The city of Susa
was bewildered (Esther
3:15).
The first Jews were
exiled to Babylon in 605 BC. After things settled down, life was actually
pretty good. They bought property, raised families, and when allowed to return
to Jerusalem 70 years later, many elected to stay in their new home.
The story of Esther
falls many years after the return to Jerusalem among Jewish people remaining in
Persia. Susa, the empire’s winter capital, has a large and prosperous Jewish
population, well thought of by their non-Jewish neighbors. In an ancient
Persian version of The Bachelor, Esther, a Jewish orphan raised by her cousin Mordecai, is selected
from all the young ladies of the empire to be the new queen.
When Mordecai offends Haman, a rising star in Persian
society, he makes an arch-enemy of comic book proportions. Haman is a descendant of Agag –
King of the Amalekites – killed by the prophet Samuel in the days of King Saul.
Agag’s descendants have nursed a grudge against Israel for 600 years.
Haman sees his favor with the king as an opportunity to
wreak vengeance on not only Mordecai, but on the entire Jewish people. He
convinces the king to have the Jews killed (genocide). The day, chosen by chance, is
eleven months away. As the news spreads throughout the empire, the Jews are in
disbelief and their neighbors scratch their heads at this order, of which they
cannot make sense.
TODAY’S MEDITATION
What do you do when life
doesn’t make sense? Reflect on Isaiah 40:31.
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