’t bring that dream to fruition. Perhaps our heart’s desire was to serve God in a full-time ministry, or to see our dearest friend come to faith in Christ, but it never happened. We cried out to God, asking what cosmic scheme would be disrupted by answering our prayers, but there was no response. God remained hidden, his will inscrutable. Like the Jews of Esther’s time and the Russian diaspora, we too may find ourselves “fiddlers on the roof,” struggling desperately to keep our balance in a confusing world.

THE TWIN TEMPTATIONS: ASSIMILATION AND DESPAIR

We can relate, then, to the two primary temptations that the Jews faced in Esther’s day. On the one hand, the power of the pagan empire was intensely visible and tangible. They heard it daily in the footsteps of the marching soldiers and the rumble of chariot wheels. They saw its opulent wealth and absolute control of the details of life. They smelled its power in the incense offered in a hundred state-sponsored pagan temples all around them. Why not just give up the distinctive motto, “We are God’s covenant people,” and be assimilated into the crowd? That was the goal of the Persian Empire. In the science fiction series Star Trek: The Next Generation, there was a particularly nasty opponent of the Federation called “The Borg,” who operated by incorporating their enemies into their collective and extracting from them whatever was of value. Their slogan was “Resistance is futile, you must be assimilated.” In just the same way, the Persian Empire sought to assimilate the various peoples that inhabited their territory into a single entity.

What made the temptation to assimilation particularly pressing was the fact that most of the really enthusiastic “As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (Josh. 24:15) people among the exiles had left and returned to Jerusalem at the time of Cyrus’s decree in 538 B.C., or during the generation that followed. Now, more than fifty years after that event, those who remained in Susa, the Persian capital, were strongly tempted to settle into a comfortable (perhaps too comfortable) coexistence with the generally benign autocracy that surrounded them. Exile had been kind to them. They had come to terms with the powers of the day and had forgotten that the pagan environment in which they lived was always at least potentially hostile and could never be trusted. They had forgotten that “the powers that be” were fickle masters who could easily turn against them.

If assimilation was one temptation that faced the people of Esther’s day, then despair was surely another. They were surrounded by a fickle, all-powerful empire that might well turn out to be antagonistic, and they followed a God whose ways were often inscrutable, invisible, and mysterious. What, then, could keep them from despair? As the Borg realized, despair and assimilation are closely related. The reason they constantly repeated the “Resistance is futile” slogan is that those who have given up hope are easily assimilated. How then could the Jewish exiles hold on to hope and faithfulness in the midst of a hostile pagan environment? How can we hold firm in the face of the trials and disappointments of our lives? As Tevye discovered as the movie Fiddler on the Roof unfolded, something more than the answer “Tradition” would be necessary to maintain a distinctive community.

To the twofold temptation to assimilation and despair, the Book of Esther offers a twofold answer. In the first place, it satirizes the empire, mocking its claims to power and authority. Satire takes the object of fear, the authority, and makes fun of it, showing its ridiculous side. The book is meant to make us laugh. For oppressed and powerless people, satire is a key weapon, cutting the vaunted splendor of the empire down to size. Dictatorships and totalitarian states have never had much of a sense of humor when it comes to their sense of self-importance. Books like Animal Farm, in which George Orwell depicted and parodied the Soviet system of government, swiftly find themselves being banned by the empire, because it fears the power of satire. If the people once perceive that the emperor indeed has no clothes, then the empire’s power to command obedience and instill fear is broken. The one who is able to laugh in the face of the Borg will never be successfully assimilated. Satire is thus a powerful antidote to despair. The Book of Esther shows us that the great empire is not run by fearsome giants after all, but by petty bureaucrats. The ruling class of Persia is depicted not so much as “The Magnificent Seven” but more like “Ahasuerus and the Seven Dwarfs.”¹

The second approach the Book of Esther takes is to show us that God is often at work in this world in an entirely different mode from, say, the events of the exodus. In the Book of Exodus, God’s work is all thunder and lightning, full of dramatic interventions that expose the emptiness of the Egyptian gods. There are great heroes like Moses and Aaron to lead the people and a trail of miracles to attest to God’s presence with them. In the Book of Esther, however, we see God working invisibly and behind the scenes.² Here there are neither dramatic miracles nor great heroes, just apparently ordinary providence moving flawed and otherwise undistinguished people into exactly the right place at the right time to bring the empire into line and to establish God’s purposes for his people. God is not mentioned by name anywhere in the book. However, when it comes to a conflict between the empire of Ahasuerus and his dwarfs on one side and the kingdom of the almighty, invisible God on the other, there is only one possible outcome.

LIFESTYLES OF THE RICH AND FATUOUS

The Book of Esther begins by introducing us to the great empire of Ahasuerus:

Now in the days of Ahasuerus, the Ahasuerus who reigned from India to Ethiopia over 127 provinces, in those days when King Ahasuerus sat on his royal throne in Susa, the capital, in the third year of his reign he gave a feast for all his officials and servants. The army of Persia and Media and the nobles and governors of the provinces were before him, while he showed the riches of his royal glory and the splendor and pomp of his greatness for many days, 180 days. And when these days were completed, the king gave for all the people present in Susa, the citadel, both great and small, a feast lasting for seven days in the court of the garden of the king’s palace. There were white cotton curtains and violet hangings fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rods and marble pillars, and also couches of gold and silver on a mosaic pavement of porphyry, marble, mother-of-pearl and precious stones. Drinks were served in golden vessels, vessels of different kinds, and the royal wine was lavished according to the bounty of the king. And drinking was according to this edict: “There is no compulsion.” For the king had given orders to all the staff of his palace to do as each man desired. Queen Vashti also gave a feast for the women in the palace that belonged to King Ahasuerus. (Esth. 1:1–9)

This Ahasuerus was no teacup tyrant: he ruled 127 provinces from India to Ethiopia, from sea to shining sea. What is more, Ahasuerus knew how to throw a party, a six-month-long event, for his military leaders, his princes, and his nobles—all of the power brokers of the kingdom. Anyone who was anyone was there. There were marble pillars and hangings of white and violet linen in the gardens, couches of gold and silver—even mosaic pavements made of costly materials. The very ground on which the guests walked and the seats on which they sat were made of things that other hosts would have kept safely locked away as precious treasures. No two of the wine cups were identical and the wine flowed freely, matching the king’s generosity.

This lengthy description serves an important purpose in the narration. We are meant to be impressed and awed by this display of excess—and a little revolted by its wastefulness. Just as we are both impressed and revolted when we read reports of the weddings of Hollywood stars—the flowers, the bands, the choirs, the fireworks, the outrageously expensive dress—so too here we should be both impressed and revolted. Ahasuerus is the very picture of power and wealth, both of which are squandered on his own appetites. And remember, these would have been our tax dollars at work!

But a key detail begins the process of deconstructing the empire in front of our very eyes, setting us up for the revelation that the emperor who has such a beautiful closet actually has no clothes. That detail comes in verse 8: “And drinking was according to this edict: ‘There is no compulsion.’ For the king had given orders to all the staff of his palace to do as each man desired.” This continues the theme of Ahasuerus’s power: even the very drinking at his party must conform to his law. No detail escaped the empire’s notice and regulation: an edict was required to ensure that no one was under compulsion! But power that must regulate conformity at this level inevitably invites a petty bureaucracy. Real power does not consist in regulating such detailed minutiae. In fact, the tendency to regulate such details is actually a sign of weakness not power. The stories that circulate of government regulations requiring bananas to conform to certain criteria of straightness and size do not impress us as shining examples of government efficiency but rather of bureaucrats run amok, compensating for lack of real significance by inordinate attention to minuscule details.³ Such was the empire of Ahasuerus, and as we read its description, it is hard to resist a chuckle.

DECONSTRUCTING THE EMPIRE

The process of deconstructing the empire continues in the next scene. The king—Great King Ahasuerus—had been drinking for seven straight days and was predictably in high spirits. With a characteristic touch of overkill, he sent no fewer than seven of the royal eunuchs who served him to summon his queen, Vashti, wearing her royal crown, so that the people and the nobles could admire her beauty: “On the seventh day, when the heart of the king was merry with wine, he commanded Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha and Abagtha, Zethar and Carkas, the seven eunuchs who served in the presence of King Ahasuerus, to bring Queen Vashti before the king with her royal crown, in order to show the peoples and the princes her beauty, for she was lovely to look at” (Esth. 1:10–11). The Rabbis may have been going beyond the text when they interpreted the command to Vashti to appear wearing her royal crown as requiring her to wear nothing else apart from the crown, yet they were not too far off the mark in discerning the offensiveness of Ahasuerus’s intentions. To command his wife to appear dressed up in her royal finery for the enjoyment of a crowd of drunken men was to treat her as a doll, a mere object who existed for the king’s pleasure, and to show off his power—a “trophy wife,” in the contemporary jargon.⁴ Not for her the decree “There is no compulsion” (1:8). Here we see the dark side of placing so much power in the hands of a man whose only thought is for himself.

But here the raw power of the empire encountered a snag: “But Queen Vashti refused to come at the king’s command delivered by the eunuchs. At this the king became enraged, and his anger burned within him” (Esth. 1:12). The law of the Medes and the Persians, which could not be ...