Bible Commentary - Esther 4

In this chapter, Esther agrees to intercede with the king on behalf of her people, at the risk of her own life.

In the beginning of the chapter we see the king’s command spreading through the whole empire, with great weeping and mourning by the Jews wherever the order came.  The only good news is that the command is post-dated so nobody will actually get killed for a couple months.  There is still time for some kind of deliverance to come through, but at the same time there can be no doubt this is a great catastrophe for the Jews.

Now, interestingly, in verse 4 Esther finds out not the king’s command, but rather she learns that her uncle Mordecai was mourning, and she “writhed in great anguish” at the news, and it’s only in verse 5 that she sent a eunuch to go talk to Mordecai and find out what was wrong.  We can imagine someone going to Esther and saying, “Hey I saw your uncle today, he was crying and wearing sackcloth near the king’s gate”.  Esther knows something is wrong but she doesn’t know what.

Here’s the irony: the king’s wife, who is (secretly) a Jew, is the last person to discover that the king ordered for all the Jews to be killed.  The king didn’t ask her opinion, didn’t even tell her he was doing it.  I’m not sure if it’s because the king considered it a minor affair not worth discussing with her, or because he didn’t consider the queen’s opinion to be worth consulting when he makes decisions.  It’s probably a combination of both.  I think this also shows that to a certain extent, Esther is disconnected from what’s happening in the rest of the world.  This is part of the reality of life as the queen.  Basically the way it works is that in 99% of circumstances, the only men permitted to interact with the queen (or any of the concubines) are eunuchs.  Any son of the queen is a presumptive heir to the throne, so at least to the king it is very important to ensure that it is his own son and not the bastard child of another man.

I don’t know the exact rules for how it worked, but I think we can infer that the queen spends the vast majority of her life within the confines of the palace.  She lives in luxury and is waited upon 24 hours a day by her staff of caretakers, but at least in this story we can see a glimpse of how it isolates her from the community where she grew up.

In any case, verse 8 is when the real action begins: Mordecai orders Esther to go speak to the king and plead for mercy.  Verse 11 delivers Esther’s counterpoint: Nobody, not even the queen, is permitted to go to the king without being invited. Anyone who breaks this law is condemned to death, except if the king extends his scepter of mercy and delivers that person from death.  Esther has not been invited for over 30 days, and the implication is clear: she does not expect to be summoned anytime soon.

Mordecai’s response in verses 13-14 contains one of the most famous quotes in the bible: who knows whether you have attained your position for such a time as this?

This is the dramatic center of the entire story.  This part of the story ties together all of the elements in the previous three chapters.  The deposition of Vashti, Esther’s attained position as queen and Haman’s threat to destroy all the Jews are all tied together in this one moment when Mordecai asks Esther to use her position as queen to plead for deliverance from Haman’s threat.  This is also a point of unresolved tension because we don’t yet know the outcome.  Esther has agreed to risk her own life with no guarantee that she could save the Jews even if she dies.  It is possible that Esther could die in the attempt and the Jews still may perish.  The only reason we have for confidence at this point is Mordecai’s obscure reference to “deliverance from another place”, which nearly all scholars agree is a veiled reference to the LORD.

In the midst of all this tension, the story presents to us two paradoxes.  The first paradox is that in order to save her people from death, Esther must risk her own life.  All of the Jews are subjected to the threat of death, by no choice of their own.  In turn, Esther must voluntarily choose the risk of death in order to save her people from that same threat.  To me this carries undertones of the ritual sacrifices from the Pentateuch.  The whole concept of the Passover and the Day of Atonement is that the Israelites could kill an innocent animal in order to save their own lives from the guilt of death.  In the same way, Esther is not under the king’s command of death, but she must choose to place herself under another command of death in order to save her people.

I don’t think it’s an accident that this is the one point in the story where we see people fasting.  Remember that this is a story largely defined and structured by feasting.  All throughout the book we see the king or Esther hosting one feast after another.  Here, in the pinnacle of drama, we see Esther, Mordecai and all the Jews of the capital fasting for three days.  On one hand, I think this serves as a dramatic counterpoint to all the feasting.  On the other hand, I think the fasting here stands as a metaphor of Esther’s embrace of her own death.  There are many places in the bible when fasting is a type of intercession, and that is clearly true here.  However, it is even more common for fasting to be a kind of mourning; that is also true here.  I think the ostensible purpose of the fasting is to intercede for God’s favor for Esther, that the king might spare her life and favorably receive her petition.  A secondary purpose is, simply put, to mourn her death (whether she literally dies or not).

The second paradox is that Esther must choose to obey either Mordecai or the king, but she cannot obey both.  Now is the moment when Esther is forced to make a decision.  Who will she obey?  Esther’s instinct is clearly to obey the king, and we see that in Esther’s response in verse 12 (when she initially refuses to obey Mordecai because of the king’s command).  It is only after Mordecai insists that she must act when Esther decides to disobey the king’s Law.

To me, this is the most pivotal moment in Esther’s life.  In the past we saw Esther diligently obey Mordecai, and then Hegai.  Now she is married to the king and we can easily imagine Esther would like to obey the king in the same way.  Strange as it may sound, I think this is possibly an even greater risk for Esther than the risk of death.  This is the first (and only) time in the entire story we will see Esther disobey anyone.  Not without reluctance, and not without a great amount of fear, but she does it.  In my opinion, this is a defining moment in Esther’s growth as a person, because in the end she is willing to act contrary to her personality and instinct.

Lastly, I want to reiterate how this mimicks the story of Joseph, with Esther playing the role of Joseph.  Especially in light of Mordecai’s line “Who knows whether you have attained your position for such a time as this?”  Esther “attained her position” for the same reason that Joseph “attained his position” in Egypt, to deliver the Israelite nation from destruction.  The details are quite different from the overall framework of the story is quite similar.

The chapter concludes with Mordecai and the Jews going off to fast on Esther’s behalf, and in the next chapter we will see the outcome of all this drama.