Bible Commentary - Esther 10

In this chapter, we learn the final fate of King Xerxes and Mordecai.

Have you ever seen one of those movies that has a based-on-a-true-story ending title cards of “what happened” to the main characters in the movie but like, after the movie was over?  Like if there is some kind of drama flick and it’s all like, “Bobby Jones was later convicted and is now serving seven consecutive life sentences” or whatever?  That is basically what I think about this chapter.  It is the ending title cards for the book of Esther, where the narrator tells us “what happened” to Xerxes and Mordecai, but interestingly does not tell us “what happened” to Esther.

For Xerxes, it tells us that he had many accomplishments because of his strength and authority, so it was a good ending for him.

For Mordecai, the king advanced him into greatness, he was second only to the king and widely honored by the Jews.  What did he use his position for?  To advance “the good of his people” and “the welfare of his whole nation”.  In other words, he didn’t use his position to advance his own personal interests or his immediate family, but rather used it to advance the interests of the entire Jewish people.  This presents Mordecai as an example for the rest of the Jewish community to emulate during the period under foreign empires (whether during the exile or post-exile).  The model for good Jewish behavior under Gentile rule is to cooperate, seek a position of power and then use that power to benefit the Hebrew nation.  It is important enough that this is the very last sentence of the book.  I already discussed this general point in my Introduction to Esther, however, so I won’t repeat that here.

This concludes the book of Esther; I hope my readers enjoyed it as much as I have, and next we will be moving on to the book of Job!