Purim_The Story of Queen Esther

Purim The Story of Queen Esther

By: Evelyn C. Pointer

Pu!m Purim was first celebrated as a feast day and a national day of thanksgiving during the time of the Medes and Persian Empire. Israel was in captivity, their land occupied. It all started with a young woman named Hadassah. She would later become known as Esther “star�, named by King Ahasureus when she became his queen. "e Story of E#her It was in a way a love story, but not in the way you might think. Hadassah was an orphan. Her cousin Mordecai adopted her and raised her as his daughter. They were part of the captivity of Judea that had been taken to Babylon under the reign of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon. The children of Israel remained under captivity in Babylon for seventy years until Babylon was taken by the Persian king Cyrus the great.

Cyrus made a proclamation that God had commanded him to build his temple in Jerusalem and to let his people return. Many of the children of Israel returned to their land, still under the rule of the Persians, but many did not. They were no longer under the cruel hand of the Babylonians, but remained under the more reasonable but still hard iron fist of the Medes and the Persians. Mordecai and Hadassah remained at Shushan, the royal seat of the Persian king.

In the third year of the reign of Ahasureus, he made a feast for all the nobles of the land and the princes of the provinces to show them the magnificence and glory of his royal kingdom. It lasted 6 months! At the end he decided to show off the beauty of Queen Vashti, and commanded her to come and show herself. Vashti refused! This was an insult, a slap in the face. Who did Vashti think she was? Well Ahasureus called together his wise men and counselors. What should they do about the queen who had openly defied him in front of all of the princes and nobles of the land? It was frankly embarrassing and infuriated the king. How could a man who ruled 127 provinces not be able to control one woman? The princes put their heads together and this was their advice, he should take her down from being queen, because she was not worthy and find someone else. On top of that he should make it a law because the law of the Medes and Persians could not be changed. They told him that what Vashti did would make all wives disrespect their husbands if he let her get away with it, which could cause a lot of

trouble. So he made a law that Vashti would no longer be queen, and that every man would bear the rule in their own homes. By law every woman had to obey her husband!

Later on the king, after he stopped being angry, began to think about Vashti and everything that happened. Perhaps he felt bad because he didn’t have a queen. The law of the Medes and Persians signed by the king could not be changed even by him, but his servants came up with a plan. They said let us round up all of the fair young virgins in all of the provinces and bring them to the palace for the king. And let whichever virgin please the king most be queen instead of Vashti. And that is how Hadassah came to the palace. She was a beautiful young virgin and according to the law must be given to the king. Mordecai warned her not to tell anyone that she was a Jew. So they rounded up the virgins, they took them to the house of the virgins. There they were purified for six months with oil of myrrh and six months with sweet odors, a full year before they could go before the king. Esther, or Hadassah as she was then known was so beautiful and so well favored by the keeper of the women that he quickly gave her the things for purification. Each maiden would be taken to the king. She would go in the evening, and in the morning she would go to the second house, which was the house of the concubines. She would never see the king again unless he asked for her by name. When Esther’s time came the king loved her more than any of the other women and made her his queen. She became queen in the seventh year of his reign; a full four years after Vashti had been removed.

While all of this was going on, Mordecai walked every day before the house of the women concerned about what was happening to Esther his daughter. One day when Mordecai was sitting in the king’s gate he overheard two of the king’s chamberlains plotting to kill him. He told Esther the queen who told the king. The chamberlains confessed and were put to death.

Wicked Haman King Ahasuerus promoted Haman above all of the princes of the provinces. He also commanded that all of the king’s servants that were in the king’s gates had to bow and do reverence to Haman. But Mordecai did not bow to Haman. When the other servants noticed that, they asked him why. He told them that he was a Jew and could not

worship a man. So of course they rushed to tell on him to Haman. Well when Haman saw that Mordecai did not bow and do reverence to him he became so angry that he thought it was not enough to kill Mordecai, but he had to kill all of the Jews. And he knew how to do it because he had the ear of the king. Haman was a heathen and believed in magicians and soothsayers. He had his fortune tellers to cast the lot or “pur” before him to find out what was the most lucky or advantageous month and day to have all of the Jews killed. Then he met with the king and told him that the Jews were a pestilent people that had different (weird) laws and would not obey the king’s law. He told him it would not profit the king to suffer them to continue to exist, that their existence would prevent the king’s plan for a peaceful kingdom. He asked that it be written, as a law sealed by the king’s ring that all of the Jews in the entire kingdom be destroyed, and that he would pay ten thousand talents into the hand of those who would be in charge of the business to bring it into the king’s treasures. This sounded like a great idea to King Ahasureus, and without any examination into the truth of the matter, he gave his ring to Haman to make it into a law, and thought nothing more of it whatsoever.

Letters were written and were sent by post throughout the entire kingdom and in all of the provinces to destroy all of the Jews, young and old, women and children in one day on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month! The posts went out and the decree was given in haste. And the king and Haman sat down to drink; but the city Shushan was perplexed.

Righte$s Mordecai When Mordecai found out about the decree he rent his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes and cried in his distress. And all of the Jews in all of the provinces were in great distress and grief, weeping and laying in sackcloth and ashes. Esther was very upset when she heard about Mordecai and she sent him clothes to wear. She didn’t know what had happened. Mordecai sent a message to her and a copy of the decree for her to see. He asked her to go to the king and make supplication on behalf of her people. Esther sent word to Mordecai that if anyone, including her go to the inner court to speak to the king without being called, the law was that they would be put to death, and that she had not been called to come in to the king in thirty days. But Mordecai sent word to tell her not to think she would escape more than any of the Jews, and that it was probably for this cause that she became Queen. So Esther, who obeyed Mordecai always, and was righteous and devout said, “If I perish, I perish.” She

would go before the king in peril of her life. She said that she and her maids would fast for three days, and she asked that the Jews at Shushan fast for three days also. "e End of Haman On the third day Esther came to the inner court of the king’s house. She was supported by her maids, and looking at the king she fainted. The king leaped from his throne to comfort her and reached out his scepter for her to touch; assuring her that she would not die. He asked her what her petition was. She asked that he and Haman come to a banquet of wine that she had prepared. He consented to do so. At the banquet he asked her again what her request was. She asked that he and Haman come to another banquet tomorrow and she would tell him her petition then.

Haman left the banquet of wine happily because he knew what an honor it was that he was the only prince requested to be at the banquet. But he told his wife only one thing spoiled his happiness, and that was Mordecai the Jew who still lived and refused to bow to him. His wife and friends told him to build a gallows to hang Mordecai on, and then go merrily to the banquet.

That night the king couldn’t sleep and he decided to read in the book of records. He then remembered how Mordecai had saved his life from the chamberlains. He asked his servant if any dignity had been done to Mordecai. They told him nothing was done.

It so happens that at the same time Haman had come to the court to request to have Mordecai hung on the gallows. The king asked his servants who was in the court. They told him Haman and he had them send Haman in. He asked Haman’s advice on how he should treat someone who had well pleased him. Haman thought he was talking about him in his pride. So he said the king should dress the man in clothes that the king used to wear, put him on his horse and have someone declare before him, “Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighted to honor!” Then the king told him to make sure he did all of that to Mordecai.

Haman was in shock and flabbergasted. But he had to obey the king. So he took the clothes and the horse and proclaimed before him “Thus shall it be done unto the man whom the king delighted to honor. When he told his wife and friends what happened they did not make it any better and told him that if Mordecai was of the seed of the Jews that he would surely fall before him.

The next day, at the banquet of wine Esther revealed her petition. She requested the life of her and her people. The King asked who would dare threaten her and her people. She pointed to Haman. “The adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman.” The king was furious, he was so angry he got up in his rage to walk in the garden. When he came back Haman was fallen on Esther’s bed pleading with her, which made him even angrier. He said, “Will he force the queen also before me in the house?” So his servants helpfully told him about the gallows that Haman had built to hang Mordecai, and the king told them to hang him on the gallows. And they did.

Pu!m % E#abl%hed Everything was not alright yet. Esther fell down before the king to stop what Haman had put in effect. But the law of the Medes and Persians could not be changed, not even by the king. So the king told Esther and Mordecai that they could write in the king’s name and seal with his ring another decree. What they wrote was that the Jews in every province were to gather themselves together and to destroy anyone who tried to assault them and to take all of their wealth on the thirteenth day of the month Adar which was the very day that Haman had set up to have all the Jews killed. And on that day, the Jews were able to take up sword and fight for their lives and the rulers and officers helped them. The Jews killed men at Shushan and in the provinces over 75,000. Some of the people became Jews because they were afraid of them. So on the fourteenth and the fifteenth days of Adar they had days of feasting and gladness and gave gifts to each other, because the day that could have been their doom, was turned instead into their victory. So Mordecai and Esther established these two days to be kept and remembered by their people. And they called these days Purim after the word pur.

What Does "% Have to Do wi' Us? Purim is part of our history. We remember Purim also because it points to our future.

We are in jeopardy all the time, just like the children of Israel were. Our very lives are in danger by a vicious enemy, the devil. One day God is going to give us power. He is going to give us power over our enemies, and over the wicked that will one day be given power of the devil to harm God’s children. But even now we are like Esther. She had no power of her own, except for the power of prayer and fasting. We also have power through prayer.

We must remember to fast and to pray. We must pray always. We must give our petition to the king of Glory which is so much greater than a fleshly king. In the beginning I said this was a love story but not in the way that you might think. In the book of Esther in the apocrypha, Esther prayed to God saying how her only joy since she came to the palace was in worshipping him. She hated her crown and also the bed of the uncircumcised. She did not like the feasting and banqueting. She loved and obeyed Mordecai, she gave proper honor and reverence to the king, but above all things, and above her own life she loved God.