Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: Welcome to the weekly Deep Dive podcast on the Add On Education Network. The podcast where we take a look at the weekly come follow me discussion and try to add a little insight and unique perspective on. I am your host, Jason Lloyd, here in the studio with none other than Nate the Great Piper.
[00:00:31] Speaker A: Oh, what's up, buddy?
[00:00:33] Speaker B: Hey, Nate.
Running a little tired?
[00:00:36] Speaker A: Yeah, Had a long weekend. My grandma died this weekend. We went to the funeral yesterday and it was a good chance to be reminded of the amazing people that have come before us and give us a good chance to reevaluate our own lives a little bit and try to, you know, use.
Use the, the greatest of examples to hopefully, you know, carry on a name and a legacy.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: That's awesome.
Glad you were able to.
To be there.
[00:01:05] Speaker A: A lot of traveling though, and a lot of, a lot of emotions and a lot of not sleeping super well for a week. But we are, we're doing it well.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: I'm super grateful to have you back here with me, Nate, in the studio recording this episode.
[00:01:18] Speaker A: You bet. I'm just gonna eat some Swedish fish, just get a little bit of like a. At least a sugar buzz going. While that's a good snack, keep my energy up before I just crash when I get home. What are we talking about today?
[00:01:28] Speaker B: This week is Esther. And this is such a great story. It has a feel of the Jews in Babylonian exile. In fact, I hope when I was giving you timeline last week, I didn't mention her as before they were returning back because this is not Babylonian exile.
She belongs to a group of the Jews that perhaps stayed back in Babylon. Not everybody came back when the coming back was good and she was part of the Persian empire. And so she's subservient to the Persian king. To give you a little context, the king here that is talked about, most scholars agree, is Xerxes I. So this is going to date us to about 483 BC.
And the Jews were carried away captive in Babylon around 600 BC. So we're talking about 150 years. I mean, it's been a while since. Since they were taken away. It's even been a while since the Jews went back and kind of got restored and she's. She's living there. It's interesting because they make it very clear that Esther does not have parents and she doesn't have a people. Mordecai adopts her. He's kind of next of kin and he's taking care of her, but he's not her. Her parent.
And I think there's something significant about this. The same as what you see with kind of Moses, this guy that even though we know that he had a mother and a father, he's this child that's raised up out of the water not having parents and this type and this image of somebody that doesn't have parents, kind of like Christ being born to a virgin mother, saying that he's at least a demigod, and the idea that half his parentage is divine or unknown. Esther kind of takes that role on in not having parents and who she is, kind of this little allure or this mystery.
Something that is super interesting about the story of Esther and Mordecai are their names.
Esther is not what you would call a good Hebrew name, and neither is Mordecai.
[00:03:43] Speaker A: Really.
[00:03:44] Speaker B: Yeah, Mordecai. I know, right? You think Mordecai has got to be a good Jewish name because since him. Because he was such a legend, a lot of Jews have named their kids Mordecai in honor of him. And it's become a good Jewish name. But the name itself, Morduk is actually coming from Marduk. Oh, what? Yeah, your Marmaduke.
[00:04:08] Speaker A: Marduk.
[00:04:09] Speaker B: I knew it was coming.
[00:04:10] Speaker A: You did know it was coming, baby.
[00:04:11] Speaker B: And then the Kai, the chai is life. Right. You've probably heard that before in the. Huh. For life.
So Morduk Kai. Marduk Kai is Marduk lives.
And I wonder, you know, you look at this, you look at Babylonian, because these guys, these are Babylonian names, by the way, not Hebrew. And they're choosing to stay in Babylon when a lot of the Jews have come back and they're adopting these Babylonian names.
And I wonder if you're not seeing.
They're going into this culture, almost kind of a missionary work type thing that's happening here, where they believe in a Marduk that lived a long time ago and this God had a place in history.
Mordecai is saying he's not just this dead God that you worship, this idol, this statue, this whatever, Marduk lives. Let me tell you about who Marduk is. And maybe, maybe it would be. It would benefit our listeners if we gave them some context to who Marduk is and why that would be relevant for a Jew to go by Marduk lives.
[00:05:22] Speaker A: Yeah, let's do. I mean, we've. I know we've talked about this before, but it's been long enough ago that we probably should hit it again real quick. Yeah.
[00:05:29] Speaker B: And I think we talked a little bit about BAAL right. And Yom and Mote when we were talking about the Canaanites and that whole story. Yes, Marduk is Babylonian. And so in the beginning of the creation, you had this father God and all of sorts of these children God. And Marduk is like this next generation, one of these children gods.
And you also had Apsu and Tiamat. And Apsu and Tiamat were this primordial chaos and monster, and they were upset with the gods and they wanted to kind of destroy all of their creation, kind of roll everything back into chaos.
And Tiamat's raising this army to go to war with the gods. And the gods are saying, who are we going to send?
And Marduk says, here am I. Send me. Right? So this should maybe resonate with some of us a little bit, as Marduk says, I will go and I will fight for the gods and I will save us.
And they praise Marduk and they make him king of the gods.
And so he goes.
And when he squares off with Tiamat, what he does is he takes the four winds and he shoves them down her throat, and the winds destroy her, and he takes the remnants of her body and creates the Earth, and he creates mankind. And so Marduk becomes the creator and the father of mankind. This is kind of his backstory.
Now think about this with Marduk, and now think about the creation story. The creation account we get in Genesis when it says in the beginning, darkness was upon the face of the deep.
In the beginning, there was no order, it was chaos.
And God is going to be dividing, separating light from darkness, water from land.
And by dividing and separating, he is destroying chaos and imposing order. And it says, and the spirit or another, the ruach here is wind or spirit. So the wind of God moved upon the face of the waters. So the creation power by which Jehovah creates in the Old Testament is this wind that destroys chaos moving upon the waters and blows the waters back, separates it from the waters above, from the waters below, creates the air, and then separates it from the dry land to the seas. And so he's driving back the waters, which symbolized Tiamat. In fact, in the Hebrew, when it says the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, it says the waters there in Hebrew is Tachom, which is the same Hebrew word derived from the Babylonian Tiamat.
It's the same name.
So in Mordecai's example, he's saying here, this God that created the Earth, that has power over the waters, go back to the Red Sea. How he divides the Red Sea and how he parts the rivers. You're going to see Christ coming and calming the Sea of Galilee. The guy that has power over the waters, that creates, that can save lives. And let me tell you about him.
So it's kind of interesting that they have that name. I almost look at it when you read the Book of Mormon and you see Ammon doing his missionary work and they're talking about the Great Spirit. And he's not going to say you're wrong for believing in the Great Spirit. No. He says, let me tell you about this Great Spirit and who he is and adapt it to something that they believe and building on common ground rather than building up a wall and, and blocking things out and creating enemies out of the people around you. So I think he's.
I think there's some reason behind these names that are not strong Hebrew names. For what it's worth, let's get to the name of Esther, shall we? We shall.
Esther might not sound familiar, but it should. And the reason why it should, if you've heard of Ishtar or when we talked about the Baalim and the Ashtaroth and Ashtaroth being Jehovah's consort, Jehovah's wife, or often being worshiped as this heavenly mother type character in the Bible where you have God being Jehovah and his wife, Ashtaroth, Ashtar, Ishtar, Esther. Esther, it's all the same name depending on what region you are in this area. This goddess, actually, when you go into Roman mythology, she's Venus, that morning star.
In Greek mythology, it's Aphrodite.
So Esther is not taking a great Hebrew name. It's this Babylonian again, talking about a goddess.
And so how is it that these, these Hebrew characters are embodying Babylonian gods and saving the Jews in a Persian empire? It's just fascinating.
And she's married to a king. So having her role as Ishtar, Ashtaroth being married to the king, this pagan king, and what she does, I don't know. It's kind of interesting. We get to it full circle perhaps at the end of the story when it says, and many people were converted to, to the. Joined the Jews from, from that day. And, and I think that's where we see this message.
And Ishtar Esther, where she has no parents, again, I think she's kind of playing that role and maybe even acting as a type of Christ, bringing in these people and saving her own people and, and how she embodies that. We've talked about types of Christ with Moses, we've talked about types of Christ with some of These other prophets.
But Esther is a strong female character who very much typifies what Christ is going to do and stands as a savior for her people. So let's get into what happened with Mordecai and Esther.
Mordecai sits at the gates and he kind of interacts with some of the people there at the gate.
Esther, I guess she's kind of a maiden, a virgin, not really coupled to anything right now doing her own thing. At the story begins, we've got the king. He's holding a large feast. He invites, according to what we understand in that part of the world, Persia, they would have gatherings, sometimes up to 15,000 people.
Yeah. Massive feasts. And at this feast, he's celebrating.
It's kind of interesting when we're talking about names here. The king that we're talking about in Persia, it says, this might get a little bit weird as we're talking about names.
And really in the Hebrew, which is actually from the Persian, the name Ach ash Vairosh.
And it means I will be silent and poor, which is.
[00:12:32] Speaker A: It's a weird name for a king.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: It's a very weird name for a king.
I will be silent and poor. And it does not. It does not at all match what we see with the king here throughout these stories.
And it's a title more than a name.
And the name. Most agree. This is Xerxes that we're talking about. And you might.
[00:12:50] Speaker A: From 300.
Is it the same Xerxes?
[00:12:53] Speaker B: No, it might be.
[00:12:55] Speaker A: I mean, was he battling. Was he battling the.
[00:12:58] Speaker B: He was battling the Greeks.
[00:12:59] Speaker A: The Greeks.
[00:13:00] Speaker B: He was battling the Greeks and he was not necessarily conquering the Greeks.
[00:13:04] Speaker A: Okay. All right.
[00:13:06] Speaker B: Is it the same Xerxes? This is 483. So what year was the 300?
[00:13:10] Speaker A: I'm going to look it up right now.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: Look it up.
Because he was definitely fighting the Greeks. In fact, maybe this is good to mention right here.
You know how the part in the story when Esther says she's a little bit nervous about going into the presence of the king, because you don't go if you're not summoned. Right.
And so she asks for all of the Jews to pray and fast for her for three days so that she will go in, and if she goes in and the king's happy, he'll thumbs up, and if he's unhappy, he will thumbs down and it could be the death of her. Right?
Yeah. Did you Find the date?
[00:13:47] Speaker A: 480 BC it's the same Xerxes.
[00:13:50] Speaker B: Yeah, baby.
[00:13:52] Speaker A: See, now I have just this weird Mental image of what this dude looks like. And he's terrifying.
Okay, let's keep going. So now I know why she's nervous.
[00:14:00] Speaker B: Oh. Oh, absolutely. This guy. This guy is very emotionally driven.
So when she's terrified to go in and whether or not he gives the thumbs up, thumbs down, Just so you have some context, when Xerxes is out fighting the Greeks and the whole 300 is taking place.
[00:14:18] Speaker A: Spartans. Yeah.
[00:14:20] Speaker B: And. And you've got Philip and Macedonia, and you've got all of these things that are happening in that part of the world that you have a king. I believe it's Pontus from Lydia, the kingdom of Elyea, which has been conquered by Persia. So he's a satrap. He's part of that kingdom. He is financially supporting Xerxes at a large amount because his army, if you look at the map, Persia is modern Iran.
[00:14:44] Speaker A: Right?
[00:14:45] Speaker B: Right. So Iran has conquered Iraq, if you will. Babylon is modern Iraq. Iran has run over Iraq. It come all the way over to Israel and Egypt. And now they're going all the way up into Turkey, which is where Lydia is, and they're fighting the Greeks. Now, if you think you're looking at the map, how far away Greece is from Iran, it is hard for them to financially support a war that far away from the heart of the kingdom. So this Pontus, this king over there, financially is supporting Persia at a heavy toll. He's paying this cost. Not only is he financially supporting them, he has five sons personally that are serving in Xerxes army.
So the king goes to Xerxes and he says, look, I'm supporting this effort. I'm hoping that you'll give me a little bit of a break here. I'm getting old. I've got five sons that are serving in your army.
Would you be okay if my eldest son was to take leave from the army and comfort me in my old age? And I will let my other four sons continue to serve you as you fight with the Greeks and I continue to financially support you. It seems like a fair request. Yeah.
Xerxes is so upset, he takes the oldest son, murders him, cuts him in half, and has his army march between the two pieces of his son.
[00:16:03] Speaker A: Whoa.
Okay. That escalated quickly.
[00:16:08] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's the same covenant image that you see from the Near East. You know how you take those animals and you divide them up and the whole idea is he's making his army go through the pieces of the sun. Like, if you're not entirely committed to me and torn between your father and me, Then you're going to be destroyed, just as this young man was destroyed. If you can't commit to who I am and what my needs are, and you're going to be thinking about this, but it's a cruel thing to do.
So when we talk about Xerxes and his position here, and so you might ask, why does his name not say Xerxes here? Well, we're talking about a Persian name versus a Greek name, and we know him better by a Greek name. And we're also talking about the difference of titles versus personal names. So it gets a little bit interesting as we're talking about this. But that should provide you a little bit of context with why Esther was so hesitant to impose any kind of request on the king. When you look at what happened in other parts of the kingdom with kings that were financially giving a lot to him, that had every right to ask something, still things were on a whim with him. It was how he felt that day and what he wanted to do.
So excuse me.
He's got this feast going back to here, maybe about 15,000 people. We've got record of feasts, these large feasts that they would do. I can't even imagine preparing a meal for 15,000 people.
But at this feast, he's so impressed with how gorgeous his wife is that he asks her to come and show herself to all these people so that they can be like, yeah, our king's got a pretty hot wife.
Good on him.
But she's a little reluctant to do so.
And she decides to stay home and not come out.
And the king's upset. And what I find absolutely hilarious in the whole deal is all the wise men. And when we're talking about wise men in the Persian Empire, these guys aren't the magi, the stargazers, the ones that are looking at the astronomies. But these are just wise counselors. They're looking at this and saying, this is bad because she's setting a precedent for the entire empire.
If the king's wife doesn't have to obey the king, then what hope do all of us regular guys have of our wives obeying us? We have to make an example out of her, or else there's going to be guys that can't control their wives all over the place. We can't let this cat out of the bag.
But they obviously don't want to say, let's kill the king's wife. If the king loves his wife and she's super gorgeous.
So they say, look, let's hold her Accountable to some degree, just so that nobody else has wives in open rebell and let's have her not be the king's wife anymore, take away her queenship and kind of set her off to the side. So the king agrees and sets her aside. But now he's like regretting his decision. He realizes that setting her aside hurts him more than her. In fact, she was probably happy in the deal, let's be honest.
And so the counselors, trying to find a way to comfort the king, says, let's gather all the maidens that we can and give him his choice to try to replace his queen. Enter Esther into the story.
So they gather all of these maidens. And it's important in the story, they note here that they do not know that she is Jewish. They don't know what her background is. They don't know who her parents are. So nobody knows that she is Jewish. That's important.
And he's going to have. He's got a whole ritual with this on what night he's going to bring a concubine in with him and spend the night with him. And in this you see a little bit of the character of Esther, because on the night that she gets chosen, they have their option to take anything they want with them to go see the king and kind of like their reward, their pay or whatever. And she doesn't take anything with her.
She's not in it to try to make herself happy or make herself rich. And she's kind of a humble person in that respect. And I think the king looks at that and admires that.
And he really likes her. So he chooses her to be his wife in the history that the original wife actually full circle, comes back and he takes her back. And Esther is actually really small footnote in the deal.
I don't know if she was ever much more than a concubine in the historical records of things, but she does play a very important role at this part of time, in this history. And I love the way that Marduk puts. Marduk Mordecai puts this when he says, perhaps for this reason you were put in this position is to save our people.
So how does this save the people? How does this go? Hopefully you guys have read the story. Esther is a very fun read. I know it's sometimes we complain about doing 10 whole chapters in a week, but these chapters are very easy to read. It's not like you're getting through a whole lot of begats or different types of sacrifices or. Or any other temples and widths. And breadths and cubits and. No, I mean, it's just a kind of fun story to read through. Anyhow, there is a plot against the king's life.
Mordecai overhears it because he's always hanging out in the gates with the people.
And he brings this up to the attention of the king's servants, who bring it to the king.
And the king investigates, finds out that it was true, and so they have the guy executed.
And now there becomes an opening in his staff for a higher position.
And he offers that to Haman. And Haman gets a raise and becomes the head vizier over all of the king's staff. And this position, similar to, like Joseph back with Pharaoh, right the next that's over everything.
Haman, because he's been raised up, expects everybody to worship the ground he walks on and to pay obeisance to him. And as he's walking by commanding everybody to worship him, Mordecai refuses to bow to him because he's Jew. He's Jewish, and he doesn't believe that he should be bowing to anyone but God, that no person is holy or divine, that God is the only one that is holy.
And because he's doing that, Haman feels that personal insult and says, I hate Mordecai. I want to kill Mordecai. In fact, how do I get rid of him?
And he goes to not just try to exterminate Mordecai, but because he sees this attitude throughout this entire religion, he uses this as kind of an excuse to exterminate all of the Jews. And so he goes to the king and says, look, this guy's not going to be respecting me. He's not going to respect you. And it's all of this people, and it's their custom and their tradition, and we can't have this kind of rebellious people in the kingdom.
And the king says, what do you want me to do? And he says, let me, you know, let me take care of this. Let me have an edict. And he cast a lot and chooses a day where they. That all the enemies of the Jews can go out and just exterminate them and wipe them out so that they're not a people anymore.
That's the predicament, right?
So now a day is chosen to kill the Jews.
And it's a bad situation. I mean, I don't need to explain why. We already know why it's a bad situation.
Moving forward to the story, Mordecai is absolutely distraught about this, with good reason. And he knows he's got Esther, who's now the wife to the king, and he's got some leverage there. And so he asks Esther to try to save the people. Esther is a little reluctant, with good reason, as you understand now who we're talking about, Xerxes, and the difficult situation it would be to try to approach him and ask him for any kind of favor.
And he tells her, look, it's not just us that's going to get exterminated. You're also Jewish. You will also be exterminated. So whether the king kills you now or whether you get killed later for being a Jew because you didn't do anything, something needs to be done. In which case she asks for the people to fast, and she decides to go in and approach the king and ask his favor to try to save their people.
Now, when she goes and asks for the king permission, and the king asks, what is it you desire? And she says, I would like to have a dinner. And the dinner, I would like to have you there.
I'm going to be there. And I would like to have Haman there.
And the king says, okay, I'll grant that. Let's do this.
And so he tells Haman that he's invited to the special dinner. Now, what do you think? If you're recently promoted to the head of everything that the king has, and now the king's wife wants to meet you and have you over for dinner, it's a good thing, right? It's got to be a good thing.
[00:25:23] Speaker A: I don't know, man. I've seen too many movies, dude. That seems suspicious to me.
I'd be suspicious. That's only because I've seen too many movies.
[00:25:31] Speaker B: Okay? So if you're living in Persia and there is no big screen and you
[00:25:36] Speaker A: haven't seen all the movies, and you haven't seen all the movies because, man, I know, dude. All the movies. It's always about how can we trick somebody into thinking that they're safe and then we.
We off them. That's all the movies. So if I was Haman, I'd be like, this seems too good to be true. Okay, keep going.
[00:25:51] Speaker B: Well, he's like, my luck's changed here. Now I've been exalted to the head of everything, and now the queen wants to meet me, and the king's happy with me.
Like, this is great.
And not only that, and this is where the king all of a sudden realizes.
He's like, wait a second, there was a plot on my life, right? Who was the one that noticed that? And Saved me. And they're like, well, that was Mordecai. And he says, was anything done for Mordecai?
And they're like, no, we haven't done anything for Mordecai. He's like, really?
That seems like a bad deal. Like, we need to somehow thank him. So he calls Haman in. Now, Haman's been invited to attend this dinner with the queen and with the king. He's been exalted to the top of everything. He's filling top of his class, man. He's walking on Cloud nine. And he comes into the king, and what do you think? Walking on cloud nine, when the king leads the conversation with, hey, if I want to honor somebody who I think's doing a really good job, what do you think I should do? Like, what would be a really good honor for that person?
[00:26:54] Speaker A: I think it's about you.
[00:26:56] Speaker B: Absolutely. Heyman's like, this is even better. Cloud9 can't get any better. It just did.
Well, I think you should dress him up as the king.
And when you talk about purple, by the way, in clothing, purple was a garment that was made out of a material that was fairly scarce, and so trading for the dyes to make it usually was associated only with royalty because of the rare nature of it and how expensive it would be. But he's talking about dressing him up as the king and paying all of these high honors.
And then the king says, fantastic, go do that to Mordecai.
And all of a sudden, he realizes it wasn't about him.
And not only is it about the guy that he hates, because the guy won't worship him, but Mordecai was building a gallows 50 cubits high to hang Mordecai from, because he hated him that bad. Now, 50 cubits high, why would you build?
Oh, it's all for show at that point. Yeah, you don't want just your neighbors to see it.
You want everybody to see Mordecai hang, because he wouldn't give you the time of day to bow down and worship your greatness. Right? So now all of a sudden, the king is talking about exalting the man that you hate most in life.
His luck has just changed. And now this guy is getting a little bit nervous about the direction that things are headed for him.
So he comes back and he talks about this with his family, and they're seeing the letters on the wall, like, dude, this is the king's guy that he loved and that helped the king, and you're seeking to kill him. And he's like, well, okay, I can honor him and whatnot. And it's going to suck having to do this to the guy I hate most in the world.
But at least when the day comes that he had the lot scattered like it's already in sync. I already have the king's seal on this. He's going to die in the end. I'm going to win.
But he shows up to this dinner now with the queen and the king.
And the king says, okay, Esther, what is it that you wanted to ask me? Here we are. What can I grant you? And the queen says, save my life.
Like, what are you talking about? Well, Haman here, this wicked man is trying to kill me and all of my people, and the king's the king.
How do you be that disconnected? But again, remember, it was very important.
Nobody knew the parents of Esther. Nobody knew that she was a Jew. Haman didn't know that she was a Jew. He had no idea that what he had asked was to kill the king's wife. So when all of a sudden it is revealed that she is a Jew, Bad day for Haman.
The king is super distressed, goes out into the garden, like, what do I do?
And Haman is going and throwing himself on the queen to try to get her to turn around.
And when it says the king comes back and he sees Haman at the queen's couch, and he says, oh, you're trying to force yourself onto my wife.
It's.
It's not force himself as much as do violence. Like, maybe he was grabbing her and like, please forgive me. Pretty desperate in the situation that he's in. And the king's like, I'm not going to have this.
And. And has a bag put over the guy's head immediately.
And. And a bag put over the head is the first thing you do in an execution. So his. His fate is sealed. From the moment a bag gets put over his head, he's done. Haman is no more.
And then they end up taking Haman and hanging him on the gallows. That was going to be for Mordecai. And then they gives all of Haman's house and goods and everything he has to Mordecai and raises Mordecai to the position of Haman.
[00:30:48] Speaker A: That's a great story.
[00:30:50] Speaker B: I mean, you don't always see someone digging a pit and then falling into the pit, quite literally, that they dug for someone else.
[00:30:59] Speaker A: I don't know. I do because I watch the movies.
[00:31:04] Speaker B: It was a happy day for Mordecai, all Right.
[00:31:08] Speaker A: Congrats, Mordecai. All right, let's keep going.
[00:31:10] Speaker B: Let's keep going.
Now, why did the king leave to the garden so distressed?
[00:31:18] Speaker A: I mean, does it have to do with the fact that he had just literally exalted this knucklehead to basically be in charge of everything? I mean, was he going like, hey, where is my loyalty going to lie here?
[00:31:29] Speaker B: That could have something to do with it. But here's also another deal. Remember last week with Ezra and Nehemiah, when the Israelites up in the north are writing letters, the Samaritans, I should say, writing letters back to the king and saying, these are rebellious people. They can't be doing this. We need to stop this.
They're trying to do something that's going to displease you. And then when the king comes back and says, okay, well, if you don't like it, you stop it. When they go to stop it, the Jews write the letter to the king of Persia and say, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Cyrus asked us to do this. Go search the records and you'll see. And when they find the record that says, cyrus commanded that this happen, you see that 180 reversed. Like it is written. It has to be done.
What distresses the king so much is because it has the king's seal on it, the order to exterminate the Jews. He can't undo it.
Even the king can't undo his own decree. Like, if it's written and it's put out there, it's a done deal.
That's why they respected Cyrus command and did everything they could to build that temple, Right? Because it was a written deal. So here he's out in the garden, distressed because he has commanded the death of the Jews and the death of his own bride. He can't reverse that. He can't say, just kidding, I was wrong. I mean, what was it going to look like if a king, if you all of a sudden say, oh, yeah, I was wrong, I'm going to change my mind on that.
[00:32:57] Speaker A: Right?
[00:32:57] Speaker B: You lose a lot of faith in a lot of people. Here you are running your campaign, as you know, up in Greece, trying to get support and whatnot.
Can't be done.
So instead, the king pulls in Mordecai and says, here's what we're going to do.
I'm going to issue a decree that all the Jews are allowed to kill anyone that fights them on this day.
So the Jews can bind together and they can slay all of their enemies. And not only can they slay all of their enemies, but they can have all of their enemies possessions as a booty for killing them.
And so you can bind together, save your people. And by the way, anyone that you kill, you get to have their house, their gold, their whatever else as compensation for them even attacking you. That's the best he could do to try to level this out.
And so he dresses Mordecai up like the king. He's out there charging on his horse and he's letting all of the Jews and all the kingdom know on this day people are going to be attacking you. Because this was the rule that the king had written. But the king has now allowed for you guys to defend yourselves, be prepared on that day. And you think, even if the king is saying, I'm giving the Jews permission to defend themselves and I want the Jews to survive, doesn't mean that people are all of a sudden going to stop not wanting to exterminate. The Jews think particularly in Israel, in Jerusalem, where they are trying to build that city wall and everything that they were going through and how much their neighbors hated them. This was the day their neighbors were waiting for.
And you can see it in the number of people that died. It said something like 75,000 people the Jews slew from their enemies on the day that their enemies came up to defeat them.
But then the Jews also reject spoiling them and taking their goods. So you kind of see the Jews and you see a little bit of that. I think even in the modern history of Israel, when you try to look at the boundaries with the Gaza Strip and where they're going to go with the warfare, and the Jews accept a smaller piece of land and even their neighbors are like, no, the Palestinians, we don't want you to have any land. And so they go to war and the Jews actually end up wiping them out and extending the borders even further.
Some of the fair play of them willing to take a smaller amount. And when the enemy still doesn't settle, the Lord providing for them. I don't know, it's kind of interesting to see that over and over again throughout history.
So the Jews stand up for themselves and the Lord delivers them. And they slay 75,000 people. And it says not only are they slaying their enemies, but because of what happened, a lot of people joined the Jews from that day forward. And so you have again this, this bringing in people that were converted to, to Israel. And they celebrate this day and they call it the Feast of Lots because Haman cast lots to decide what the day was that they were going to be killed. And it was lots that decided this day that they were going to actually be saved. And their death turned into salvation.
[00:35:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:59] Speaker B: And that's.
That's awesome, Esther.
[00:36:04] Speaker A: I love it.
[00:36:06] Speaker B: So what can we learn from Esther? What's your name?
[00:36:08] Speaker A: From Esther.
[00:36:09] Speaker B: What do we learn from this whole story of Mordecai and Esther and whatnot?
[00:36:15] Speaker A: Can't wait to hear.
[00:36:20] Speaker B: You know, it takes a lot of courage sometimes to stand up for what you believe.
[00:36:24] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:36:26] Speaker B: And sometimes standing up for what you believe as impossible and as hard as it sounds is a lot easier than had you not later on.
If I can maybe if I were to connect this with something. I saw this last weekend camping with my boys.
[00:36:43] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:36:45] Speaker B: As we were driving up in the uintas, we noticed workers out there with chainsaws and just chopping down every. I don't know, every fifth tree or so, kind of thinning the forest.
And then they're chopping the trees down and they're stacking them into burn piles, these nice little stacks that they're gonna come back later and just kind of burn out.
And you think all of these stacks of wood, it's not an easy process. As we started talking to the boys about this, we asked them, you know, like, why would they do that? Why. Why would you have all of these workers think of how much cost is going into paying their salary to cut these trees down, to pay the cost of gas, to get out there, to pay everything it is to try to groom this.
Why is it worth that cost to groom that forest? It can't be easy. Going out there with your helmet and your ropes and chopping trees down and stacking it up is not easy work. It's not cheap to have the Forest Service do that. Why?
But then you look at the cost of.
If the forest isn't well groomed and you don't take care of it and you don't maintain it, eventually, what happens when you have a fire that comes through and nature takes care of the problem?
When nature takes care of it, it's going to be recycling the forest and resetting it and fertilizing the land and making room for new growth? And yes, you're going to see it, but it's going to take a lot longer for that rebuild to happen. And a lot of innocent trees are going to burn down with a lot of the dead trees that need to get burned.
And the cost of fighting that fire and the loss that you have is substantially higher than the cost of grooming that forest up front.
And as we were talking to the boys about that, I asked them about their life. Like, what things are difficult for us to face right now that takes some effort for us to address.
Like Esther going to a king that was so fickle he had no problem murdering the eldest son of one of his greatest supporters because he wasn't happy with his response. Right. She was putting her life on the line. This was something that was not easy for her to do, but she did it to save the lives of so many of these innocent trees, if you will, that would have been burned had she not taken care of it.
In our life, what are things that for us might seem difficult or are not easy to do or maybe it's inconvenient for us to find some time to make it to the temple, or maybe it's inconvenient for us to pull away from our busy schedules to spend some time studying the scriptures and trying to understand what they mean or really connect with God in prayer. These things that we do in our life that are maintenance like items or having difficult conversations with people and trying to avoid that conversation because it's scary. Well, if we don't take care of it, it will eventually take care of itself, but when it does, it's going to be a lot harder and a lot more costly for us than had we addressed it the right way the first time.
And I think that's one of the great lessons I learned when I look at Esther is what can we do that's difficult right now? That's looking at our eye. But if we address this the right way now is going to save us a lot more pain, a lot more pressure, a lot more stress later on in life.
[00:39:59] Speaker A: Well said.
I like it.
[00:40:02] Speaker B: All right.
[00:40:03] Speaker A: Totally agree.
[00:40:04] Speaker B: Any. Any bows you want to put on this or anything you want to add
[00:40:09] Speaker A: maybe just to kind of highlight something you said that we.
You don't get a lot of social pats on the back for being a, I don't know, devout Christian. Right?
You don't.
It's a social cause that usually is ridiculed more than high fived.
And it's definitely not seen in a lot of circles as cool as, you know, whatever, whatever other kind of trendy social cause, good or bad. You know what I mean? Like, not. Not saying that a lot of the, A lot of the things that people, you know, want to support aren't very much worthy of support. But one of the things that doesn't necessarily usually get a lot of, like, social accolades Is, yeah, you know, I'm kind of just a boring Christian who, you know, tries to spend time with my family and tries to lead a good life and to serve and, and do this because, you know, it doesn't come with, you know, a picture for your Instagram, you know, account.
It doesn't come with a. It doesn't come with a flag or a saying next to your Twitter.
Twitter handle. You know, whatever the various causes are, you know, it's like, it's. It's kind of the boring one. Right.
But I would just like to throw out there that maybe, if not maybe, it's probably the most important cause that we can be, you know, going for as a, as a follower of Christ and as a good neighbor and as a good member of your neighborhood and community and trying to follow Christ probably sums up a lot of those other causes that are also worthy and that we should be engaged in, but hopefully being not being afraid to stand up for what we do believe in and unapologetically stand up for the things that we represent.
Kind of like Esther, I can only imagine how awkward that was too, by the way, when she has the person that is set out to try to kill her people in a dinner. I'm sure that that was probably not the funnest of occasions for her to speak up and stand for who she was and for her God and for her people, but she showed the courage in that and obviously it paid off.
[00:42:45] Speaker B: Well, we've seen of times in history where it didn't go so well. I mean, you look at Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin and the extermination the people of Jews. I don't think Esther standing up to Hitler would have made much of a difference. I mean, you've seen times where things like this didn't go super well.
Mithridates King, he was the king of Pontus when he was at Rome, issued an edict to kill all Romans in the empire, regardless of age or sex. And they killed 80,000 people in one day just to exterminate all the Romans when they were going to war with Rome.
Ferdinand The Catholic chased 300,000 Jews from Spain, and Louis XIV put several thousand Protestants to death and banished hundreds of thousands from France. I mean, we've seen so many times where it didn't go well.
It doesn't always.
It doesn't always turn the way you did. So I mean, when you're talking about how, how scary it would have been for her to face her enemy in the room with the king and, and the king, I mean, he's already got a degree. He's already somewhat on Haman's side, whether he wants to or not. He's already issued a degree that can't be changed.
If he's picking sides, what's to say he doesn't pick Haman's side and now he just loses a wife? This front of the story, the whole preface is, he gave up a wife to save face for the people. Why wouldn't he just give up Esther now to save face for him?
I mean, things were pretty impossible. But I love what you said, Nate. With these causes, I think there are a lot of worthy and good causes for us to get behind.
But so many times if we focus on those so much that we lose focus on the one cause, or maybe the most important cause, it doesn't matter.
Like the queen.
Maybe she enjoyed being queen, and maybe she focuses on her position with him and doesn't care most about that. She loses everything.
[00:44:51] Speaker A: Well, and that was an easy out for her too, right? She didn't have parents.
She didn't have to even be connected. And she was a queen. Like, in theory, she can live out the rest of her life in theory, in luxury, no problem.
And it's funny because when we have talked through this story, part of me even wonders what was it that she felt so connected to with her people when it really wasn't like a.
Yeah, my parents taught me this. And so it's a tradition from my family. And, you know, I mean, like, a lot of those things that I feel like would drive us.
So it's even more impressive to her credit that she's.
That the cause that she's picking up is specifically that of the God that she believes in.
And the people. The people that believe in that same God as her.
That, that, yes. Are her people. Even if.
Even if. Even if she doesn't have that same connection to them through family and, and even like, you know, association and culture and things like that, that they are her people and that she. She identifies with that. And to your point, like the most important cause, Right, like their God, their religion. Right.
[00:46:12] Speaker B: Yeah. They make a big point of saying she didn't have father, mother, she didn't have a people. She. She could have easily.
If they didn't know she was a Jew, she could have just lived an
[00:46:22] Speaker A: awesome life as a queen.
[00:46:25] Speaker B: I'm not gonna rock that boat.
[00:46:26] Speaker A: That's what I mean. Like, it's impressive.
[00:46:29] Speaker B: And, you know, I learned something from Haman too. Interesting enough.
If. What. What would have Haman's life Been like if when Mordecai refuses to worship him, the guy had enough humility to ask Mordecai why? Sure, like, let me understand you. Obviously we have some differences here, and I don't act this way. But what makes it so that you don't act this way instead of rushing to judgment and being so, so offended that he wants to kill not just Mordecai, but all of Mordecai's people over a personal slight, which, by the way,
[00:47:07] Speaker A: was driven by pride in the first place.
[00:47:10] Speaker B: And do we ever write off an entire people just because the actions of one person don't sit well with us?
[00:47:18] Speaker A: If we do, we need to repent of that, because that is, that is definitely a lesson that we can learn from.
[00:47:24] Speaker B: And I think sometimes we look at somebody, an entire culture or entire people or entire lifestyle, and because one interaction that we had, we're willing to write that entire, instead of try to understand why they behave the way they do, and maybe not even group all of them together in one large group and say, okay, tell me about your decision, because obviously not every Jew is willing to risk his life by not worshiping, but tell me about your decision, your convictions, and help me understand you a little bit better. How would have Haman's life finished out? And maybe that guy could have been the wisest ruler underneath the king, had he the sense to care about others, to be humble, and to listen to other perspectives than his own.
[00:48:12] Speaker A: Awesome. Anything else?
[00:48:13] Speaker B: I'd say one last thing is the power of fast and prayer. I mean, I know it seems like a very easy answer and something that just kind of gets thrown out there.
[00:48:22] Speaker A: No, I believe in that too.
[00:48:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't.
I don't know if we give it enough.
I don't think we can give it enough value. You look at the New Testament, when Christ is talking to his disciples who couldn't cast out the demon, they say, why couldn't we do it? And he says, this kind come out only by fasting and prayer. In a situation this grave and this serious, to take time, to not rush into a decision and try to do it right now. I mean, you think about the Queen and the pressure that Mordecai is putting on her and saying, we need you to save our people now. Lives are on the line and we have a deadline coming up. And for her to be calm enough to say, I'll do it, but give me three days of fasting and prayer before I do.
Maybe some things that we need right now, maybe we should be willing to set apart some time to prepare for that or really do it the right way rather than do it the quick way.
[00:49:17] Speaker A: Love it. What are we talking about next week?
[00:49:19] Speaker B: You're gonna love it, Nate. Next week. Job.
[00:49:21] Speaker A: Sweet job.
[00:49:23] Speaker B: And then we get into poetry. Guys, I cannot wait to talk to you about Hebrew poetry. As we're getting into psalms and Isaiah. I mean, we're getting into a really fun section of the Old Testament.
[00:49:32] Speaker A: Them. Can't wait. All right. Until next week.
[00:49:35] Speaker B: See ya.
