[00:00:00] Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to God. If you're ever in the Madison area, we'd love for you to stop by and study the Bible with us on Sundays at 5pm or Wednesdays at 7pm if you have questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, you can find us
[email protected] be sure to subscribe to this podcast as well as our Sermons podcast. Madison Church of Christ Sermons thanks again for stopping by. I hope this study is a blessing to you Xenophon, A Greek historian said the king himself, so the story goes, established himself at Susa or Ektabana, or some palace invisible to all, dwelling in a wondrous palace, inside a fence gleaming with gold and amber and ivory, and it had many gateways, one after another, and porches many furlongs apart from one another, secured by bronze doors and mighty walls. Outside them, the foremost and most distinguished had their appointed place. Some were the king's bodyguard and attendants, others were guardians of each enclosing wall, so called doorkeepers, listeners, the eyes of the king, so that the king himself, called their lord, might thus see and hear all things.
[00:01:23] It was important as a reminder that the king always saw you, but you may not see him.
[00:01:30] And we know from other observations from our historians and the Bible itself that freedom and access to the ruler was very limited.
[00:01:41] Otherwise, the physical separation of the king from his courtiers permeated every aspect of royal life save six Persian dignitaries and their families.
[00:01:51] Other than that, it required specific permission to see the king in any capacity or to face death.
[00:02:00] For most members of the court, the king was inaccessible and seeing and speaking to the sovereign was tightly controlled. Courtiers had to follow certain formulations of etiquette and most would not have dared speak directly to the king on penalty of death. We have historical evidence that this is true, and we have a family of Xerxes. We have six noble families who were permitted direct access without permission most of the time, but beyond that it was difficult. And how we got there is kind of what informs tonight. I've shown a version of this stele a few times, but this is a different one. I've shown it several times.
[00:02:40] It's from the Apadonna and Persepolis.
[00:02:43] In Susa there is one that shows the king. This one's different. It shows people coming but we haven't looked at one from the throne room yet. The other pictures have been from the Apadonna, the dining hall. Well, tonight Esther's going to the throne room where she's going to be prepping for it. And I show you this because it reveals a few things. This is Darius. He and Xerxes are similar again. But what we see behind him there's our magi holding some ceremonial things. And we see these two guys, these are different. And we know who these two guys are based on some inscriptions. These are taken from a Persepolis dig site.
[00:03:17] The two guys here are named Gobryas and Antaphranes I believe is the name. And if you'll notice, here we see a little more going on. It's kind of small, I know, but there we go.
[00:03:27] There's a weapon here, a sword, a bow, an axe and a spearman. This was evident as we see the king extending the scepter. If the scepter didn't go out, the weapon did. Right? That's where we're at. If you came before the king incorrectly, you didn't get the scepter, you literally got the axe. Right?
[00:03:47] And we know about these guys in Taphernes and Gobryas. Throughout history, as these were two of Darius friends, Darius made the mistake of surrounding himself with his best buddies. That's a problem because they'll tell you exactly what you want to hear, even if it's not right. But he surrounded himself with his best men, made them generals. When Darius succeeded as king, he did so usurping his brother and did so with the help of his friends. The problem with being a usurper and a betrayer is that doesn't go away. Right? Problem with being friends with betrayers, you're going to get betrayed. One cannot rule a kingdom with violence and hatred and paranoia. Well, here's an example.
[00:04:29] The fickleness of the king.
[00:04:31] This man named. We have a man named Antiphrones. The loyal poor Antiphrones. In a way, he was one of the conspirators that helped Darius rise to power.
[00:04:39] He was a friend, a fellow usurper for Darius and ultimately betrayed his uncle later in life. Near the end of Darius reign, Antaphrones is going to die at Darius hands because of paranoia.
[00:04:55] The Behustin inscription, Mount Behistun over in Iran is where this is still at today. You can kind of see a stele here with this text is found and I show it because it illustrates something from history, how quickly you can turn not just an Official, but family.
[00:05:10] He was a cousin of Darius.
[00:05:13] And we know this because we have text on these monuments. King Darius says, then did I send. He's bragging about the conquering of Babylon. He said, then did I send an army to Babylon. A Persian named Entaphroni is my servant, my loyal friend. I appointed as their leader and spoke to him. Go and smite that Babylonian host which does not acknowledge me as king.
[00:05:33] Then in Taphernes marched with the army to Babylon. Ahura Mazda, there's that deity they worship, brought me help. By the grace of Ahura Mazda did Antaphranes overthrow the Babylonians and brought over the people to me. On the 22nd day of the month, Marcasanus, they seized the Araka who called himself Nebuchadnezzar and the men were his chief followers.
[00:05:55] All hell. The conquering hero Antaphrones brought him peace. He became the satrap of Babylonia and he reigned for a while.
[00:06:05] But again, the problem is, over time, Darius created what was a very paranoid empire.
[00:06:10] After a while you start to see shadows.
[00:06:13] Everybody's trying to kill you. So you tighten up the protocol. Put your hands the right way, bow the right way.
[00:06:20] First it starts with servants, then it's family. This is not the empire that Cyrus the Great intended.
[00:06:26] But here we are, because no earthly empire can accomplish what God wants later in life. We see a flip here.
[00:06:33] The end of Antiphrones. Herodotus records this in the Histories.
[00:06:38] Soon after rising of the seven Persians against the Magians. I told you about that. Two weeks ago, Darius used his six buddies to kill all the Magi because he said they were trying to take over. Can't have that.
[00:06:49] Establishes them as governors.
[00:06:52] But in his paranoia, this happens.
[00:06:54] Antaphranes is going to be executed.
[00:06:58] Having business to transact with Darius, Antaphranes wished to enter the palace. Now, it had already been agreed that any of the conspirators, the six friends, might visit the king unannounced, provided that he was not at the moment, in bed with a woman. That was the rule. Okay?
[00:07:18] And in view of this, Antaphranes refused to have his name sent in by the messenger. He showed up and claimed it was his right to see his friend. He had business. The messenger said, it's not protocol. He says, I'm Antaphranes. We go way back. He says, I can't let you in. So Antaphranes pulls his blade, takes a swing at the messenger and says, let me in. They say, no. So Antaphranes goes, fine the problem is for this sleight, the Herodotus tells us that the sentries go in and Darius is in fact with a woman at the time.
[00:07:51] Even though Antiphrones thought this was an excuse, they showed themselves to Darius and said, hey, he tried to get in. And Darius then says, ah, why would he break protocol? He must be trying to kill me. That must be it. We cannot let him live.
[00:08:05] So he goes and rounds up Antaphranes, holds a mock trial.
[00:08:09] Despite Antaphrody's pleas, he says, you broke protocol. This cannot stand. He has him executed and rounds up all of his family and his wife, puts them on trial and executes all, but allows his wife to save one of them. The wife says, let me have my brother. I can get another husband. That's what she says.
[00:08:27] So even Antaphranes wife wasn't on his side by then. All of them were condemned as criminals. And I point that out to you.
[00:08:35] Even his best friend broke protocol. It just didn't work. He was one of six nobles sworn to the king instantly dead. So by the time Xerxes takes over, when we read the rest of chapter four tonight, and he is in his fickle mood. So I want you to remember that, that he is indeed fickle.
[00:08:54] And protocol became king. We went over this last week. Just a quick review. Everything was ritual and protocol. This was the only way they could maintain order from their dress. This is a modern version reenactment of the dress that the king would wear. The nomadic dress of the princely horse masters of the plains. But it all had to be followed because it was the only way to hold order.
[00:09:16] Right? If you can't have a benevolent dictator, if they can't love me, they will hate me, but they will respect me.
[00:09:22] Everything from bowing the right way, seating in the right place, cleansing yourself daily. It was said that one had to spend half the day bathing and then get the right white clothing on to go before the king to eat. It was very important.
[00:09:35] Account after account of people being jailed for not doing it. The invisible king briefly went over how you could even see in the architecture. That was important in the architecture today. If you go to Getty, the Getty Institute online, gettyinstitute. Edu. They're an international research group. They've done a recreation this year of like reconstructing Persepolis in Susa. You can kind of walk through it digitally. It's very good. And you see this path.
[00:10:01] You could even see the ritual of the flowers. They wanted the whole thing. It reminds Me, if you're in Six Flags or Disney World, you know, you go to a roller coaster and it's like a theme park. Like the whole thing. You wait in line for three hours and the whole way you're going, there's set pieces. You know what I mean? You're in the story. It's Batman or so here's a decoration. It's getting you in the mood. Xerxes did this for ritual. You had to walk through, you had to see the flowers budding. Because when you got to the pillars that they were budding open like the sun. Now you're about to see the king. Are you ready to see the king?
[00:10:31] We looked at the empire, remember this? Even the empire's layout, different palaces, certain things had to happen there. If you showed up to the wrong palace with the wrong business, you got executed. It was really, really bad. That green part I want to show is to bring something here about Xerxes demeanor. The green part is the last bit of empire that Persia took under his father before they really didn't expand anymore after this. This is going to cost Xerxes. His people have had enough. Xerxes by the after tonight has about nine more years to live before he's going to be assassinated by his own people because he doesn't live up to his promises. The green parts he's already lost in 479 BC, while Greece has defeated him and pushed him back with his tail between his legs to Susa. Right. But we see that I mentioned briefly last time as we go into chapter four, we read about ritual cleansing. The itinerant court of Persia. This is a diagram from various sources. The court moved throughout the year as the seasons changed. Because it was unseemly for the king to ever have a chill. He must always be following eternal spring. They would move the entire court between and rotate.
[00:11:46] Okay, so that was important.
[00:11:48] The king must not be made uncomfortable.
[00:11:51] They would rotate at the different palaces and the seasons. So tonight when we look at the rest of four, like last time, we're going to jump back into looking at the Jewish worship, remembering what they know at this point and the dangers of protocol.
[00:12:05] So we read verses one to five before. I won't redo those, but we'll jump back into chapter four tonight for sure.
[00:12:11] Just to review kind of the point, we are introduced in verse 1 to 3 about Mordecai learning about the plot of Haman. Right. Haman in the previous chapter has said we're going to kill all the Jews. The edicts have gone Out. And I'm going to show you how we can tell. This is one of the criticisms of Esther as a folk story. Historians would say, well, see, it talks about sending the post and even with the postal system, how would it get out there that far? Well, we know because there's evidence of these sorts of communications. The sackcloth and ashes comes up. And I want us to think about why Mordecai chooses now to mourn.
[00:12:45] And we're going to see Esther start to inquire. I think about chapter four as being the darkest that the story gets for the heroes. Everything's been down to this point and until the very end of chapter four, you know, we have. Everything's looking bad until Esther is going to have to step up and be a hero, be a queen now and do something.
[00:13:04] It's the montage, the training after the hero gets beaten down. And now it's time to act. And act she does.
[00:13:10] The Jewish experience in exile, just as a reminder and to flesh that out a bit more, some of you mentioned, I asked for what it looked like to worship at this time. What do we know? Well, we know a few things. We know they had access to certain of the wisdom literature. They certainly had the Torah, things like that. Now, I've heard that my whole life. And sometimes, like, where's the evidence? Well, they had to have had it. We can kind of date the letters. But four years ago there was a discovery and I'm going to show you tonight in the elephantine region of Egypt, connecting to Persia, when it was a Persian satrap, where they're discovering and just translating this year. I saw a few months ago a translation. Keep up with this stuff, what I do, where they're getting some of this translated and they're seeing evidence of the Jewish practices in exile. They can confirm they knew about this wisdom literature.
[00:13:57] They were shifting to synagogue worship after the temple's gone. Remember, there is. What does the Jewish identity mean? Right. Ben had brought up about synagogue worship is forming. We have proof of that as well. They knew to pray, to fast and mourn, but that's it. They were having to learn how to connect to God without a temple. The Torah, the prophets, that's all they had. But it was enough.
[00:14:19] I encourage you again to read on your own Jeremiah chapters 1:7 and chapter 33 and chapter 29. Those tell us so much about what God is telling his people.
[00:14:31] It's the first example we have of the people of having something to follow commands in exile, essentially how to be Jewish there, you know, he's telling them, you've got to be Jewish. This time period is the first time, historically, I've been asked before, say, you know, when do we know the difference between Israelite and Jew? What's the difference? Well, it's different, but by now it's. You're just. They're Jews because that's what people call them. The province where most of the Jews live. And what was Jerusalem, what is being rebuilt? Nehemiah, it's just called Yehuda, okay? That's what they call. This is Yehuda, Jewish land. We don't know that's who they are. There is no David anymore. Right? But at least the Jews have a presence.
[00:15:12] But Jeremiah tells them about building houses.
[00:15:16] And I would say that Esther had. They had to have this because this was their hope. The prophets, like Jeremiah told them in Jeremiah 33, 3, 7, reminding them the Lord who formed this establishment, the Lord is his name. Call to me, and I will answer you, and I will tell you all the hidden things you have not known. The people have to reach out to him. I will restore the fortunes of Judah and the fortunes of Israel, and I will rebuild them as they were. I will cleanse them from the guilt of their sin. I will forgive all the guilt of their sin and rebellion. And this city shall me to be a name of joy and praise and glory. And all the nations of the earth shall hear it, will know the good I do for them. They shall again fear and tremble because of all the good and prosperity I provide for it. Give thanks to the Lord of hosts, for the Lord is good. His steadfast love endures forever.
[00:16:03] In the end of Jeremiah 33, 14, 16, I have to think Esther and Mordecai knew.
[00:16:10] Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and Judah in those days. At that time, I will cause a righteous branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in his land.
[00:16:24] In those days, Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will dwell securely. The Lord is our righteousness. That is obviously referring to Jesus, the coming. But we don't get there without keeping the seed of David alive. And that's where Esther comes into play. We know that the Jews had an understanding of the covenant. Mordecai is going to remind Esther of this. We have one little hint of that in the chapter here in 4, where he's telling Esther that deliverance will come. They know it.
[00:16:49] It's parallels to First Peter. Does anybody remember off the top of your head. Quickly. What is one Peter about?
[00:16:55] What's happening in first Peter? Does anyone remember what is the point of that letter?
[00:17:00] Ben taught a class on this a few quarters ago.
[00:17:03] That suffering. Right, Peter, if you want to go read the parallels to Esther, the modern day Peter in the New Testament. There are parallels there where Peter is reaching out to new Christians, saying, don't give up now. Through the struggle, you've got to remember God.
[00:17:17] You've got to remember him now. Now is when it matters, when you don't have the comfort. You've got to find him here. He's here. He was never in the temple, right?
[00:17:26] He's here in Esther 4. Looking at our text, what we read last time about the sackcloth and ashes, we see Mordecai go in the midst of the city, wailing loudly, bitterly. He could not enter the king's gate because of the sackcloth. We know that Mordecai then was limited. Now we know in chapter two, Mordecai was able to go between the courts. If you remember when Esther was crowned king, it says Mordecai went through the courts and back again to check on her. So we know he was hot, but he couldn't get in anymore. He's cut off from her.
[00:17:56] He couldn't get in because of that Persian idea of cleanliness. This is kind of where we stopped last time. The idea of ash being seen as a disgusting thing. The king must not see it. Torn clothing, absolutely not. You wash your hands before you make the fire in Persia. You must not defile the wood. That's more important than you, the natural elements, not you, right? Mordecai can't mourn and be in the court. So I wonder, why do you think, and I'll ask you, think about this for a second as we go. You know, think about Mordecai told Esther, don't tell the king you're Jewish. Keep it quiet.
[00:18:30] And then Mordecai, as soon as he learns of this edict, he goes out in full Jewish regalia, mourning, and admits. Why do you think he did that then?
[00:18:40] Think on that for a minute.
[00:18:44] I think when we see Esther's response, admit we will. I think this is Mordecai stepping out. Now's the time. Esther can't be quiet, right? We have to be who we are.
[00:18:55] It's time to let it out. If we die, we die, right?
[00:18:58] The Jewish people are going to be inspired.
[00:19:01] He publicly displays this identity. And we left off in verse four and five. So we see fasting, weeping, mourning, rights Sackcloth. All this stuff is very Jewish.
[00:19:12] Mordecai is showing his people what they must do. In verse four and five, we read about how Esther is unaware. Actually, in verse four, Esther had to send her young women and her eunuchs because they came to her and said, hey, Mordecai is out front. He's at the king's gate. They won't let him in. He's mourning. This is bad. They might kill him. That's what they're telling. So Esther sends clothes. Mordecai, get up. Here's some clean clothes. Mordecai denies, right? And that's because Mordecai is calling her to action, right? He's trying to show her, this is serious. This is it. This is what I've trained you for.
[00:19:47] This story was never about me. Really. Right. You kind of think this is going to be Mordecai. If you're reading this for the first time, he's going to go in and be Samuel and he's going to proselytize. It's not that story, not this time.
[00:19:59] Xerxes was taken.
[00:20:01] He has problems with women.
[00:20:03] Only a woman can get to him, though, really.
[00:20:06] The only person that can get him to change enough to make things happen, she sends the eunuch Catholic. That's the protocol. That's what the ladies would do. You had a eunuch that could go back and forth. And he comes back and says, mordecai is not budging.
[00:20:20] So let's read the next few verses together, verses 6 to 11, where the story continues, where we see Esther has now learned of the plan. So keep this in mind before we start. Esther doesn't know yet. That's the implication. She has no idea. She's like, Mordecai, what's wrong? She's away.
[00:20:38] That's a hint too. That's a problem.
[00:20:40] This is part of Esther's concern too. She's starting to think, oh, what's going on? Esther and Mordecai are about to plan. Not just Haman anymore. Time for the good guys to plan.
[00:20:50] So we're coming to verse 6. Hathach the eunuch went out to Mordecai in the open square of the city in front of the king's gate, and Mordecai told him all that had happened to him and the exact sum of money that Haman had promised to pay into the king's treasuries for the destruction of the Jews. If you recall, it was in the sum of somewhere. Historically, they think today's money would be somewhere between 2 and $400 million, I think. It's a lot. And they would get that by liquidating the Jewish Province.
[00:21:20] Verse 8.
[00:21:22] Mordecai also gave him a copy of the written decree issued by Susa or published at Susa for. For their destruction. So two things.
[00:21:32] He has a note displaying the proof of the bribe, which has two implications.
[00:21:38] Kings can't take bribes in Persia. Okay, Xerxes turns it down. But there was a transaction. And he also is telling Esther this is really happening.
[00:21:47] So we continue in verse eight. There, halfway through that, he might show it to Esther and explain to her and command her to go to the king to beg his favor and plead with him on behalf of her people.
[00:22:00] It's a big phrase.
[00:22:03] And Hathach went and told Esther what Mordecai said.
[00:22:08] Then Esther in verse 10 spoke to Hathach and commanded him to go to Mordecai and say, all the king's servants and all the people of the king's provinces know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law to be put to death, except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter so that he may live.
[00:22:33] But as for me, pay attention here.
[00:22:37] I have not been called to come to the king for 30 days.
[00:22:41] Problem.
[00:22:44] In verse six to eight, there, as we break it down, we see two things. Mordecai knows. We need evidence. Esther needs to see. We have proof. A very litigious society. He gives a copy of the edict to destroy the Jews, which was sent to all provinces in all language.
[00:23:03] Which is. We have evidence they did it that way. It was called the Trilingual inscription. All edicts were written in ancient Edomite, sometimes Elamite, Babylonian and Persian. And then sometimes they would be written in the language of the province. The point being? You're not going to say you couldn't read it. There's no excuse. You don't read it. Guess what the punishment was? Death.
[00:23:24] He gives her the off the record bribe. That's to say, Esther Haman. I have the record, remember? Why would Haman have the record, remember? He was elevated. He was the gatekeeper. He was the king's eye.
[00:23:36] After seeing that in Persian, history tells us that was your intelligence, man. The great gate of nations when you entered Persepolis. And Susa wasn't just a gate. Think of it like a massive customs office. Right. You're learning. Who's coming in? Who are you? What are you doing? That's where they'd catch the assassination attempts. And, boy, there were many.
[00:23:56] He also managed the logistics, the tablets.
[00:23:59] So we know from this too, he's pleading for Esther to act.
[00:24:03] And I think this is why Esther's concerned, because Mordecai for the first time is telling her, this has to be you, right? That's a big record scratch moment, right? This is the first time where he says, you have to do this. I can't come in.
[00:24:20] And she has me thinking, why did you do this, Mordecai? Why are you mourning in sackcloth? Just keep it quiet. Why now?
[00:24:27] Why me?
[00:24:29] And that's the thing about Esther, right? We have to look today.
[00:24:33] Why me? Why us?
[00:24:35] Because we're all Esther at some point, we're all Esther in our agency and our Faith.
[00:24:40] In verse 8, we see the verse here. And I wanted to pause on this again about Persian records, something that's been disproven in the last decade, where for a long time scholars would say, well, we don't have evidence they had this level of record keeping. But they did.
[00:24:55] He would have. If Mordecai is who he says he was. And he was, because we have the Marduk tablets that were found in Persia, Marduka tablets, his name's in there.
[00:25:03] Published in Susa.
[00:25:06] Again, I just put text here to remind us that Mordecai we know in Bible and secular history was unequivocally in the court next to the harem, which means he was there. And that's the other thing. I don't have the diagram of the palace tonight, but the inner court is as close as you get to the king before it's go time. If you're in the inner court, you're supposed to be there. You don't sneak into the inner court, you're going to get found and you're going to die, or you're going to see the king. There's no in between.
[00:25:35] A couple of things we have just as an example of how they would keep records. If you could visualize this the way that they would do it, they would make a copy. Every time an edict happened, it went on a stone or clay tablet, sometimes metal, if it was a fancy one, silver or gold. And up there is an example of one where it's hard. I know it's in cuneiform and it has a seal on it. They would. They would think of it like the old wax seals in a way, on the letter you see in. Like they have Henry viii and they would write it, but this was different. They would write the edict in this clay and take a seal that would kind of roll over it. And then when it dried and sealed, and it would have that this was official. And then a scribe, usually a magi, would make a copy of the scroll. Now, this is not an exact copy of that edict, but the edicts that went to the provinces were either on papyrus or leather.
[00:26:29] How did they get that? Because they owned everything, right? They went from Egypt to India. So materials were not a problem.
[00:26:35] They used leather from animals, they used papyrus from Egypt. They sent them to all the satraps via post. Again, there's that trilingual inscription. Again, master. Copies were made. So when he says that Mordecai is saying, we have this on record, okay?
[00:26:50] He's basically telling Esther, a little espionage, right? If you can just get to the king, right? Some of this is going to have to be holding Xerxes accountable. It doesn't need to go public. This is a messy affair. Xerxes is going to have to play femme fatale here, right? She's got to get in there and play her part.
[00:27:10] And one thing I wanted to show, which is interesting, and we have evidence of this happening in this region in the fifth century through the eighth, through sort of 200 A.D.
[00:27:19] a recent, fairly recent discovery called the Elephantine Papyri has nothing to do with elephants.
[00:27:24] But the Elephantine Papyri, which they've uncovered more and more in the last few years of, was along a place in the Egyptian satrap when Egypt was still part of Persia, right? On the Levant there, running into Jerusalem, right in that area down to Egypt. The Elephantine island area was a satrap where there was a fortress. It was settled basically from Babylon's first exile of the Jews through the Roman period, okay? And they have now found at least 175 records that confirm Jewish life, confirm an attempt to actually rebuild the temple there. You had Jews saying, we need to rebuild the synagogue. We need to rebuild the temple here.
[00:28:02] To which the Egyptians put it down.
[00:28:05] Those papyrus reference biblical figures like King Jeconia. We see legal and marital contracts in the Jewish style. So we know the Jews knew. And I'm telling you this for a reason, not just because. So we can know with our confidence that Esther and Mordecai knew how to be Jewish. Right? The people knew it wasn't just a jump, right? Like some scholars want to say. They had all this. They knew what Passover was. We know now.
[00:28:30] And that's good because that's God using his providence to keep the Flame alive. The Jewish presence there dates all the way through Persian exile. We know they knew this stuff about how to mourn and what would happen. We know they knew Jeremiah and Joel and all this stuff.
[00:28:46] And it's kind of funny and interesting that as proof of this goes through the AD period. This is an example of one of the papyrus found there with some of the Jewish Passover rules on it.
[00:28:56] And a lot of them found in the western region there that we see all the way through Roman times. Just a funny aside, just to show us how people are people. The early Hippodromes. Whoops. Which were the early chariot racing arenas of Greece. They even had those when Persia had them as a satra. Well, when the Jews were there. This was discovered a few years ago.
[00:29:14] An amulet with a scroll was found inside it. And it was preserved because it was in a silver amulet. And it was buried at the third turn in one of the chariot racing arenas, right in the dirt. Now, they would do this to curse the enemy or to bless the game.
[00:29:30] And inside the scroll, it's a Jewish man who literally references the story of Balaam and his donkey. And it's a curse scroll that the Jewish man puts in. And it literally translates to may the angel that blocked Balaam's donkey destroy the other racers. And so he's invoking the angel of God to make the other guys wreck. You know, but that's a little humanity, right? People are people, they like their sport. These are trying to live their lives.
[00:29:57] And, you know, so Mordecai and Esther are not so different from us.
[00:30:01] I don't know if they were gamblers, but these people were. Some of these Jewish people that were in this area were. And just to show we have this evidence, it's interesting. So getting back to the text, as a reminder, Esther is asking this because she's saying, mordecai, there's protocol. You're not even in there anymore. I have nobody but the eunuch, right? She's saying, this guy is with me. He has no power but to take me to the king and back. And if he steps out of line, he's not going to lose his head. Remember, she had to go through all these titles. I went over there tonight. The Shanashah, the King of Kings, that's Xerxes, the Hazarpatiya, the Chiliarch. That is Haman's position at this point, by the way. He's the Chiliarch, the master of a thousand. I command the troops. He commands it all. And if Haman wasn't So superstitious and evil.
[00:30:45] He could get over himself and probably have Mordecai killed already. But that's the thing about evil, right? Turns on itself. It just can't greed. He wants to win, he's got to crush the Jews. This is his moment.
[00:30:57] Oh, Haman. It's gonna. It's not gonna work. We know that he actually had to go through all this. And this is an artist rendering. Obviously this is not an AI.
[00:31:05] I like to pick the ones that are actually kind of concept. But I do like this one because I want us to imagine this. This is what it looked like. This is pretty close from a reconstruction. So this is just the apodona that in the back. Imagine that's about as big as the Biltmore, right? That's one side. That's not even the throne. This is what Esther's saying. Mordecai, you want me to walk down all this? And these are reconstructions from the Persepolis site that are really accurate.
[00:31:32] Imagine walking up and again seeing this and saying, you want me to go up to the hall of 100 columns, 75ft high, topped with bull's heads made of lapis lazuli, one of the most, at the time, most expensive gems.
[00:31:47] And you know, walk through this theme park line where you see all these little images.
[00:31:53] And the whole palace was like this, right? These ideas of. These are people bringing tribute and horses. And the whole way, it's to remind you it better be as good as what this guy brings.
[00:32:04] Are you sure you want to go in? Right? The whole way, you're reminded you're about to see Xerxes. You're about to see Xerxes. And this is a copy of the colorized version of what I just showed you. The last thing you saw before you went in was a reminder. Bow according to your station. What is your station? You better know what it is, because we're not going to explain it. If you don't bow low enough, the guy with the axe is going to kill you.
[00:32:27] And if he doesn't, the guy with the bow is going to get you. But if I'm feeling nice today, I might just give you the scepter.
[00:32:36] So you tell me, do you want to go in?
[00:32:39] That's what Esther's being asked to do.
[00:32:42] So in verses nine to 12, kind of pushing through there, there were three reasons, and I mentioned a few of them, that you would be given death to come before the king. Esther's not just panicking. Okay, three main reasons. Number one, assassination attempts were rampant by now, Darius and Xerxes were so paranoid. With good reason.
[00:33:05] Herodotus records that there were daily attempts on Xerxes life. You know why? Because the people were tired of losing wars. People were laughing at Persia. Now they've lost land. The Greeks don't even care any. They're winning, right? The war is over. Xerxes is fighting. The war is over. Xerxes knows their king is back home. He's not even on the front line. Xerxes is overspent even for a Persian, right? He's draining the tanks. That's how rebellions happen, right? The people get upset. They were trying to kill him daily.
[00:33:37] Zoroastrian protocol, their religion. That was the other reason you had to go through all these rituals. I've shown examples. I could show more, but.
[00:33:45] Wash yourself this way for four hours. Wear this garment, say this thing, bow this way. And then maybe I can get in. It's exhausting.
[00:33:53] And if you didn't do it, you got killed. And Xerxes, let's not forget, was very mercurial. Meaning very moody, even for a Persian king. And easily offended. And that's not an exaggeration. I've told you before, this guy was terrifying. And not to make light of it, but anyone who's been in an abusive relationship. I know in marriages and relationships, when you have that partner, you know, you maybe know someone there. Maybe you've been through it, who is.
[00:34:18] You're constantly on eggshells, right? What am I going to do wrong?
[00:34:22] That's Xerxes. But this time there's no divorce. There's no way Esther gets out. If she blinks at him wrong, she's going to die. And hopefully she gets beheaded. Right? That's best case scenario.
[00:34:33] Xerxes was mean.
[00:34:36] Herodotus just to scan over some of this. But the histories tell us, you know, the protocol for Persia was none should enter into the presence of the king. But that they deal with him through messengers. Always.
[00:34:46] You cannot laugh or spit in his presence. That is unseemly. You will be killed. If you hear a sneeze, you're dead. You know, so that his fellows get this paranoia. This was put in place. So his fellows, his friends, who had even been brought up with him might not be grieved by seeing him and make plots against him. Paranoia, paranoia.
[00:35:04] Xerxes was paranoia. He must be seen as different. He's not human. And a couple of examples, I want to share one of them. Kind of funny.
[00:35:13] And this is not. This is stuff she would have known this is why Esther's upset, okay? Because it's not ancient history. She said, mordecai, my husband, did some crazy stuff recently, One of which Herodotus records in the Greek campaign.
[00:35:29] The short version is, he goes on the campaign, and a man named Pythias, a rich man, gives the king a place to eat. He gives him money, tribute, women.
[00:35:39] Xerxes says, thank you. Oh, this is great. I'm going to bless your family, Pythias. Pythias is great. Awesome. I'm going to get the king's favor. And he does.
[00:35:48] Xerxes in a good mood that day.
[00:35:50] Xerxes moves on in the campaign. Some of you may have seen this before. This is something called the thrashing of the Hellespont. And this is obviously an art picture here. But what you see here is literally soldiers whipping the sea.
[00:36:05] The thrashing of the Hellespont. You see, after Xerxes had his meal and he went to go fight the 300 Spartans. Before he got there, he made a pontoon bridge. The engineers, great engineers. He had several engineers design these pontoon bridges, which we have evidence for, to go across a place called the Hellespont. The place he wanted to cross was the quickest way to get there. Because Xerxes is not a patient man. Okay? He goes. It's about a mile. I think he's going to go across. They build these pontoon bridges. Well, they get halfway across, and a storm comes. The Greeks say it's Poseidon punishing him. Right? And the storm destroys the bridges, drives them back. Xerxes was reasonable and said, well, it's the weather. No, he wasn't.
[00:36:44] He commanded multiple sources.
[00:36:46] So engineers in here. Sorry, you got to make sure you go to that QA process. He not only. He forced his men to go to the Hellespont and whip it 300 times and curse the sea. To say, how dare you do this to me?
[00:37:00] It's ridiculous, right? Had them literally beating the sea and punishing Poseidon. How dare you. And then he had all the engineers executed for failing. Okay? They want to be an engineer at Xerxes court. That's your payment, right? He had all the engineers killed for their failure. The magi who told him, by the way, there was an eclipse before this.
[00:37:17] Okay, I didn't get that. And they have one. And Xerxes like, hey, should we go on? The magi are like, he wants to. Yeah, we should go. That means the Greeks are going to lose happen. Guess who gets blamed? The Magi, Not Xerxes. It's never Xerxes. It's his wife. It's the engineers. It's my people. It's you. It's you. It's you.
[00:37:37] That's. That's not what happens.
[00:37:39] And poor Pythias, when he returns from war, he gave Pythias the favor. He said, I owe you a favor. He comes back through and he says, thank you for this. I'm going to give you some money for, you know, paying for. Well, he leaves. Here's the. No, no. You never ask the king for a favor without being extended the scepter. He will choose.
[00:37:58] So even though he's in these good graces, this man named Pythias, he's worried because the war is still going on and Xerxes is leaving. He says, xerxes, I have a favor. Xerxes says, what?
[00:38:08] Xerxes, I have six children, six sons. I'm an old man. Spare me the eldest. Don't make him go to war with you. Please give me that. Have I not earned it?
[00:38:18] And he says, how dare you ask a favor from me? So he had all of his children killed, laid the bodies along the path for his army to march between, to remind him this was not to be done. How dare you ask a favor of me, evil man? So that's where Esther's at.
[00:38:35] And so the last few verses here in verse 11, you think about this for a minute, right? What does it say? It says, I'm concerned. Let's say he gives me favor. Well, guess what, Mordecai? I haven't seen him in 30 days. That's a problem, right?
[00:38:51] She's been queen for five years. And some people speculate. Maybe Xerxes is cooling. She's not been invited to his bedroom in 30 days.
[00:39:00] He's choosing other women now. Uh oh, what are we to do, Mordecai? I don't know if I can get to him.
[00:39:06] Well, Esther, you're going to have to go to him yourself.
[00:39:09] I just explained to you why that's a bad idea.
[00:39:13] So, Esther, we know at this point, again in his reign, we know where we're at. We've kind of gone over this. But the mental state of Xerxes, after all I've told you at this point, we'll go into this more in chapter five. When he does extend mercy. The Greeks have counteroffensed. They've defeated his army. He's beaten. He's in a bad mood, right? This was the worst day of work.
[00:39:34] Verses 12 to 14. Let's read those as we wrap the chapter toward the end here.
[00:39:40] And they told Mordecai what Esther had said. Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, do not think yourself that in the king's palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews, Esther, for if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this big verse, right?
[00:40:04] Who knows? Esther pushing on. Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai. Notice how quickly she says this, right? He says, esther, this is your time.
[00:40:13] That's all we got.
[00:40:15] We're dead.
[00:40:17] Esther doesn't complain.
[00:40:20] Esther's now the main character, the main human character.
[00:40:25] God's in control.
[00:40:27] Esther says, go to Mordecai.
[00:40:30] Gather all the Jews to be found in Susa. Hold a fast on my behalf. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law.
[00:40:42] And if I perish, I perish.
[00:40:45] Mordecai then went away and did everything Esther ordered him.
[00:40:49] Look how that changes. And some of these things are self evident. But that verse is so powerful. I know it's everyone's favorite for such a time as this. But notice Mordecai says, esther, if you keep silent now, that's why he's mourning, right? I think Esther gets it. He says, esther, it's time to be Jewish, right? We're God's people.
[00:41:08] We can't hide this.
[00:41:11] If it upsets him, it upsets him.
[00:41:14] But we are going to die.
[00:41:16] Our line ends here.
[00:41:18] And I love that he's telling Esther, this is the proof we have that they know of the covenant. He's telling Esther.
[00:41:26] Michael's translation is, esther, God's going to come through. It would sure be nice if we did it now, right? There's nothing wrong with that. He's saying, esther, your father's dead, your mother's dead. Your line is over. I'm going to die.
[00:41:41] God is going to come through.
[00:41:44] And I think there's a little bit we talked about earlier as we get to close. They know the history of their ancestry. They're both of the tribe of Benjamin. We've been here before.
[00:41:53] The chance to do what God says, to be a light when Saul failed. This is Mordecai and Esther's chance to say, esther, this is it.
[00:42:02] It's time to right some wrongs. It's time to let God work.
[00:42:07] Mordecai reminds him about, you're not special. You're going to die. When he finds out you're a Jew, which the king doesn't know yet, you're going to die. He has to kill you, Esther. He signed the rule. It's not about love anymore. He's going to kill you.
[00:42:22] Matthew 5 tells us, you know, this is the version in the Old Testament of being a light on the hill.
[00:42:27] You know, we read about that in Matthew 14, Matthew 5:14. You've got to be the light on the hill. You've got to shine. You've got to be the salt of the earth. You cannot disappear in a bubble. We can't hide in this building. We can't hide. I love all the things we do. I love that we have a strong youth group.
[00:42:43] I love that there are colleges we sometimes send to our kids. You know what? The Christian colleges aren't going to fix our children. The church isn't going to fix the children. These are platforms that give tools to help us achieve it easier.
[00:42:55] But it starts in the heart and it starts at home, Right?
[00:42:58] We have a great opportunity here at Madison to do what Esther's doing here. She's got the tools. We have the tools.
[00:43:05] This is our time to be a light, to not hide.
[00:43:10] Note through our actions sort of toward the end. We've kind of covered some of this as we wrap. I just want to point out a couple of closing thoughts. Notice the chiastic structure here so far. Have you noticed Esther's the only character in the book to this point who has two names listed? Notice that? Hadassah and Esther. That's not my mistake, because now is the point. She has to choose.
[00:43:32] Who are you?
[00:43:33] And she has to decide, what does that mean? Can I be both?
[00:43:38] Can I be Hadassah and wear the crown?
[00:43:40] What does that mean?
[00:43:42] And we see her cunning on display. She's beautiful, she's intelligent. We just read those verses.
[00:43:49] But I want to close with this. That we see not just Esther acting, but it's an example. That's the point.
[00:43:56] She does it. And all the Jews follow lead.
[00:44:00] Now they're making a scene, right? And that's going to get his attention, that salt in the earth.
[00:44:06] And Mordecai does as she commanded.
[00:44:09] All right, y', all, let's pause there. Next week, we'll do chapter five and six. We're going to kind of combo those as the banquets, and we're going to talk a little more about a couple things. Why Xerxes chooses mercy. About what's going on in the world at that time, aside from God's providence. Y' all have a good night. See you next Wednesday.
