Esther 2: A Beauty Pageant You Don't Want to Win

Well, this morning we continue our series that we started last week on the book of Esther, where we see the overarching theme of God's providence in a very complex and confronting environment in the Persian Empire, which was the greatest superpower of its day. We meet this morning the two protagonists of the story: Esther and her older cousin Mordecai. Sometimes I think traditionally considered to be her uncle, but as we'll see more accurately, probably her older cousin. Last week we saw the man king, the emperor King Ahasuerus, and this morning we'll continue to see the unfolding story as we are set up to meet Esther and Mordecai as King Ahasuerus decides on who is going to become his new queen. In order to get there, we're going to read together Esther chapter two and I'm going to invite Nikki to come and read for us.

Esther chapter two and we'll begin from verse one. Esther chapter two. After these things, when the anger of King Ahasuerus had abated, he remembered Vashti and what she had done and what had been decreed against her. The king's young men who attended him said, let beautiful young virgins be sought out for the king and let the king appoint officers in all the provinces of his kingdom to gather all the beautiful young virgins to the harem in Susa, the citadel, under the custody of Hagai, the king's eunuch who is in charge of the women. Let their cosmetics be given them and let the young woman who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti.

This pleased the king and he did so. Now there was a Jew in Susa, the citadel, whose name was Mordecai, son of Kish, a Benjamite, who had been carried away from Jerusalem among the captives whom Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had carried away. He was bringing up Hadassah, that is Esther, the daughter of his uncle, for she had neither father nor mother. The young woman had a beautiful figure and was lovely to look at. And when her father and mother died, Mordecai took her as his own daughter. So when the king's order and his edict were proclaimed and when many young women were gathered in Susa, the citadel, in the custody of Hagai, Esther also was taken into the king's palace and put in the custody of Hagai, who had charge of the women. And the young woman pleased him and won his favour and he quickly provided her with cosmetics and her portion of food and with seven chosen young women from the king's palace and advanced her and her young women to the best place in the harem.

Esther had not made known her people or her kindred and as Mordecai had commanded her not to make it known. And every day Mordecai walked in front of the court of the harem to learn how Esther was and what was happening to her. Now when the turn came for each young woman to go before the king after being twelve months under the regulations for the women, since this was the regulatory period of their beautifying—six months with oil of myrrh and six months with spices and ointments for the women. When the young woman went into the king in his way, she was given whatever she desired to take with her from the harem to the king's palace. In the evening she would go in and in the morning she would return to the second harem in custody of Shaashgaz, the king's eunuch who was in charge of the concubines.

She would not go into the king again unless the king delighted in her and she was summoned by her name. When the turn came for Esther, the daughter of Abihail, the uncle of Mordecai, who had taken her as his own daughter, to go into the king, she asked for nothing except what Hagai, the king's eunuch who had charge of the women, advised. Now Esther was winning favour in the eyes of all who saw her. And when Esther was taken to King Ahasuerus into his royal palace in the tenth month, which is the month of Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign, the king loved Esther more than all the women and she won grace and favour in his sight more than all the virgins, so that he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti. Then the king gave a great feast for all his officials and servants. It was Esther's feast.

He also granted a remission of taxes to the provinces and gave gifts with royal generosity. Now when the virgins were gathered together the second time, Mordecai was sitting at the king's gate. Esther had not made known her kindred or her people as Mordecai had commanded her, for Esther obeyed Mordecai just as when she was brought up by him. In those days, as Mordecai was sitting at the king's gate, Bigthan and Teresh, two of the king's eunuchs who guarded the threshold, became angry and sought to lay hands on King Ahasuerus. And this came to the knowledge of Mordecai and he told it to Queen Esther and Esther told the king in the name of Mordecai. When the affair was investigated and found to be so, the men were hanged on the gallows and it was recorded in the book of the chronicles in the presence of the king.

So far, God's word. Well, in chapter two we hear and we read three episodes. And like I said, in one of those episodes we are introduced to Mordecai and Esther. But before we get there, we first find in the first episode, verses one to four, a king who craves someone new. Well, we see in the first chapter that King Ahasuerus essentially sends his wife away.

Last week we saw that rather than taking a breath, pulling his wife aside and listening to why she refused to come out to be paraded in front of these potentially drunken friends of the king, and instead of being sorry for his atrocious behaviour, what does the king do? He replaces his wife. And now we are told in chapter two verse one that he decides to fix one sin by committing one more sin. He commands his people to go and round up potentially hundreds of young women, probably girls, in order to become concubines in his harem.

A harem was and still is in some countries a special section of a nobleman's household reserved for women to, in other words, please the man of the house. A concubine is a woman you don't marry, a woman who is not a wife, but is considered to be a wife for the night. We're told in verse one that the king remembered Vashti. The king remembered Vashti. Now that is a strange sort of idea because, I mean, who all, you know, forgets and then all of a sudden remembers he has a wife?

But this is probably regarding the incident of what took place with Vashti. It's sort of meant to evoke this idea that the king is coming out of his drunken stupor. He's been partying for six months straight. And now the partying is over and he realises what he's done. He's banished his wife.

Commentators point out that there's probably a fleeting moment of regret. The passive verb of his remembering what had been decreed against her, not what he had decreed, but what had been decreed against her, implies that he accepted very little personal blame in the matter. So there's a strong irony being pointed out here that Ahasuerus, the mightiest man in the empire, is bound by his own laws. Feeling lonely, embarrassed and needy, he decides that it's time to find a replacement. We're told of what this process entails.

It sounds like some sort of episode from those awful reality TV shows like The Bachelor or Australia's Next Top Model. There's a collection of women that are brought to the king over the course of a year, at least, but we're told here that in chapter one the party started in his third year, and by the seventh year of his reign Esther is sort of introduced to him. So it's been four years of going through these women. But for at least a year these women are beautified, so to speak, and then finally presented to the king. Let's not sugarcoat what is happening.

In these verses, beautiful young virgin girls are taken from their homes and forced into what we would call today a form of sex slavery. If you think Esther is a fairy tale about a girl winning the beauty pageant, think again. We're told that these girls go through a beauty regimen for a whole year. For a whole year these girls are perfumed up, fattened up, because back then big was beautiful. And these ladies, probably many of them commoners, needed to get a bit of fat on their bones.

They have makeup done, hair done, nails, the whole lot. For a whole year they are prepped. And then one by one the king makes his way through all of them. Bush in his commentary puts it bluntly. Unmistakably, there are two criteria by which the king will decide which of the young women will please him and so take Vashti's place as queen.

Number one, her beauty, and number two, her ability to please him sexually. If these girls didn't tick either of these boxes, we're told that they were dismissed to the king's harem. They remain in this section of the palace for life. There is no going home if you didn't get the rose from the bachelor. You are forbidden to leave the palace.

You are unable to marry anyone else nor to have any children that do not belong to the king. It's hard to imagine, but these girls essentially become living dolls, put on a shelf and taken off every now and then when it fancies the king. Following on from last week's introduction of the character of the Persian king, we start seeing some of the deeper issues of the heart at play. He is the most powerful man on earth and yet he is totally captivated, totally ensnared by powers far greater than the most powerful man on earth. It's against this backdrop where we find one particular insight, I dare say, into the distinct aspect of sin amongst us men.

We are soon going to be introduced to a good and godly man, Mordecai. A man who truly is a man by the biblical standard. But first we see an emperor who is still just a boy. We're told in the text that the competition to become Ahasuerus' wife wasn't one you entered into freely. Every woman in the empire was considered eligible.

What happened to these women was far from a beauty pageant. Listen to the ominous sounding words from verse eight. Verse eight. So when the king's order and his edict were proclaimed, and when many young women were gathered in Susa, the citadel, in custody of Hagai, Esther also was taken into the king's palace and put in custody of Hagai who had charge of the women. What happens when you get taken into custody?

You're a prisoner. This was the life of Esther and these women. It is far from voluntary. And under the thin veil of beauty treatments and health spas, the true pleasure is ultimately for just one man. Now this is an obvious violation of today's estimation of human rights.

We could all say that. It makes most of us modern minded men shudder. But this sad picture presents a kernel of sin found in many of our hearts as men. When men sin against women, we dominate. Domination, coercive power, was part of the curse of sin that God pronounced to Adam and Eve after the fall.

God said to Eve, your desire shall be for your husband but he shall rule over you. We know from the creation account that in paradise God created Adam as the head of Eve. But as a result of the fall a bitter enmity between man and woman ensued. The curse of Genesis 3:16 pronounces that Adam's benevolent headship will become twisted into a domineering rule. He will rule over you.

Conversely, the good and pleasant submission and love of Eve for her husband becomes a twisted desire for him. That desire is not a sexual desire. It is a desire to overcome him, to rule over him in turn. In that moment we see the result of sin's entry into the world as the commencement of the battle of wills between men and women starts. But in this situation with the king we see a domination with disturbing clarity.

Which one of these women could resist the king of Persia? And before we are tempted to think of this being a quaint story from a time long, long ago, we realise that the slave trade in our world today works with exactly the same goals in mind. There are today literally millions of women trafficked for the same reasons. You can read newspaper articles in the news today about reports from the Ukraine war, and you hear of Russian soldiers right now being accused of entering houses. And what do they do to show that they've conquered that house, that town, that city?

They rape the woman. It's this sinful drive for dominance, tied with the desire for sexual gratification, that is a weakness in man's heart. The Bible tells us that when men sin we pervert the glory of God by twisting the benevolent, strong, lordly, masculine, humble and self-giving headship that God gave us as men originally. And we distort it and ruin the beautiful image that God has given of His fatherhood in the world. Now the answer to overcome this sinfulness in a man's heart is not the popular solution advocated by many in Australia today either.

The solution to the sin of domination is not abdication. To step down from a position of leadership and that is what is being forced upon many today. To sit down and let the woman take over. With empathy I wanna say that I understand why many would think that that is the solution. What else do we do when we see how badly men have stuffed things up?

But that is not the solution. Against the pitiful characterization of Ahasuerus, the emperor who was a boy, we see something of a true gentleman in the likeness of Mordecai. You can go to other places in scripture and you find the same sort of men: Boaz in the story of Ruth. These men are never the true heroes of the biblical story—only God ever is—but they are shown to be sanctified examples in many ways. They are shown to be self-controlled.

They are shown to be self-sacrificing, gentle, wise, not dragged around by sinful desires. And so the first lesson that we learn, I think, is that we need men to be real men. Not the boyish gym junkie hard drinking hard partying prank pulling lads that fill up our social media feeds. A harsher example is shown to us and it tells us that it doesn't matter how many girls you get, if you don't have the godly character of living by God's code you'll never be a true man. Definitely not in God's eyes.

And no matter how far you might get in life your history will always show you up as a failure as it did to this king, instead of being a good and honourable man. So for us men we hear this this morning. Follow God's example of being a man. Stop running your life according to social media or to pop culture caricatures of manhood. So firstly we see the king who craves someone new.

Then we come to our second point and we find a young woman in a tricky spot. Finally we are introduced to Mordecai and to Esther. Mordecai we are told is a descendant of Kish from the tribe of Benjamin, which means he is a descendant of King Saul, which is probably why he or his family had been taken to the city of Susa, the capital of the Persian Empire. As a second or third generation exile, however, he wouldn't have known anything but the Persian Empire. He's grown up in that empire.

But the fact that he's introduced as a Jew is significant. It's an important detail that sets up the story. His name Mordecai is a Hebrew version of a Persian name which is Mardukha. That name is based on a Babylonian god of all things, Marduk. So on the one hand Mordecai is introduced as a faithful Jew, meaning he hasn't assimilated to become Persian.

He has a Persian name, however. And we find a man who lives in these two empires. At home Mordecai is a faithful worshipper of God. And at work Mordecai is a faithful servant of the empire. Now Mordecai has a younger cousin, the daughter of an uncle, whom he has taken in as his own daughter when her parents have died.

This cousin's name is Esther. Her Hebrew name is Hadassah. Esther is also a Jew, but she has a Persian name as well. Possibly this name is tied to the pagan goddess Ishtar. And she too lives in two worlds.

After this brief introduction we're told swiftly that Esther has the auspicious privilege of being taken into custody into the king's harem. Verse seven tells us that she was very beautiful, but soon we realise that she is more than a pretty face. In the perilous situation of being caught up in her version of a reality TV drama, or perhaps we can say a horror film, she quickly goes about learning not simply how to survive but to thrive in the palace. Verse nine tells us that she wins the favour of her overseeing eunuch, a man called Hagai, who promotes her to the best place in the harem. That could mean that she's physically moved to a really good position in that part of the palace where the king would potentially see her first.

Hagai, who is so impressed by this Esther, gives her seven chambermaids to help her with any of her needs. But we are very quickly shown that Esther is using her charm and her intelligence to influence the people around her. Having gained the love of Hagai and after a year's preparation, Esther's turn finally comes to have her one night interview with the king. But here we see another inkling of wisdom. We're told in verse 15 that she took with her nothing more than what Hagai, the eunuch, had advised.

The other girls, however, took whatever there was in the palace to take. And I mean you can imagine there was no limit to what they could have taken with them. In a master stroke, seemingly going with something more modest, more understated, Esther goes to the king. She probably knows that Hagai knows the king much better than she does. She adopts his recommendations.

She trusts his expertise, and that is what a wise person does. Listens to experience, listens to wisdom. We are therefore not surprised to hear that the wise, gentle and pleasant Esther charms the heart of the king. Verse 17 says, the king loved Esther more than all the women and she won grace and favour in his sight more than all the virgins so that he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti. We're also told in verse 10 that Mordecai instructs Esther not to let anyone know about her Jewishness, about her faith.

To the outsider she seems like any other person who has been swallowed up by the Persian empire. Whether or not this instruction from Mordecai was wise is open to debate, but Esther complies nonetheless. We'll see how this decision brings about all sorts of complications later in the story when Ahasuerus makes a decree against all the Jews, which means including his wife Esther. But for now Esther's faith is hidden. Now from this story there are commentators and interpreters and preachers who say that Esther should have been more stubborn about her position of her faith. They claim that she should have resisted the call, for example, to marry a pagan king.

She should have resisted the call to have a one night stand with him. They are disappointed that Esther concealed her faith. They look at Daniel as a similar person who was back then in the Babylonian empire but he stood up for his faith. He was willing to be thrown to the lions. Remember?

His three friends were thrown into the fiery furnace for resisting and standing up for their faith. But I think a reader who reads that in the story or assumes that from the story, I don't think that that is necessarily what the Bible is pointing out. The Bible looks positively at Esther's wisdom and charm. It doesn't denounce it. Esther was in a tricky spot.

There was no resistance available to her. Perhaps yourself, you find that you are married to a husband or a wife who turns out isn't a Christian anymore. A tricky spot. Perhaps you yourself realise that you are in a job with goals very different to the ones that you have personally or the goals that you had when you started that work.

It's not so much that sin has brought you to this point but your situation is nonetheless fraught with all sorts of awkward and compromising possibilities. I'm reminded that this morning there are some that can't attend our church physically because of mental health conditions. They would love to be here but they can't. And so you can say well all of this is weakness. Perhaps all of this is tainted by sin, and yet a lot of this is almost outside of our personal control.

I think the Bible here encourages us to be good thinkers, to be wise decision makers about those unusual and sometimes unfortunate situations. It is true that we shouldn't have to hide our faith from anyone in Australia. Thank God for that. Neither would the Bible say that that is wise. But how and when you speak up about your faith with a husband or a wife who doesn't believe, that is a decision of wisdom.

Sometimes discretion will be wise but sometimes assertion will be wiser. But in all things being intentionally well considered, well planned is always good. Think and pray about those awkward situations and then have a good and a wise plan in place. So we are introduced to a young woman Esther in a tricky spot but she's starting to put together some of her charm and wisdom to make the best of her situation. And then finally and thirdly we see a deed that goes unrewarded in verses 19 to 23.

Mordecai by this stage, after Esther has been crowned as queen, is given a job in the empire as someone who guards the gate or someone who sits at the gate. This is probably someone who has some sort of mid to high level advisory role. In this role he discovers an assassination plot against the king by two eunuchs nonetheless. Now again there's a bit of context worth recognising here. Just like these women who had been forcibly included in the king's harem, so too were young boys taken and forcibly castrated as slaves. Why?

Because a eunuch poses no sexual threat to the king and his concubines or his wives or his mistresses. So why would two eunuchs want to assassinate the king? Well we're not told the reason specifically so we can only speculate. But there are throughout history recordings of letters and diary entries of eunuchs who mourned with deep grief a sense of considerable loss and the fact that their manhood had been taken away from them by force. More often than not they were men who were victims of a harsh regime.

And so in many ways they were like these poor women in the harem. No chance for a family, no chance for a life beyond the king's reach. So it's understandable perhaps that these eunuchs who would have been close to the king would hatch a plot to kill him. But there may be hundreds of other reasons for doing that as well. One way or another Mordecai hears about this, tells Esther about this, and Esther in turn we are told in the name of Mordecai tells the king about the plot.

The king in turn promptly has these two men executed. But surprisingly Mordecai never receives any recognition. Now this is particularly perplexing for commentators because the Persians, the Persian kings, were well known for rewarding this type of faithfulness. Huge ledgers entitled the king's benefactors recorded incidents when people did a good deed for the king so that the king could somehow repay them. In this instance the deed goes unrecorded, unnoticed, unremembered.

This unnoticed deed builds into the complexity of what will later happen between Mordecai and the evil man Haman. But for now we see the noble character of Mordecai coming out against the backdrop of this unsavoury king Ahasuerus. Again there might be a lesson here for us that even in the fairly cursory description of one incident in Mordecai's life the Bible hints at a concept of God's providence working through the simple obedience to God's eternal law. One man was ultimately faithful not simply to the king but to the heavenly ethic of sparing a life. This incident I think shows us that you don't triumph evil by committing more evil.

Think about Mordecai's situation. His daughter essentially was taken to be a sex slave to the king. Yes she becomes queen but how would you feel as a dad if that was your daughter? And Mordecai has the opportunity to go, the king deserves what's coming to him. I am not gonna do this crime.

I know about it. I have a chance to say something about it but I have a chance to not say something about it either. And yet the biblical ethical principle here is that with that knowledge not doing anything about it you become complicit. And so the question is how do we work for good, the good as defined by God, in a context where there can be so much bad perpetrated all around us? Is the answer of being a Christian in a largely non-Christian environment to out evil the evil doers?

Do we get more clever than they about our cheating? Do we get more clever about our lying than they? To outmanoeuvre them. But we see in the example of the New Testament, another empire, the Roman Empire, where we read about the New Testament church and we never see them being instructed to take up arms against the empire. We're never told that there should be an assassination attempt against the tyrant Nero.

The church is never encouraged to win like that. Instead we are told we win by obeying the God who rules over all things. We win by obeying and trusting in God to win for us and that is essentially what Mordecai does. Mordecai saves the king's life so that Satan's evil plan to destroy the Jewish line leading to Jesus is foiled. Mordecai saves the king's life.

The king eventually saves Mordecai and Esther's life and the whole Jewish line in the Persian empire. Here's the point. You and I have no idea what the Lord intends with a single act of unnoticed, unrewarded obedience. Your simple obedience now might be part of what God uses as a hinge upon which your whole life turns. Perhaps as in Mordecai's case the hinge on which the future of a whole nation can turn.

The reality is we don't know what God is doing at any given time but we know what we need to do in every situation. We obey God. We live in simple obedience to Him. We cultivate what Paul calls an obedience of faith. Not simply to do good in the big things but especially in the little things.

So we are good employees like Mordecai was. We are faithful in how we talk, in how we dress, in how we socialise, in how we do our business. We have no idea what God might do with a single seemingly insignificant act of simple obedience. This obedience of faith is what Paul finishes his letter to the Romans with in Romans 16. Now to Him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations according to the command of the eternal God to bring about the obedience of faith.

All of that to bring about the obedience of faith. For this reason to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ. Amen. Friends our hope is in Him who is able to strengthen us according to the gospel of the preaching of Jesus Christ. It is not our strength.

It is not Mordecai's ability. It is in the hope of the enemy slaying, sin overcoming, utterly sovereign God who saves His people through the judgment of His enemies. Our marching orders are simple: the obedience of faith. Out of that simple trust in Christ comes an obedient trust. So we don't strive to take up arms to overthrow but we strive to simply love God, love our neighbour and even to love our enemy.

Let's pray. Lord what a marvellous insight into Your sovereign grace that weaves its way through the complexity and the intricacies and the messiness of life here and now. Lord blend it in with all the consequences of our curse ravaged world of people seeking to overcome people of men and women being at enmity against each other of power being abused of charm and natural ability as gifts from You being used wisely. Lord in the complexity of our lives we need You. We need You to speak a clear word.

We need to regularly go to that word. We need to allow ourselves to be transformed by it to not simply know it but to adopt it. We ask God that You will give us such a great assurance that You have things in control that You are the one who conquers sin and Satan not us. Our God grant us the serenity the peace to let You finish the job. Help us in turn to be such good witnesses of Your kingdom values such good witnesses to Your goodness that even the perception of us doing evil regardless of whether it was true or not that we live such good lives that the inherent common grace allowing others to understand what goodness is will allow them to consider what we do as good and cause them to be silenced in their accusations of us.

Help us therefore Lord to honour everyone to love the brotherhood to fear the knowledge and the wisdom of our God and to even honour the emperor. We cast ourselves upon Your mercy. We cry out for Your help for we are weak but You are very strong. In Christ's strength we pray. Amen.