Fellowship Around the Table
Great conversations about life, faith, and the Bible from Fellowship Bible Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma (www.fbctulsa.org).
Fellowship Around the Table
Esther: Royal Decrees and Divine Providence w/ Scott L. Johnson (Part 1 of 3)
Read Esther
Venture with us through the annals of ancient Persia as Scott Johnson rejoins the conversation to examine the Book of Esther, a narrative that highlights the courage and complexity of biblical womanhood without an explicit mention of God. Discover how a queen's defiant act against King Xerxes' command cascades into a series of events that not only alter the course of her life but shape the destiny of an entire people. Whether you're a history buff or a seeker of life's deeper meanings, our discussion promises to illuminate the intricacies of power, gender dynamics, and divine providence woven throughout this timeless story.
Feel the grandeur and the gravity of royal decisions as we navigate the rippling effects of Queen Vashti's refusal on the Persian Empire. Scott and I delve into the cultural web of the era, contrasting the contemplative nights of King Xerxes with the enigmatic motives behind Vashti's bold stance. The advisors' panic, anticipating a potential rebellion among the women of the empire, reflects a patriarchal society's tremble at the mere thought of a shift in societal norms. This episode draws parallels with other scriptural tales of irrevocable edicts, painting a vivid picture of the ancient world's rigid structures and the human emotions that challenge them.
Finally, peer behind the palace doors as we explore the intimate and transformative selection process for a new queen. The episode examines the year-long beautification ritual, considering the emotional and cultural hurdles these women endured. With Scott's insights, we ponder the profound journey of Esther and her counterparts from obscurity to potential royalty. The episode transcends a mere historical recount, inviting listeners to engage with the human experiences and subtle divine threads interlaced within the biblical text. Join us for an episode that not only revisits a pivotal chapter in religious history but also reflects on the timeless theme of identity and transformation.
You are listening to Fellowship Around the Table. Welcome back to another week of Fellowship Around the Table. I'm your host, heath Casey, and this week I'm bringing back an old friend, scott Johnson. Hey, heath, scott L Johnson, that's right, thank you. Hey everybody, I'm excited. We are going to be going through the book of Esther, and so looking forward to this. We are recording, though, right before the Super Bowl, and I know you're not the sports fan in your house. That's your wife Beth right.
Scott L. Johnson:That's absolutely correct.
Heath Casey:So I want to know who is Beth rooting for in the Super Bowl? Can you remind?
Scott L. Johnson:me who's playing?
Heath Casey:The Kansas City Chiefs in the San Francisco 49ers.
Scott L. Johnson:You knew I was going to have to ask that. I was pretty sure the Chiefs were playing and. I'm 98% sure my wife is rooting for the Chiefs. Okay, very good. Now how about you?
Heath Casey:I'm a huge Chiefs fan Okay, long time born and raised. Okay, now you love the commercials I do.
Scott L. Johnson:I love the funny commercials, right Do you have an all-time favorite. Oh, there are several. I don't know if it was a Super Bowl commercial, but there was one about diet Pepsi, I think, where it was all how men are manly they can take anything except other diet colas and, like the bowling ball, falls on the guy's head or the board flies out of the table, saw and wax the guy in the gut and it's all okay, except I can't stand diet cola except for diet. Pepsi, that's a long time favorite.
Heath Casey:That's a long time favorite.
Scott L. Johnson:I have lots of others that I think are really funny though.
Heath Casey:Do you like the halftime show?
Scott L. Johnson:I don't generally watch it. I might like it, I just-.
Heath Casey:They've gotten progressively less about the music it feels like yeah, and I am a huge music lover. I know.
Scott L. Johnson:I mean music will bring me to tears pretty easily and that's probably just not my kind of music.
Heath Casey:But that's okay, I love the creativity of it anyway. If you could pick one artist to do the halftime show, who would you pick?
Scott L. Johnson:Oh gosh, you really had to take me there. The halftime show is a production, so one of my favorite artists is a guy named Gino Vanelli, but he probably wouldn't be the right halftime production because he doesn't jump around or do acrobatics. He's just really talented and the musicians he has with him are extraordinarily good, and I love watching anybody who's really really good at their craft ply their craft. Whether it's an electrician or it's a musician, it doesn't matter. I like watching them do what they do, and his people are top 1%, every one of them.
Heath Casey:All right listeners, I'm going to put a YouTube video in the show notes of Scott's favorite song by that artist.
Scott L. Johnson:That would be fantastic. Brother to brother would be the song there you go?
Heath Casey:Yep, All right, Scott, the book of Esther where do you want to start?
Scott L. Johnson:I want to start by turning the tables on you, Heath, but just for a moment and before we start going through the book together, I want to ask you what stands out that you find intriguing about Esther.
Heath Casey:Oh well, I love history so this is kind of in that history section in the Old Testament so I enjoy that. I've always found it interesting. It's kind of one of those Bible nerd trivia questions what's the only book in the Bible that doesn't mention God? Right, and that's Esther. It's intriguing.
Scott L. Johnson:Yeah, it is.
Heath Casey:Interesting. There's some social, cultural things in this book that are shocking to our modernized that I think we wrestle with, and I find that interesting. And God uses them. He does, and I, just as a nerd who loves history and loves to read a lot of history, I'm currently reading through Napoleon's new biography, which is just fascinating. But I love to try to put myself in their shoes and see what day-to-day life would be like. And it's hard to do, but I love that exercise. So for this book, I think that's interesting.
Scott L. Johnson:You and I share something there, although I have a little different twist on it. I put myself in their shoes, less on their day-to-day lives and more on the unique circumstances that God puts them in, because it's easy for us to read it in the black and white, but these are real people who didn't know what was around the corner. We know because we've read it before. We know what's coming. They didn't know what was coming in any of the books that I teach, and I love that about these books. I love that.
Heath Casey:Okay, Scott, before we start working through the book, you've said there are several interesting aspects of the Book of Esther which you like to describe upfront. So what are these?
Scott L. Johnson:Okay, first of all, this is one of only two books of the Bible named for women. And you know the other one what's the other one, ruth.
Heath Casey:Ruth is the other one. I never thought about that.
Scott L. Johnson:And it happens, I teach both of those books.
Heath Casey:I love.
Scott L. Johnson:Both of those books Same and here's an interesting comparison between the two. In the Book of Esther, which we're talking about now, esther is a Jew who marries a pagan man. In the Book of Ruth, ruth is a pagan woman who marries a Jewish man. And God has really big, important things to do through both of these marriages of one Hebrew and one pagan or non-Hebrew.
Heath Casey:Yeah.
Scott L. Johnson:Wow, one of the most interesting facts about the book, as you mentioned already, is that God's name is conspicuously absent Conspicuously the only book of the Bible that His name doesn't appear in in any form. And yet His fingerprints are evident throughout, and I'm going to draw a few things to the surface as we go through it, where I think it's even more conspicuous than the rest of the book.
Heath Casey:You're setting a record for conspicuous and I'm probably not done yet.
Scott L. Johnson:I hope the Guinness people are listening. The author of the book is the subject of speculation Because it happens I teach Job, ruth, jonah and Esther and we don't know who wrote any of these books. Yeah, but that's just coincidence. It's not why I teach them, but it just happens. We don't know who wrote Esther. Two options when I read the scholars, because I don't have any idea who wrote it. One is a Jew wrote it who was present in the area at the time and had some first or close second hand knowledge of the events.
Scott L. Johnson:Yeah, but, the other one is a Persian.
Heath Casey:Okay.
Scott L. Johnson:The Persian wrote the book and it still ended up in the Canon of Scripture, and over time I've developed my own opinion, which is only worth what anyone's willing to pay for it and probably not much, but I will share that when we get to the end.
Scott L. Johnson:The dates of the book are King Xerxes reigned from 486 to 465 BC, so 21 years, and the events in Esther begin in the third year of his reign, which puts that at 483 BC. And as we'll see in the book and I'll bring this out when we get there the events in this book take place over a nine year period. There are 10 chapters in the book and when we read the Bible often we think you know, this happened the next day and this happened the next day.
Scott L. Johnson:This is many, many years of history in this book Nine years, nine years.
Scott L. Johnson:There are two really well known, exceptionally insightful statements in the book, from Mordecai to Esther, and I'm just going to kind of paraphrase this from memory. He basically says who knows? But that you have become queen for just such a time as this, and we'll see what the context is of that, but that's a very well known statement and I think that is a good lesson for us, because we're all, in whatever circumstance we're in for just that moment, god is not asleep at any moment in our lives. He's not disinterested in what we're doing at any moment in our lives, and so that's a really good mantra, I think, for us to keep in mind.
Heath Casey:It is so good and that is a memorable line that is still alive in our culture today. It gets used generally. It does.
Scott L. Johnson:Not even referring to.
Scott L. Johnson:Christianity or Judaism, when you read the Bible, you find a lot of our cliched phrases really do originate there. Yes, Maybe they were cliched phrases before they were used by Bible characters, but they certainly have survived centuries or millennia really at this point. And then the other one is Esther resists doing something that Mordecai sort of implores her to do and in the end, when he sends an instruction back, she says to him if I perish, I perish. I mean she is resolved and resigned to doing following through with it, knowing it could cost her her life and we'll get to that. But those are two really insightful statements in the book. Incredible courage, yeah. And then let me ask you this question, Heath, so I may be putting you on the spot a little bit here what's the most basic job of a leader of a nation or of a people?
Scott L. Johnson:You may have to edit out some of that space here.
Heath Casey:I love this question. I'm digging too deeply about it probably, I think to ensure justice To ensure justice.
Scott L. Johnson:Okay, so that's going to be internal to the people and I agree with that. I would describe it as to sort of create an atmosphere and a structure and an authority system for some domestic tranquility where people can know they can go about their lives.
Scott L. Johnson:And I would say, on a broader sense, a leader's job is also to protect the nation or the people from outside intruders. So you've got to be able to defend against an attack, otherwise you don't have a nation anymore, you don't have a people anymore and you have to ensure some sort of domestic tranquility.
Heath Casey:The good will, the general good will of the people. That's right.
Scott L. Johnson:Yeah, that's right. And then last, what do you do if you can't sleep? Do you ever have a night where you can't sleep?
Heath Casey:Frankly, not often Good. But what do I do Usually? Fire up a podcast or start reading. Start reading so you might listen to a podcast, or you might read.
Scott L. Johnson:I want you to remember that you might read If you can't sleep you wake up and then you cannot sleep.
Scott L. Johnson:One thing you might do is you might read. That's a common thing for me to do and I prefer. I don't necessarily read scripture when that happens, but I like to have a book that is not like a long novel where I have to really remember the plot. I like to have a book where I can read two or three pages, that kind of stand on their own, and then I can go back to sleep, because then I usually can fall asleep again after that. So we're just going to park that and we'll go on.
Heath Casey:Well, let's get started. Chapter one. You kind of hit on this, but I'd like to go a little deeper. When does this story?
Scott L. Johnson:take place. Yeah, so it takes place about in the fifth century BC, so roughly 2,500 years ago, and it takes place under the reign of a king commonly referred to as King Xerxes X-E-R-X-E-S, and this guy had a very large kingdom. He had 127 provinces that extended from India to Ethiopia and I'm not really very good at geography but I know that is a huge area and 127 provinces. And the book begins in the third year of his reign. So that's our timestamp. In chapter one, verse three of the book and he's providing a banquet for his officials and the officials and nobles of the armies of Persia and media, as well as all the provinces. These 127 provinces have sent their officials and nobles to this banquet, so he's having a giant banquet.
Heath Casey:And can I frame this out a little with where we're at in the kind of the big Bible time one.
Scott L. Johnson:I would love it if you did that, yeah.
Heath Casey:So you mentioned the years, but if I can just go back a little bit, the Babylonians had come and conquered the southern kingdom of Jerusalem and Judah carried off a lot of the Jewish people, especially the well-to-do, into captivity, back to Babylon. They're going to be there for 70 years and then, really a fairly small remnant, are going to go back once Babylon falls. Now the Persians are in charge. Like you see, they're the world power. They're going to go back and this is your Ezra and Nehemiah stories and they're going to rebuild the walls and the temple, making the way for the Christ to come. But not all of them go back, and this story is the story of the Jewish people that remained in the Persian Empire.
Scott L. Johnson:Okay, that's right, and I love the fact that you did that, because those are dots that you and, frankly, my son Eric, are really skilled at connecting and guys like Rick Griffith. And that is not my strong suit. So I love hearing you describe all that, because you really have a handle on all that.
Heath Casey:We're a good team.
Scott L. Johnson:That sounds great.
Heath Casey:Now, you said the king's name was Xerxes Yep, but he's also known by another name. What is it? Ahash Veresh, okay, ahash.
Scott L. Johnson:Veresh.
Heath Casey:How on earth did you pronounce that so easily?
Scott L. Johnson:Okay, so this is pretty funny. So when, mike, do you remember VHS tapes Heath, I do. You probably don't remember them as an adult, but you remember them as a kid. I still own some. Okay, I have a few also I don't have a player Right I have one, hey, that's in the closet. So when our kids were young, Hannah Barbera.
Heath Casey:Yes, hannah.
Scott L. Johnson:Barbera produced the Flintstones, the Jetsons, I think, tom and Jerry. Yes, they produced a series of cartoon Bible stories, animated Bible stories called I think it was called the greatest miracle stories from the Bible or maybe the greatest adventure Really, and Sam's Club would get these in. They would release a new one or two and Sam's Club would sell these and we had the whole set. One of them was Esther.
Heath Casey:Okay.
Scott L. Johnson:Now, every episode that they did from the Old Testament, they had a Jewish rabbi, a Catholic priest and a Protestant minister as consultants on the stories.
Heath Casey:Is that right?
Scott L. Johnson:And they referred to the king and Esther as a Hoshveresh. It was very specific, very clear, very well articulated, and that's how I learned to pronounce it, Otherwise I would have no idea how to pronounce that and, by the way, there's no V in the name. There's a U where the V would be, and that was not uncommon for it to be spelled that way, with a U in place of the V, but anyway, it's a Hoshveresh.
Heath Casey:I'm going to try it. A Hoshveresh Great, that's perfect.
Scott L. Johnson:I mean, as far as I know from Hanababah Barrow, it was perfect, all right. And, by the way, hoshveresh's father was Darius. Okay, so Darius of Daniel and the Lion's Den fame, so to speak, was Hoshveresh's father, so we're not very far removed from that story.
Heath Casey:And you mentioned that he's over a very large kingdom.
Scott L. Johnson:Very, large, yeah, and we're going to see how large it is here pretty soon, but again it's 127 provinces from India to Ethiopia.
Heath Casey:Wow, Okay, yep. So what is happening? Exactly as the book opens.
Scott L. Johnson:So he has this huge banquet and he does this banquet for six months, or it says 180 days, as we get to chapter one, verse four. And then it says at the end of that, he does a seven-day banquet for all the people present in Susa, the citadel or the city, from those of the highest ending to the most lowly. So everyone was invited to this, but basically his banquet was for all the men and during that banquet they get out all their best. I want to call it China, but it's not China. It's gold and silver cups, vessels, okay, and the text has this little note that says each of which differed from one another. And what that really means is they were all custom, okay, they didn't buy it at the Walmart of their day, they weren't common pottery.
Scott L. Johnson:Each one was designed by a craftsperson and so these are very expensive, really cool cups that they were drinking the wine out of. But I think importantly, it says, as we get to chapter one, verse seven royal wine was available in abundance at the king's expense. There were no restrictions on the drinking, for the king had instructed all of his supervisors that they should do as everyone so desired. So he's basically saying however much wine any of these men want, I want you to give it to them for seven days.
Heath Casey:Sounds like a great idea, doesn't it? No?
Scott L. Johnson:I can't. No, I really can't. And Queen Vasti gave a banquet for the women at the royal palace at the same time.
Heath Casey:Okay.
Scott L. Johnson:So that's what's happening as we get into this.
Heath Casey:So this is quite a feast and quite a meeting.
Scott L. Johnson:It's quite a meeting quite a feast, and it ends with this seven day. It's open to everyone sort of thing.
Heath Casey:Okay, Scott. So this long banquet, how does this giant feast come to an end?
Scott L. Johnson:Okay. So at the end of the seven days it says King Ahasuerus was feeling the effects of the wine, or he was sort of his heart was in good spirits. We kind of know what that means he ordered seven of his eunuchs, who were his sort of servants, to bring Queen Vasti into the king's presence wearing her royal high turban. He wanted to show the people and the officials her beauty, for she was very attractive. Now we don't know. I've read some people think he might have been requesting some sort of elude display. The text doesn't state that, but either way, he definitely wanted to show her off. If we just put it in pretty casual English, it was a drunken party with a bunch of drunk guys. He wants to show off the queen to all these drunk men.
Heath Casey:That's really what's happening here. Okay, I don't mean to put you on the spot, but for the benefit of anyone in our podcast audience and myself who may not know what on earth really is a eunuch- You're not putting me on the spot because I teach sex at the Christian home, so this is pretty lightweight compared to that.
Scott L. Johnson:A eunuch was a man who had been castrated and, just to say it more plainly, his testicles had been removed. Okay, and it's funny. I read somewhere that this could have happened in some like he was born that way, or they were surgically removed, they were cut off, and I've never, ever heard of a guy being born with no testicles. So I think that was a little bit of a stretch. I think these are men who were either committed by their parents or they were born into a life of servitude, basically to the king, or they elected. They said you know what? I think I'd like that job and I'm willing to do that.
Heath Casey:Well, yeah, and this was a common practice in the ancient world across many cultures Not uncommon, yeah, even getting into the Italians and the Castorati and for various reasons. Right, I guess, for modern eyes, I think a lot of things come to mind.
Scott L. Johnson:Sounds pretty weird.
Heath Casey:But what is the?
Scott L. Johnson:point of a eunuch. Okay, so these guys, first of all, they may have had an interest in women, but after they became eunuchs they wouldn't have had the ability, so to speak. So they were considered safe around the king's women. They were safe around the king's wives, which they typically had more than one or often did and they were safe around the king's concubines. And secondly, a eunuch could not have a family of his own, so he didn't have. He knew he wasn't going to have a family, didn't aspire to have a family, his life was in service to the king or whoever it was he was working for.
Scott L. Johnson:And that made them, generally speaking, a pretty single-minded, pretty focused on their job and on the boss, so to speak, and they were quite valuable for that reason.
Heath Casey:Yeah, you think about whatever ages would have happened, but not having ongoing testosterone. It wouldn't have been a physical threat either, correct? Yeah, correct, that's right. Why would someone want to do this to someone else? I think you're kind of hitting on that, but Well, basically, they would yield themselves to it if they were of age because they were interested in that role for their life. Okay.
Scott L. Johnson:Or I don't know the answer to this. I think it's entirely possible some of them were castrated as very young children.
Heath Casey:Yeah.
Scott L. Johnson:And think about how we do calves today.
Heath Casey:Yeah, we make steers out of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but some would have done this on their own because it was almost like a way of life and a profession.
Scott L. Johnson:That's my understanding. Yeah, it was something, a role that they might even aspire to.
Heath Casey:We live with our modernized like anybody should be able to do anything and become anything Right, and every path is open. That's not, that's not history. That's not the history of the world. No, it's not. Yeah.
Scott L. Johnson:It's not reality for a lot of cultures today, right, but it is much more today than it ever has been. But it's certainly not history, yeah yeah.
Heath Casey:No question about that. Okay, go on, keep going.
Scott L. Johnson:Okay. So he sends his eunuchs to go get Vashti and she says no, she refused to come. And then it says the king's rage consumed him and, as you know, heath, I know I really don't know any Hebrew, but every once in a while I specifically look one up, and this is one that I looked up. So this is the rage part. The rage part, yeah, it's the Hebrew word Chema Chema, chema Chema, and it's Strong's Concordance, age 2534, if anyone's into that. It appears six times in the book Okay, and the meaning is a combination of heat, anger and indignation.
Heath Casey:So it's a very.
Scott L. Johnson:It's an offense that's received very personally and it really causes think of your face turning red and just anger flashing through your entire being.
Heath Casey:That's what the implication is Very intense, yeah, and, as we probably know, culturally fueled by alcohol. That has this whole nother round to it, especially in this situation. That's right, yeah, that's right.
Scott L. Johnson:And as you said, very intense. I think that's a good word for it. It's a good descriptor and I found it interesting. The same Hebrew word is translated poison not in this book but elsewhere in the scriptures six times in the New King James Version.
Heath Casey:Really yeah, okay, yeah.
Scott L. Johnson:And it's vast she to come. She doesn't come and he is in a rage because, his direct request, which really amounts to an order from the King, has been told no.
Heath Casey:One of the things I kind of struggle with, especially trying to put myself back in that timeframe, is from a King's order like why would she refuse that? What good could I mean? For her stakes are pretty high. Stakes are high, why would she refuse that?
Scott L. Johnson:And we don't know the answer to that, and I think she's looking at this going. He wants me to come parade myself. Exactly what that meant, we're not sure, but he wants me to come parade myself in front of a bunch of and I mean a whole big bunch of drunk men, and I'm just not going to do that. So it appears that that's kind of what was happening in her mind. Okay, what was the King's reaction to that refusal he gets this rage, he is this intense hot anger and this intense indignation.
Heath Casey:And what's he going to do about that?
Scott L. Johnson:He inquires of the wise men, which he does a few times throughout the book. He gets advice, he sort of has a cabinet, if you will, and the book describes these guys as discerners of the times, people that were proficient in laws and legalities in the net version. And these guys interact with him on this question. So he says to them, by law, what should be done to Queen Vashti in light of the fact that she has not obeyed the instructions of King Ahashveresh conveyed to the eunuchs. And so one of them, named Mamukin, replies to the King and the officials and this is really interesting. He says I'm going to quote here from the book, again, I'm quoting from the net version the wrong of Queen Vashti is not against the King alone, but against all the officials and all the people who are throughout all the provinces of King Ahashveresh, for the matter concerning the Queen will spread to all the women, leading them to treat their husbands with contempt, saying when King Ahashveresh gave orders to bring Queen Vashti into his presence, she wouldn't come. And this very day, the noble ladies of Persia and media who have heard the matter concerning the Queen will respond in the same way to all the royal officials, and there will be more than enough contempt and anger. So this is their concern, as they've expressed it, and they say if the King is so inclined, send an edict that cannot be repealed.
Scott L. Johnson:Now, if you remember, in Daniel, this is how Daniel ends up in the lion's den. His colleagues, who feel threatened by him and want to get rid of him, convince the King to sign a proclamation that no one can pray to anyone but King Darius, for 30 days. Daniel's in the habit of praying very publicly to the one true God, his God, and so they know he's going to do that and the King's proclamation cannot be repealed, and thus against what the King strongly desires to do. He does not want to throw Daniel the lion's den, but he has to, and so he does, and we know the outcome of that story. But here again they're saying to the King issue a proclamation that cannot be repealed, and that was the custom at the time. Even the King couldn't repeal his own proclamation.
Heath Casey:I think this is a flaw in the Persian rule right. It seems like it doesn't.
Scott L. Johnson:The King cannot change his mind once he's issued it.
Heath Casey:Correct, correct.
Scott L. Johnson:It is very strange to our thinking. If a King has that autonomy. He should have the autonomy right or the authority. So the proclamation would say Vashti may not come into the presence of the King and let him convey her royalty to someone else and disseminate that through all the kingdom. And then their conclusion of their advice is then all the women will give honor to their husbands, from the most prominent to the lowly. Yeah, because that's how that works. That's how that works, Correct.
Heath Casey:Well, it's weird because it sounds like they were worried about more than Vashti.
Scott L. Johnson:And I'm positive, they were worried, among other things, about their own wives. Right, they don't want their wives refusing them on whatever it is they might happen to ask, and so, yes, they're concerned about all the women in the kingdom rebelling against their husbands and this is hits home for them.
Heath Casey:It does so if my modern eyes, this part of the story I just find comical. Yes, yes. Just that they all got together and were like oh no what are we going to do?
Scott L. Johnson:Yeah, I think there's a lot of that going on.
Heath Casey:Okay, I think that's exactly right. What did they disseminate? This new law? This?
Scott L. Johnson:is really cool, and this is, I think, one of the more obscure things that people gloss over, and I would have glossed over it, except that when I teach the book, I'm really paying attention to everything. So in chapter one, toward the end of the chapter, verse 21, the matter seemed appropriate to the king. So the king acted on the advice of Mamook, and basically the advice of all seven of these advisors, in 122, here's where the details are he sent letters throughout all the royal provinces, to each province according to its own script and each people according to its own language. Now you have two different things there For a long time. I just read well, those are the same thing, it's just repeated, it's not the same thing. So think about this Heath. What's the script? What does that mean?
Heath Casey:I guess I assume that's the specific language in that province.
Scott L. Johnson:And I would say it's even finer, it's more granular than the character set.
Heath Casey:So think about this.
Scott L. Johnson:I've been to Africa several times. In Ethiopia there's a character set that looks nothing like our Western or English or Arabic letters. Basically, In Russia you see Russian, you sort of know it's Russian, but you can't read any of it. The character sets are completely different. If we learn to speak German, French, Spanish, the character sets are substantially the same as what we speak in. English Very similar. The Oriental languages Japanese, chinese, korean all completely different sets of symbols.
Heath Casey:Yes.
Scott L. Johnson:So when it says each of these peoples in their own script, they had people on the king's staff that knew every script, every character set, so that they could write every language, and the author here records those details. So this proclamation is disseminated to each people group in each of these provinces, and think about how many thousands of copies of this there had to be, because we're talking about 127 provinces.
Heath Casey:I was trying to think of that number again 127 provinces and numerous cities and sort of outposts in each of these provinces.
Scott L. Johnson:That has to be posted pretty much at least one place in every city. So this is a really big deal that they have this whole staff to translate these edicts and send them out like this.
Heath Casey:I'm laughing again because I'm picturing some of these far off provinces. You know this reaching them and the local leadership reading what. What's that all about? This is great.
Scott L. Johnson:I think you got that right too, like I'd be. My first thought would be well, I wonder what prompted that, but then I think you're right. All the men are going. Yeah, all right. Finally.
Heath Casey:Then they can say because the king said so, Right.
Scott L. Johnson:That's right. And the net version, and I'm not a big fan of this version, the way this translates, but it says every man should be ruling his family and should be speaking the language of his own people. But if you look at the NLT and the GNT, nlt is the new living translation. It's an update to what was formerly the living translation. Gnt is what a long time ago was called Good News for Modern man. I remember my parents having this as a paperback Bible and so that's now the Good News translation. These are both also translations and they translate it. The men should say whatever he pleases, or the man should speak with final authority, and I think that's a more clear indication of what the intent was of this. Basically, the man is the boss. Every man is going to rule his own family and he's the boss. So that was the effect of what they sent around to all these places.
Heath Casey:Okay, so with that we finish chapter one. Onto chapter two. Vashti, the queen has been deposed. How did it go for the king?
Scott L. Johnson:after that, in chapter two, verse one, it says when these things had been accomplished and the rage of King Ahasveresh had diminished, he remembered Vashti. Now that just doesn't really make a lot of sense to us. We don't think he really forgot her the whole time, but what I've read in commentators is he sort of pined for her. He missed her, but it's too late now. He's deposed her.
Heath Casey:He can't repeal that Back to the wall, right, he's never going to get her back.
Scott L. Johnson:And so he's kind of pining he's missing, having a woman that he can call the queen, and so I think this was evident to his servants, because they can kind of see that he's a little down about all this. And so in chapter two, verse two, it says the king's servants who attended him said let the search be conducted in the king's behalf for attractive young women and let the king appoint officers throughout the provinces to gather all the attractive young women to come here to the harem under the authority of Hagae, the king's eunuch who oversees the women. Let him provide whatever cosmetics they desire and let the young woman whom the king finds most attractive become queen in place of Vashti. I love the end of this little section. This is in chapter two, verse four. It says this seemed like a good idea to the king, you think. I mean, it must be nice to be the king.
Heath Casey:Yeah.
Scott L. Johnson:I'm thinking this seemed like a great idea to the king.
Heath Casey:This is Persia's Got Talent or something like that. Yeah, something like that.
Scott L. Johnson:Yeah, persia's Got Talent. I love that. That's good. That's good. So it says he acted accordingly. Now the idea that whom the king finds most attractive which is in the net version I'm reading from, is often translated who pleases the king. It's not just a matter of who he finds attractive, it's who pleases the king. It's translated that way in the NIV, the NLT, the new King James Version and the New American Standard Bible. So that's probably a more common translation and I think we're going to see, as you sort of alluded to earlier, some pretty dramatic and almost disturbing implications of that as we get through the book.
Heath Casey:I think it's interesting too, the mention of the cosmetic part.
Scott L. Johnson:Yes.
Heath Casey:That they were giving whatever was needed to be their best possible.
Scott L. Johnson:That's right to be their best self. That's exactly right To give them the best chance of success. Of course, all of this was for the king Right. It wasn't for them really. It was for the king Right, yeah, okay.
Heath Casey:Did the king follow their?
Scott L. Johnson:suggestion he certainly did. He certainly did. So they get this all organized and this sort of contest is on.
Heath Casey:So is this when Esther comes on scene? Is this when we actually meet Esther? This is when we meet.
Scott L. Johnson:Esther. Okay, so the captain this is in 2.5, there was a Jewish man in Sousa named Mordecai gives a little bit of his lineage. He was a Benjamin Knight, but it says he'd been taken into exile from Jerusalem with the captives which you mentioned earlier, with Jechaniah, king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had taken into exile. That says he was the guardian of Hadassah. That is Esther, and, if I remember it right, heath Hadassah was her Hebrew name and Esther was a Persian name. Right, hadassah says that she was the daughter of his uncle, and that gets a little bit confusing. People think that Mordecai was the uncle because of the way that's written sometimes.
Heath Casey:Well, I've heard people say that Esther's Mordecai's niece. But is that right?
Scott L. Johnson:It's not correct. Wow, and there's this little confusion because it says that Mordecai, that Esther rather, was the daughter of Mordecai's uncle. So that would make them. What If you do the math on that?
Heath Casey:Is that math, are they?
Scott L. Johnson:cousins. Sort of like geometry, they're cousins. He's older than she is.
Heath Casey:Okay.
Scott L. Johnson:Somewhat significantly, we would have to infer. But yes, they're cousins. That's exactly what they are.
Heath Casey:All right, that's a whole moment for me.
Scott L. Johnson:Okay, and I think it's going to be an aha moment for lots of people, because I think there's a lot of confusion on that.
Heath Casey:Yeah, I always thought niece in the back of my head and she was an orphan.
Scott L. Johnson:Her father and mother were gone and she was, it says, very attractive and had a beautiful figure, and some other versions says she was beautiful of form and face and she was beautiful and lovely. So when her parents passed away, mordecai had raised her as if he was her father and she was his daughter. Okay, wow.
Heath Casey:So she's beautiful, I'm assuming, and I know, but she's going to get caught up in this new search for the queen she is.
Scott L. Johnson:So we get to chapter 2, verse 8,. When the king's edict and his law became known, many young women were taken to Sousa to be placed under the authority of this eunuch, haggai. Esther also was taken to the royal palace to be under the authority of Haggai, who was overseeing the women. And this next little thing here is really cool, heath it says this young woman pleased him. So she pleased the eunuch, so not in a sensual sort of way.
Scott L. Johnson:She was clearly deffrent, respectful, agreeable, easy to get along with, engaging, I would say she endeared herself to him pretty quickly, and this is so reminiscent of what we see in the story of Ruth, the other book of the Bible which is named for a woman. We see that this behavior from Ruth six ways to Sunday.
Heath Casey:Everybody interacts with her.
Scott L. Johnson:Yeah, yeah, that's right. So Esther has the same sort of quality about her. Okay, so she, it says, quickly provided her with cosmetics and rations and provided her seven specially chosen young women from the palace and transferred her and her young women to the best quarters in the harem.
Heath Casey:Well, I just want to pull back just a hair, because I have this thought going to my head and maybe it was clear and I just didn't quite see it, but when they were out on the search do you imagine this? That women were just volunteering. I think they were. This is a life changing opportunity. And in terms of being just a say, an everyday present in a sense or were they on the search and going, getting whom they wanted and just plucking them away?
Scott L. Johnson:You know, my answer to that question is probably the most frequent answer that I get, which is I don't know.
Heath Casey:Yes, okay, yeah, I don't know. It's not clear, is it I?
Scott L. Johnson:think it could be either and I would guess it is a mix that makes sense to me. I'm saying, hey, you're really attractive, you need to come with us. And some of these gals probably really was founded, quite intimidating, quite off-putting. Others I'm sure did aspire to live in the palace.
Heath Casey:Sure, I'm sure many did, and that's something that's hard for us to put thoughts to. But you know, for the history of the world, most parents wanted their kids to be better, often than them. That's right and this was like getting a free ride. Scholarship to Golden opportunity, golden ticket.
Scott L. Johnson:Yeah, that's exactly right.
Heath Casey:Yeah, and that's we don't find that sensible as much today. That's right, I don't. I think maybe we should think about how we think about that too, I think.
Scott L. Johnson:I think we need to understand today is not normal. Yes, cast in the millennia of history. Yeah, it's not normal.
Heath Casey:Because people also did a better job historically of thinking beyond themselves generationally down the line. Oh yeah, and this is a generational family tree changer, forever that's right, okay, yeah, all right.
Scott L. Johnson:I just had to park that a little bit. Yeah, no, that's great. I love the development of that.
Heath Casey:So what about Mordecai in this part? He doesn't go with her.
Scott L. Johnson:No, mordecai wouldn't be allowed to go with her because she's now in the harem. She's living with women under the supervision of Unix, which we've already discussed. That. And here's an interesting feature of this If you look at chapter two, verse 10, esther had not disclosed her people, in other words, she hadn't told anyone she was a Jew, for Mordecai had instructed her not to do so. But day after day, mordecai used to walk back and forth in front of the court of the harem to hear what Esther was doing and what might happen to her. So he's very interested in staying on top of things, but he's not really interacting with her so much. Probably he's not interacting with her at all, as my guess, and so, but she is not disclosing this secret that she is, she's Jew.
Heath Casey:Why do you think that is?
Scott L. Johnson:Mordecai had told her not to, and we don't know exactly why, but God's fingerprints are all over this, even though, again, he's not mentioned.
Heath Casey:She kind of endeared herself to this unique. So I don't know she's kind of getting special treatment.
Scott L. Johnson:She's getting as good a treatment as anybody in there. We can be sure of that.
Heath Casey:Okay, what happens next with Esther? You kind of mentioned how long this takes.
Scott L. Johnson:This is a long time and I find this also fascinating. Heath, it says at the end of 12 months, when the turn of each young woman arrived to go to King Ahasferesh. And then there's this little parenthetical. It says during the 12 months they had six months with oil of myrrh and six months with perfume and various ointments used by the women. 12 months Now, heath, this morning it took me about 30 minutes to get ready to leave the house. I didn't shave. If I had shaved, it would have taken me maybe 35 or 40 minutes. Okay, okay, but if I had a year to spend on myself, it's not going to get any better than what you're looking at, right?
Scott L. Johnson:now for which I apologize, I mean a year. It's just hard for me to imagine what could take a year for these women to sort of doll themselves up. If I could just speak plainly about it.
Heath Casey:Yeah, so am I to take this that they got a year at the spa?
Scott L. Johnson:Basically, I think that's right. That's exactly right. Now I have read that the royal high turbine may have weighed as much as 30 to 50 pounds, so if that's the case, I wouldn't be surprised if some of that time was spent balancing something that weighed the same, or approximately the same as the royal high turbine, because you don't want to put that on the first time when you become queen and not be able to balance that.
Scott L. Johnson:That would be a little bit of a spectacle, but that's an inference on my part, and what it really says is is you're worth the beauty treatments?
Heath Casey:Yeah, well, if you think about, I mean, there was a lot more disparity between the royalty and everyday people and if there is, a lot of these women are coming from the lower class. There's some time there to get. They're probably malnourished or thinking about sustenance living and what it would take to look royal. Yeah, look up to the king standard, right, right. Do you have a sense of how many women were collected?
Scott L. Johnson:to this contest. I mean, I think it could have literally been hundreds to begin with, I doubt that many were sent to the king Right, but I think it may have started easily with hundreds, but I honestly just don't know.
Heath Casey:Yeah, it's not really a hint in here about that. So when these women had been through their training, what was the process to select the next queen?
Scott L. Johnson:Okay. So basically, each one went to the king in the following way. The text says whatever she asked for would be provided for her to take with her from the harem to the royal palace. In the evening she went to the king. In the morning she returned to a separate part of the harem, to the authority of Shashgash, the king's eunuch, who was overseeing the concubines. She would not go back to the king unless the king was pleased with her and she was requested by name. Now, there's a lot of implication there. Okay, when she left, she came from the part where she was living, went to the king and think about this heath. When she went back, she didn't go back to the same place, she went to the place where the concubines were staying.
Heath Casey:Now what's a concubine? This is the.
Scott L. Johnson:Want me to explain that. I'll take that. I've already covered you, nicky. I was searching hard. A concubine is a woman to whom the king had sexual intimate physical access, but was not his wife. Solomon had hundreds of concubines. He also had hundreds of wives, yes, but a concubine was a woman who had a sexual intimate relationship with the king at his request.
Heath Casey:I mean in theory, the king and king alone. They're dedicated to the king.
Scott L. Johnson:No question. Okay, so the important thing here and this is another one of these things that culturally really rubs us the wrong way- and I think for good reason.
Scott L. Johnson:Yes, but this is how it was done at the time. Esther went to the king After she'd spent the night with the king. She didn't go back to her living quarters, where she had been the whole time. She went back to where the concubines were, which suggests this was not just a long conversation. There was an intimate physical relationship, or at least for that night, with the king, and that was how part of how the king evaluated who he wanted to be his queen Right.
Heath Casey:The women that were collected to replace the queen is specifically says they were collected as virgins and they seem to be housed as virgins.
Scott L. Johnson:They're certainly housed as virgins.
Heath Casey:Yes, and so you're….
Scott L. Johnson:Don't recall that it says they were collected as virgins. It may have.
Heath Casey:I think in chapter 2, verse 2, it says let the king's attendants who served him said let beautiful young virgins be sought for the king. Oh, yes, Okay. So I think it is because I think your implication is she didn't return to the virgins.
Scott L. Johnson:And what is that ESV? That's NASB. That's NASB. So the net says attractive young women. I think, that's an important distinction, and it'd be interesting to see what the Hebrew says. I think I would have already inferred that they were virgins. Yeah, okay.
Heath Casey:So I mean you're kind of hitting on it, but what happened overnight when these women went to see the king?
Scott L. Johnson:Let's not get into that specifically, but what we know is there was intimate…. It was physical intimacy, because they went back to the part of the harem where the concubines were.
Heath Casey:Okay, Scott, so they had this training. There's 12 months leading up to this, a lot of beautification and probably this is kind of like my fair lady. Right, there's a difference in the education and the culture and even the language and mannerisms in the royal household versus how everyday people live. It seems very likely, and I think they probably had to be brought up to be in the presence of the king to that, and that takes time.
Scott L. Johnson:Yeah, right, so that's a good point.
Heath Casey:So, my fair lady, I guess…. Two, these are virgins. They're going to go be with the king, so I feel like they had to have some sense of training of what to expect, like you know what Do you see where I'm going with this.
Scott L. Johnson:I do and I don't. We can't know the specifics of it and we don't want to go too far down this road.
Scott L. Johnson:But, the thing I think that's interesting is what the woman asked for would be provided. She asked for what she wanted to take with her to go see the king. I don't think we should assume that all of that was platonic in nature or conversational in nature. I think there's very good reason to imagine that some of that may have had to do with intimacy, whatever that involved at the time. So there's a lot of what we would call sorted. I mean, this is not something any of us would want our daughters to go into.
Scott L. Johnson:But again, this is how it was done and God's fingerprints, strangely enough and uncomfortably for us, are still all over putting her in this position.
Heath Casey:Well, that's just not part of the story you really hear or much focus on. So are you sure of that?
Scott L. Johnson:No, I'm not, but I think the implications are pretty strong.
Heath Casey:from where I sit there pretty strong, great. So what happens when it's Esther's turn?
Scott L. Johnson:When it's her turn, it says she didn't request anything except what Haga, the king's eunuch to whom she had endeared herself, had recommended, so she didn't come up with her own ideas. She said to him what should I take with me? And whatever he said she should take is what she took.
Heath Casey:She had some good inside information.
Scott L. Johnson:She did and again, she's very different, very respectful and very acclimated and receptive to advice, and this is what she's done yet again here on the at the finish line of this whole process, which is when she went to the king. It says she met with the approval of all who saw her and she was taken to King Ahashveresh at his royal residence in the 10th month in the seventh year of his reign. Let's just pause there for a second. So do you remember where the book starts? What year of his reign? I don't, it's the third year. Okay, so we're not even finished with two chapters yet, and four years have elapsed in this book.
Heath Casey:Okay.
Scott L. Johnson:Four years between the beginning of chapter one and where we're at right now in chapter two, which I find just fascinating. There's a whole lot of history that's happening in that four-year period. The king's got stuff going on, esther's got stuff going on, but here at the end of that four-year period four years and change probably there she is now at the king's doorstep. Wow, so it's a long time. Okay. So it says in chapter two, verse 17, the king loved Esther more than all the other women and she met with his loving approval more than all the other young women. So he placed the royal high-turban on her head and appointed her queen in place of Vashti. Then he gives a big banquet and it's really Esther's banquet and he provides for offerings, whatever. That means that the king's expense. So that is the end of the process for Esther. She wins the contest by encounters with the king that make us very uncomfortable today, and I think for good reason. But this is how it turns out and that's part of the process of her getting there, wow.
Heath Casey:Yeah. So out of all of that which, like you're saying, seems so ungodly to us, looking back today, god really has placed Esther in an important position.
Scott L. Johnson:He certainly has. Wow, he certainly has.
Heath Casey:So what about Mordecai?
Scott L. Johnson:now, mordecai definitely still around and Mordecai is still sitting at the king's gate. I don't know exactly what that means.
Heath Casey:I've tried to picture what that means.
Scott L. Johnson:Yeah, it sounds like he was some sort of an attendant in the king's structure and the king's governance, but I'm not really sure what his role was.
Heath Casey:A lot of times the gate was the place of business, the place of commerce the place of law.
Scott L. Johnson:People are coming in and out to do things.
Heath Casey:So it's not like he's just like kind of being a bum and just hanging out there all the time. I think he has some role built into there that keeps him involved.
Scott L. Johnson:And we see, even in the book of Ruth it talks about the city square and I think there's sort of some common themes there as to what these places were. They were places of activity. Yeah, okay, yep. And so Mordecai is there and it says in 220 and I think this is really cool, esther was still not divulging her lineage or her people, she wasn't telling anyone when she was Jewish, as Mordecai had instructed her and get this. Esther continued to do whatever Mordecai said, just as she had done when he was raising her. So, as it relates to the two of them, esther is following Mordecai's instructions, even though she's now the king, and so it's not his instructions for how to be the queen, but it's his instructions. Spiritually, she is still taking her spiritual cues and her spiritual guidance from her cousin, mordecai not her uncle Mordecai.
Scott L. Johnson:And chapter two ends with this little plot of intrigue. So there's two eunuchs that guard the king, or supposed to protect the entrance, big, thin and terish, and they become angry and plot to assassinate King Ahasuerus. And it says when Mordecai learned of the conspiracy, he informed Queen Esther and Esther told the king in Mordecai's behalf. It says the king had the matter investigated and, finding it to be so, he had the two conspirators hanged on a gallows. And then it says it was then recorded in the daily chronicles in the king's presence so gallows, so they were hanged. They were not hanged. And this is a strange thing to me, because so many English translations say hanged on a gallows.
Scott L. Johnson:Many English translations and you'll see a few on the notes here the NIV and the NLT and the NIRV are more clear, and also the scholars. You'll find articles by scholars. They didn't have a gallows and a noose and a rope like we think of being hanged on a gallows. Probably it says they were hung on a tree, but what this was was a sharpened pole, so think of a giant pencil with a very sharp point.
Scott L. Johnson:And the process was they put the perpetrator to death first and then they impaled the body on this sharpened point of the pole, and they raised the pole up I'm guessing at an angle and displayed the body I'd rather not think about this, you would rather not think about this and I can't imagine being one of the people that had to actually carry this out but they were basically put on display as a warning and a deterrent to other people, sort of like don't let this happen to you. Yeah.
Heath Casey:Yeah, how does chapter two end?
Scott L. Johnson:Chapter two ends where it says it was recorded in the Daily Chronicles in the king's presence. So I think the mental note we need to make here is the king, first of all, has investigated this, found these guys guilty and ordered them to be killed and impaled on the poles. And, by the way, we're going to see that more clearly they were killed first and then they were hanged quote unquote or impaled on these poles. We're going to see that more clearly later in the book. Okay, but it was recorded in the king's history, the account of the king's reign, and it was recorded in his presence. So he's very familiar with his story and he's been a part of the story himself.
Heath Casey:Okay, wow, this has been a lot of fun.
Scott L. Johnson:We're just getting started, we're just getting started.
Heath Casey:We're going to close out this episode and continue on next week. Any final thoughts?
Scott L. Johnson:Looking forward to next week.
Heath Casey:All right, we'll see you all next week. Part two of Esther. Thanks for joining Fellowship Around the Table. To check out more, visit fbctalsetorg. Okay, I'm ready. I'm just checking the levels first.
Scott L. Johnson:How did that level look over there? He's all right cool.
