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Bible Reading Notes
The Book of Esther
Wednesday, May 27th – Esther 1: 1-4
The Book of Esther emphasizes not explicit doctrine about God but rather the mighty deeds of the Lord. The name of God appears nowhere in this book, and yet we perceive the Lord through the devotion and fidelity of His people and especially through His deliverance of them from their enemies. We also should perceive in the events recorded in Esther the ongoing spiritual warfare written of in such other parts of God’s Word as Psalm 2, Ephesians 6:10ff, and Revelation. The enemies of the Church are present and active in any age and at times arise against the covenant people with awesome power and menacing threats. Yet, the Lord makes clear to us in Esther that although our enemies may be great, our delivering God is greater (Rom. 8:31ff). When things look desperate and the Lord is nowhere apparent, our God remains faithful to us and causes all things to work for our good, even through the weakest and most unlikely instruments of His deliverance.
Thursday, May 28th - Esther 1: 1-4
These opening verses introduce us to a worldly king and his worldly pomp. Neither the Lord nor His people seem to be of any account when men of the world rise to positions of power and grow rich by their acquisition of land, possessions, and wealth. On a personal level, Asaph was sorely tried when he observed the prosperity of the worldly and the humiliation of the people of God (Ps. 73). Yet, through his worship and devotion to his God, the eyes of his heart were opened to see that the Lord had set the feet of the worldly in slippery places while He had lovingly secured His people and lovingly lavished His precious and potent blessings upon them. The Book of Esther shows us this as well.
Friday, May 29th - Esther 1: 1-4
We do not know and need not know who wrote Esther. We do know that the book does not contain fable but rather a factual account of the redeeming work of God for His people in an historical situation. As with all Scripture, the words were inspired by the Holy Spirit and come to us as the edifying breath of the living God. What the Holy Spirit intends us to see in these opening verses is that there are times when worldly rulers ascend to great heights, but also that we who are citizens of heaven should neither envy nor fear them, for our God is opposed to the proud while He rewards the meek with victorious faith in this life and an imperishable and inconceivably glorious kingdom hereafter.
Saturday, May 30th - Esther 1: 1-4
These opening verses set before us the historical and political context for the events recorded in Esther. The Bible is not a book about our escape from the world, but rather about our faithful and victorious living in the world. Our new life in Christ is not lived out immediately in Paradise, but rather is tried, tested, and purified in the furnace of this cursed world wherein the kings and rulers take counsel together against the Lord and His Christ (Ps. 2). The Word and Spirit of our Redeemer tell us that in the world we will have tribulation, but that the we should have hope, knowing that He has overcome the world (Jn. 16:33).
Sunday, May 31st – Esther 1: 1-4
The worldly king to whom we are introduced is here called Ahasuerus. As famous and powerful as he was in his day, historians cannot with assured precision identify him. He was certainly a Persian king, but whether Ahasuerus was another name for Xerxes, who reigned 486-465 B.C., or Artaxerxes II, who reigned 404-359 B.C., or even Cambyses, who was successor to Cyrus and reigned 529-522 B.C., cannot be determined with certainty. This imprecise identification of this great king is no indication of defect in the Word of God, but rather indicates to us the transient nature of worldly power and fame. Even the greatest of worldly rulers sink into obscurity with the passage of time, while the names of the Lord’s servants are inscribed in His heart and on His hands forever.
Monday, June 1st – Esther 1: 1-4
Judging from the dates of the reigns of the likely candidates for the king called Ahasuerus in our account, the time of the events in the Book of Esther was after the Jews had returned to Israel from their Babylonian Captivity. The final of the three large waves of exiles to return to the covenant land occurred in 444 B.C., led by Nehemiah. The fact that we find Jews still living in the land of their captivity tells us that some Jews remained there willingly, perhaps having become enamored of their pagan situation, while others, such as Daniel, performed such valuable service for their captors that they were not allowed to return to the land of their fathers. The events in Esther show us that God has a care for His people, wherever they are and whatever the reason that keeps them there.
Tuesday, June 2nd – Esther 1: 1-4
The extensive range of the empire of king Ahasuerus is significant. He ruled over 127 provinces, more than the 120 provinces over which Darius the Mede ruled. That his empire stretched from India to Ethiopia indicates that he ruled over almost the entire civilized world of his time. Therefore, the effect of his decrees would have been practically universal. One of his decrees, as we shall learn, was for the annihilation of the Jews, and in this historical event we perceive the operations of Satan, who was seeking to thwart the promise of God to give a Savior to His people through the seed of Eve arising from the chosen descendants of Israel. The Messiah, as we know, was to be born to Mary, a peasant descended from the tribes and kings of Israel. Yet, although the whole world may seem to lie in the power of the evil one, and although Satan may have his malicious focus set on the covenant people of God, the Church is always secure in the name of the Lord of their Salvation.
Wednesday, June 3rd – Esther 1: 1-4
The Persian king reigned over an extensive empire. He sat securely upon the throne of his earthly power. He delighted to display his riches and power as is indicated by his entertaining the leaders of his realm with a celebration that lasted six months. Ahasuerus would seem to be in as high and powerful position as any mortal man could wish to be. Yet, he becomes the slave of his own passions, the dupe of a cunning underling, and the puppet of Satan. If the Son of God has not set a man free from his sins, what does it matter if he possesses the whole world while his soul lies in such manifold bondage?
Thursday, May 4th – Esther 1: 3-5
Early in his reign, Ahasuerus gave an inaugural party of great duration and lavish provision. The primary motive for the king giving this festive celebration was not love for his people. Rather, it was a self-regarding determination to make an ostentatious display of his regal glory. Most of that display was lavished on those in the kingdom whom Ahasuerus wanted most to impress, namely, the national and military leaders, whose support was most necessary for the maintaining of his empire. These leaders were treated to a six-month feast, while the common subjects of the realm were entertained for only seven days. Even kings of the earth bow to and try to impress the rich and capable of the world, while the poor and needy the royal rulers hardly notice. Only the gracious King of kings cares for and exalts the poor and humble of the world.
Friday, June 5th – Esther 1: 6-8
Although this was a lavish and long-lasting celebration, mannerly self-control was officially permitted. The wine was plentiful (v.7) but drunkenness was not a required feature of this time of celebration, as v.8 indicates. This appeared to be the most refined and civilized event the world had ever seen or enjoyed. But, as we shall see, the best the world can offer is laced with ruinous sin that spoils it all.
Saturday, June 6th - Esther 1: 9
This verse introduces us to the Queen of Persia, Vashti, who was the wife of King Ahasuerus. She, too, was giving a banquet for the women in the palace. The brief notice of this banquet seems to indicate that the scale and grandeur of her banquet were far less than was the case with her husband’s feast. Whether Vashti gave her banquet as a complement of or in competition with her husband’s celebration cannot be decided and is not important for us to know. The notice given in this verse serves simply to alert us to the fact that Vashti was not with Ahasuerus at his grand celebration. God knew the motives of this queen, and whether they were sinful or noble, He used her actions to further His glory and the good of His people, as He always does with all things.
Sunday, June 7th - Esther 1: 10, 11
While we cannot determine from the record of Scripture precisely why Vashti was giving her banquet, we can begin to perceive from these verses that for all of the pompous display of the sovereign majesty of King Ahasuerus, the man’s character inclined toward vile weakness. We are told that the king summoned his queen not as a sober and laudable exercise of his sovereign authority, still less as a manifestation of his love for his wife. Instead, while under the influence of his apparently excessive intake of wine, he gave an order that a band of his eunuchs should bring Vashti to him. The motive for this order was so that he might display his wife’s physical beauty, thus treating her like one of his many possessions that he flashed before his subjects in order to impress them with a show of his material riches. No man—king or peasant—should treat his wife like chattel or like a mere ornament. God instituted marriage with much more loving and honorable designs than that (Gen. 2:18-23). Sin, of course, has ruined all marriages, but those in Christ find directives and gracious empowering to improve and deepen their bonds of holy matrimony (Eph. 5:21ff; 1 Pet. 3:1-7).
Monday, June 8th – Esther 1: 10, 11
All that glitters is not gold. While this Persian potentate ruled over most of the world and put on a lavish display of his vaunted majesty, power, and glory, yet we can perceive that not all was lovingly harmonious in his own household. In fact, we see that the king who ruled so much of the world could not rule himself, but gave himself into the ruinous power of wine. There is something essentially weak about a person who will give himself into the power of a distorting and debilitating substance. Such weakness, especially in a person in a responsible position, is very dangerous. Weakness renders a person vulnerable to exploitation by those who are wicked, as we shall see as the account of events in Esther progresses. It is not for nothing that we are exhorted and enabled to be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His holy and righteous might (Eph. 6:10).
Tuesday, June 9th - Esther 1: 12
This verse informs us of Vashti’s refusal to obey the order of Ahasuerus. Why she refused is unclear. She may have been sinfully rebellious. However, even if a believing wife had been in her place, she would have had just cause to refuse obeying an order issued by a drunken man and requiring that she prostitute herself before a gathering of men, most of them perhaps also drunk, and exciting lasciviousness in them as she paraded her physical beauty before them. The best way any wife in Vashti’s position could have respected her husband and been submissive to him in the Lord would have been to refuse this order and, after her husband had sobered up, to appeal to him to be his best and most loving by his cherishing her and not cheapening her. The Apostle Paul tells us that the man who loves his wife loves himself (Eph. 5:28). Any wife who helps her husband rightly to love her blesses her husband. By his giving this foolish, vile, and sinful order, Ahasuerus showed that he loved and respected neither his wife, nor himself, nor the God who instituted marriage. Such a man should not and cannot expect his wife to obey him.
Wednesday, June 10th - Esther 1: 12
The immediate response of Ahasuerus to Vashti’s refusal of his order was anger. It was not understanding, or lovingly seeking an explanation, or reconsidering whether his attitude and actions had provoked her disobedience. Rather than critique himself, he rashly and presumptuously turned against his wife and was angry that she would not demean herself by agreeing to turn herself into a mere object for other men’s visual gratification. It is possible that Vashti consciously determined to remain for herself and for her husband and king more than the mindlessly compliant object that he sought to make her. It is not uncommon even for Christian men to desire that their wives should be less their loving helpmeet than they actually are called by God to be and desire to be. Only a defective mind and heart would make any of us men desire such a thing.
Thursday, June 11th - Esther 1: 13-15
As his drunkenness had influenced the conceiving and giving of the sinful order to Vashti, so the anger of Ahasuerus clouded his judgment and hardened his heart so that the rectifying response he determined to take was that of legal regulation rather than loving reconciliation. His turning to his legal advisors might seem reasonable and responsible, but it was in fact another manifestation of the loveless and weak character of the king who was vaunting his greatness. As he had given himself into the intoxicating power of wine, so now he gives himself into the power of those under him. A show of regal majesty and sovereign authority does not necessarily indicate the effective presence of such qualities in a king.
Friday, June 12th - Esther 1: 13-15
Ahasuerus shows himself a loveless husband when he turns to the law as a first resort. Even if Vashti had in fact sinned against him, love would have prompted him to judge her action charitably and to go to her, seeking understanding and reconciliation. Legal recourse is the last resort in marriage, while love should always be the first resort.
Saturday, June 13th - Esther 1: 13-15
Ahasuerus also shows himself to be a cowardly man in his response to his wife’s refusal to obey his order. Even if she had sinfully offended his leadership in the marriage, he should have gone to her rather than huddle with his cronies. Of course we understand that those ancient oriental kings ruled absolutely and could execute anyone who violated royal protocol (Esther 4:11). However, social mores and national culture may explain a man’s sinful actions but they do not excuse them. The King of kings tells us that if someone sins against us, we should go to that one and seek reconciliation, rather than go to others seeking the punishment of the sinner (Mt. 18:15). Such directive is not only right but also loving.
Sunday, June 14th - Esther 1: 16-18
The Bible teaches us that the Law of God is holy and good, but that it is weak through our flesh (Rom. 7:12; 8:3). This means that because of our sinfulness, the Law of God can convict us but not convert us; it can kill us with condemnation but it cannot make us alive and willing and empowered to love and obey its holy directives. If this is so with the good Law of God, how much more is it the case with the laws framed by finite, fallen, and fallible men? Yet, when Vashti disobeyed her husband’s orders, he does not seek with loving understanding to turn to her and seek reconciliation. Instead, he turns from her and to the laws of men seeking redress for the offense he thought he had suffered. We see in these verses how readily men make laws to punish, not to restore, those deemed wrong-doers.
Monday, June 15th - Esther 1: 16-18
Observe how the legal judgment of these subjects of Ahasuerus magnify the offense of Vashti. Without a hint of due legal process they assume Vashti’s guilt and raise the stakes from the domestic sphere to that of an offense against the entire empire. It is true, of course, that both sins and crimes can be aggravated by the significance of the persons against whom they have been committed. In this case, Ahasuerus was not simply Vashti’s husband but also her king. It was also the case that Ahasuerus was king over the entire Persian Empire. So, an offense against him would be an offense against the head and whole body of the empire. However, what is also true but never considered by these Persian wise men is that their king had acted contrary to the laws of the King of kings, and therefore had exceeded his authority and abused the powers of his office when he sought to treat his wife as an object to gratify the base impulses of his nobles. Whatever the prevailing customs of families, cities, nations, or empires might be, if they run contrary to the liberating law of love of the living God, those who refuse to obey them will be commended by the Lord, while those practicing them will be condemned by Him.
Tuesday, June 16th - Esther 1: 16-18
Whereas the wise men of Persia magnified the offense of Vashti, they minimized to nothingness the transgression of Ahasuerus. It was, in view of their serving an absolute monarch, politic for them not to criticize their king. However, they failed faithfully to serve their king when they flattered him rather than inflict, with all respect if not love, the faithful wounds he truly needed to make him a better man, husband, and monarch. These worldly wise men may have had a reputation for knowing the times, the law, and justice (v.13), but they show themselves to be woefully ignorant of the more vital matters of love and honorable living. The true knowledge of such precious matters comes only when one knows the God who is love as well as the actual, not merely apparent, glorious Lord of all.
Wednesday, June 17th - Esther 1: 17, 18
Ahasuerus was outwardly a king with great power and riches. Yet we have perceived his weakness in his giving himself into the power of wine and acting according to his base passions that prompted him to treat his wife and queen as an object to show to lascivious men. Similarly, his counselors were renowned for their wisdom, and yet we perceive in them the weakness of their fawning over their king. We also perceive their fear that for all of the pomp that they and their king were displaying to impress the subjects of the realm, the social fabric of the empire was perceived by them to be fatally weak and in danger of a universal uprising of women, the weaker vessels. Those relying most on riches and worldly reputation usually prove to be weakest, whether they are individual men or the people of a great but worldly nation.
Thursday, June 18th - Esther 1: 17, 18
These counselors either lacked the wisdom attributed to them or else the empire they sought to help guide and portray in such grand terms was so tenuous as to be doomed with or without their counsel. When they state that all of the wives throughout the entire empire would arise in contemptuous rebellion against their husbands, they are either ridiculously over-stating the matter or there was domestic abuse and repression of such extent and magnitude as to make a feminine rebellion ready to erupt with or without Vashti’s disobedience. These wise men were in no position truly to help the wives of the empire remove any specks they might have in their eyes so long as these men retained the distorting log in their own eyes.
Friday, June 19th - Esther 1: 19
The mention of the laws of the Medes and Persians that could not be repealed sounds a note of great significance at this point. In the short run, the edict of Ahasuerus, written into the Imperial Laws, would ensure that when the weak king sobered up and his anger against Vashti subsided, he would not be able to change his mind and thereby display the imperfection of his weakness. In the longer term, another edict, almost certainly written in the laws of the Medes and Persians, would seem to ensure the certain and complete annihilation of the Jews (Esther 3:10-15). Great are the challenges and potential dangers arrayed against the people of God, even before they are aware of them; greater are the sustaining and prevailing means of grace of the God who is with and for His people.
Saturday, June 20th - Esther 1: 19, 20
The counsel given to Ahasuerus was that he should depose his offending queen without giving any consideration to why she had disobeyed him. As the law can only convict and punish its offenders, so those who are lovelessly and legally inclined are inclined to discard and destroy those whom they deem to be law-breakers, not to redeem and restore them. Infinitely greater and more desirable is the reign of the Lord of love over us than are the rules, regulations, and laws of the nations of the earth.
Sunday, June 21st - Esther 1: 19, 20
Even if the so-called wise counselors of Ahasuerus were right to regard so seriously Vashti’s offense against not only her husband but also her king, the counsel they offer the king could hardly be more misguided, inadequate, and ineffectual. No law that has ever been devised by sinful man can make wives truly honor and obey their husbands. If husbands fail to be loving enough to earn their wives’ submission, all that a law directing wives to honor such loveless men can do is to force a show of submission and honor while the reality of contempt brews in the pot of legally enforced repression. Only those ignorant of the liberating and empowering love of God could be so foolish as to lean so heavily upon the shaky reed of such a foolish law.
Monday, June 22nd - Esther 1: 19, 20
With this weak, sinful, boastful, and easily manipulated king made weaker, more sinful and more foolish by his fearful and legally-minded counselors, we might wonder what this has to do with the people of God in the days of Ahasuerus’ reign. Still more, we might wonder what good could come to God’s people in all of this concert of sin. Yet, we shall see how God was sinlessly superintending the sins of Ahasuerus, Vashti (if indeed she was acting sinfully in her refusal of the king’s order), and of the king’s counselors. The other one more worthy than Vashti who would become queen in Vashti’s place would be Esther, whom God would exalt to royalty so that she would be in a key position instrumentally to save her people. Our God is always sinlessly and masterfully superintending all situations, circumstances, and details of our lives for our good.
Tuesday, June 23rd - Esther 1: 20
The men who fancied themselves to be wise and who were reputed to be wise show their ridiculous arrogance and great folly in their words recorded in this verse. It is a laughable conceit that men who are obsessed with legalities should ever regard the rules and regulations they devise to have such great and effective power. The only lesson that Vashti’s punishment would inculcate to the women of the empire would be that they must bow to brute spousal force. Legislated repression can breed only resentment in a people, while loving, reasonable, and fair dealing begets in others reciprocated respect, honor, and even love.
Wednesday, June 24th - Esther 1: 21
The edict that Queen Vashti should be deposed from her office and that all wives of the empire should respect their husbands, and the thought that this edict would secure the domestic order and happiness of all families throughout the empire pleased the king and his princes. The fact that men feel they have power to repay their wives’ offenses against them in legal coinage, or even for them to feel that they have need of such power, shows how unmanly and ungodly and truly contemptible they are. Infinitely greater is the power of a husband’s sacrificial love for his wife than are all the laws that could ever be devised to shore up a godless brute of a husband. This way of love is the still more excellent way (1 Cor. 12:31-13:13) in which all husbands in all nations and throughout all ages should be truly and rightly pleased.
Thursday, June 25th - Esther 1: 21
The king, in his drunken stupor, did as the prince, Memucan, proposed. Accordingly, King Ahasuerus was ruled by his sinful passions, by an intoxicating substance, and by his lesser officials. He who should have ruled this great empire demonstrates to all with eyes truly to see that he could not rule himself, his household, or his realm. A weak man is a dangerous man because when push comes to shove weakness always sides with wickedness. A weak man sitting in a seat of earthly sovereignty is a threat to all who live under his rule, as he will invariably yield his sovereignty to wicked manipulation. How thankful we should be that our redeeming King is not like that.
Friday, June 26th – Esther 1: 22
With the publication of the edict that Vashti should be deposed and that all wives of the empire should honor their husbands, the folly of Ahasuerus is broadcast. Loveless mastery is offered to the husbands of the realm, and the wives are ordered to submit or face being put away by their husbands and shunned by society throughout the empire. Only fools would regard this law as being prudent, necessary, and effective. But a fool delights to broadcast his folly (Prov. 13:16), thinking that others are as foolish, if not more so, than he is himself. The common sense of the common people of this empire was wiser than those who devised and adopted this fool’s edict. We can be thankful that our God reigns over the foolish rulers of this world who counsel together against Him, His anointed, and His wise and loving ways (Ps.2).
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