The Living Bible (158 page)

Esther
3

Soon afterwards King Ahasuerus appointed Haman (son of Hammedatha the Agagite) as prime minister. He was the most powerful official in the empire next to the king himself.
²
 Now all the king’s officials bowed before him in deep reverence whenever he passed by, for so the king had commanded. But Mordecai refused to bow.

    
^3-4
 “Why are you disobeying the king’s commandment?” the others demanded day after day, but he still refused. Finally they spoke to Haman about it to see whether Mordecai could get away with it because of his being a Jew, which was the excuse he had given them.
^5-6
 Haman was furious but decided not to lay hands on Mordecai alone, but to move against all of Mordecai’s people, the Jews, and destroy all of them throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus.

    
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 The most propitious time for this action was determined by throwing dice. This was done in April of the twelfth year of the reign of Ahasuerus, and February of the following year was the date indicated.

    
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 Haman now approached the king about the matter. “There is a certain race of people scattered through all the provinces of your kingdom,” he began, “and their laws are different from those of any other nation, and they refuse to obey the king’s laws; therefore, it is not in the king’s interest to let them live.
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 If it please the king, issue a decree that they be destroyed, and I will pay $20,000,000 into the royal treasury for the expenses involved in this purge.”

    
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 The king agreed, confirming his decision by removing his ring from his finger and giving it to Haman,
*
telling him,
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 “Keep the money, but go ahead and do as you like with these people—whatever you think best.”

    
¹²
 Two or three weeks later,
*
Haman called in the king’s secretaries and dictated letters to the governors and officials throughout the empire, to each province in its own languages and dialects; these letters were signed in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed with his ring.

    
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 They were then sent by messengers into all the provinces of the empire, decreeing that the Jews—young and old, women and children—must all be killed on the 28th day of February of the following year and their property given to those who killed them.
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 “A copy of this edict,” the letter stated, “must be proclaimed as law in every province and made known to all your people, so that they will be ready to do their duty on the appointed day.”
¹⁵
 The edict went out by the king’s speediest couriers, after being first proclaimed in the city of Shushan. Then the king and Haman sat down for a drinking spree as the city fell into confusion and panic.

Esther
4

When Mordecai learned what had been done, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the city, crying with a loud and bitter wail.
²
 Then he stood outside the gate of the palace, for no one was permitted to enter in mourning clothes.
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 And throughout all the provinces there was great mourning among the Jews, fasting, weeping, and despair at the king’s decree; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.

    
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 When Esther’s maids and eunuchs came and told her about Mordecai, she was deeply distressed and sent clothing to him to replace the sackcloth, but he refused it.
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 Then Esther sent for Hathach, one of the king’s eunuchs who had been appointed as her attendant, and told him to go out to Mordecai and find out what the trouble was and why he was acting like that.
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 So Hathach went out to the city square and found Mordecai just outside the palace gates,
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 and heard the whole story from him, and about the $20,000,000 Haman had promised to pay into the king’s treasury for the destruction of the Jews.
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 Mordecai also gave Hathach a copy of the king’s decree dooming all Jews, and told him to show it to Esther and to tell her what was happening and that she should go to the king to plead for her people.
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 So Hathach returned to Esther with Mordecai’s message.
¹⁰
 Esther told Hathach to go back and say to Mordecai,
¹¹
 “All the world knows that anyone, whether man or woman, who goes into the king’s inner court without his summons is doomed to die unless the king holds out his gold scepter; and the king has not called for me to come to him in more than a month.”

    
¹²
 So Hathach gave Esther’s message to Mordecai.

    
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 This was Mordecai’s reply to Esther: “Do you think you will escape there in the palace when all other Jews are killed?
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 If you keep quiet at a time like this, God will deliver the Jews from some other source, but you and your relatives will die; what’s more, who can say but that God has brought you into the palace for just such a time as this?”

    
¹⁵
 Then Esther sent this message to Mordecai:
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 “Go and gather together all the Jews of Shushan and fast for me; do not eat or drink for three days, night or day; and I and my maids will do the same; and then, though it is strictly forbidden, I will go in to see the king; and if I perish, I perish.”

    
¹⁷
 So Mordecai did as Esther told him to.

Esther
5

Three days later Esther put on her royal robes and entered the inner court just beyond the royal hall of the palace, where the king was sitting upon his royal throne.
²
 And when he saw Queen Esther standing there in the inner court, he welcomed her, holding out the golden scepter to her. So Esther approached and touched its tip.

    
³
 Then the king asked her, “What do you wish, Queen Esther? What is your request? I will give it to you, even if it is half the kingdom!”

    
⁴
 And Esther replied, “If it please Your Majesty, I want you and Haman to come to a banquet I have prepared for you today.”

    
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 The king turned to his aides. “Tell Haman to hurry!” he said. So the king and Haman came to Esther’s banquet.

    
⁶
 During the wine course the king said to Esther, “Now tell me what you really want, and I will give it to you, even if it is half of the kingdom!”

    
^7-8
 Esther replied, “My request, my deepest wish, is that if Your Majesty loves me and wants to grant my request, that you come again with Haman tomorrow to the banquet I shall prepare for you. And tomorrow I will explain what this is all about.”

    
⁹
 What a happy man was Haman as he left the banquet! But when he saw Mordecai there at the gate, not standing up or trembling before him, he was furious.
¹⁰
 However, he restrained himself, went on home, and gathered together his friends and Zeresh, his wife,
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 and boasted to them about his wealth, his many children, and promotions the king had given him, and how he had become the greatest man in the kingdom next to the king himself.

    
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 Then he delivered his punch line: “Yes, and Esther the queen invited only me and the king himself to the banquet she prepared for us; and tomorrow we are invited again!
¹³
 But yet,” he added, “all this is nothing when I see Mordecai the Jew just sitting there in front of the king’s gate, refusing to bow to me.”

    
¹⁴
 “Well,” suggested Zeresh, his wife, and all his friends, “get ready a 75-foot-high gallows, and in the morning ask the king to let you hang Mordecai on it; and when this is done you can go on your merry way with the king to the banquet.” This pleased Haman immensely, and he ordered the gallows built.

Esther
6

That night the king had trouble sleeping and decided to read awhile. He ordered the historical records of his kingdom from the library, and in them he came across the item telling how Mordecai had exposed the plot of Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s eunuchs, watchmen at the palace gates, who had plotted to assassinate him.

    
³
 “What reward did we ever give Mordecai for this?” the king asked.

    
His courtiers replied, “Nothing!”

    
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 “Who is on duty in the outer court?” the king inquired. Now, as it happened, Haman had just arrived in the outer court of the palace to ask the king to hang Mordecai from the gallows he was building.

    
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 So the courtiers replied to the king, “Haman is out there.”

    
“Bring him in,” the king ordered.
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 So Haman came in, and the king said to him, “What should I do to honor a man who truly pleases me?”

    
Haman thought to himself, “Whom would he want to honor more than me?”
^7-8
 So he replied, “Bring out some of the royal robes the king himself has worn, and the king’s own horse, and the royal crown,
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 and instruct one of the king’s most noble princes to robe the man and to lead him through the streets on the king’s own horse, shouting before him, ‘This is the way the king honors those who truly please him!’”

    
¹⁰
 “Excellent!” the king said to Haman. “Hurry and take these robes and my horse, and do just as you have said—to Mordecai the Jew, who works at the Chancellery. Follow every detail you have suggested.”

    
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 So Haman took the robes and put them on Mordecai, and mounted him on the king’s own steed, and led him through the streets of the city, shouting, “This is the way the king honors those he delights in.”

    
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 Afterwards Mordecai returned to his job, but Haman hurried home utterly humiliated.
¹³
 When Haman told Zeresh his wife and all his friends what had happened, they said, “If Mordecai is a Jew, you will never succeed in your plans against him; to continue to oppose him will be fatal.”

    
¹⁴
 While they were still discussing it with him, the king’s messengers arrived to conduct Haman quickly to the banquet Esther had prepared.