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Esther: If I Perish, I Perish · Behind the Bible Verse: The Stories and History Behind Scripture

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  This is a story about a queen who had kept her people a secret, and about the morning
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  she was told that the secret would not save her.
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  Behind the Bible Verse. This is made with the assistance of AI.
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  Our reading is from the book of Esther, chapter four, verses one to seventeen, in
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  the World English Bible, British Edition. It sits in the middle of the book.
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  We'll go back to the beginning in a moment, and then follow Esther through the
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  door she is afraid to open.
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  Now when Mordecai found out all that was done, Mordecai tore his clothes and put on
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  sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the middle of the city, and wailed loudly
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  and bitterly. He came even before the king’s gate, for no one is allowed inside
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  the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth. In every province, wherever the king’s
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  commandment and his decree came, there was great mourning amongst the Jews, and
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  fasting, and weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.
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  Esther’s maidens and her eunuchs came and told her this, and the queen was
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  exceedingly grieved. She sent clothing to Mordecai, to replace his sackcloth, but he
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  didn’t receive it. Then Esther called for Hathach, one of the king’s eunuchs, whom
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  he had appointed to attend her, and commanded him to go to Mordecai, to find
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  out what this was, and why it was. So Hathach went out to Mordecai, to the city
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  square which was before the king’s gate. Mordecai told him of all that had happened
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  to him, and the exact sum of the money that Haman had promised to pay to the
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  king’s treasuries for the destruction of the Jews.
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  He also gave him the copy of the writing of the decree that was given out in Susa
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  to destroy them, to show it to Esther, and to declare it to her, and to urge her to
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  go in to the king to make supplication to him, and to make request before him for
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  her people.
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  Hathach came and told Esther the words of Mordecai.
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  Then Esther spoke to Hathach, and gave him a message to Mordecai: “All the king’s
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  servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that whoever, whether man
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  or woman, comes to the king into the inner court without being called, there is one
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  law for him, that he be put to death, except those to whom the king might hold
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  out the golden sceptre, that he may live. I have not been called to come in to the
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  king these thirty days.”
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  They told Esther’s words to Mordecai. Then Mordecai asked them to return this answer
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  to Esther: “Don’t think to yourself that you will escape in the king’s house any
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  more than all the Jews. For if you remain silent now, then relief and deliverance
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  will come to the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will
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  perish. Who knows if you haven’t come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
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  Then Esther asked them to answer Mordecai, “Go, gather together all the Jews who are
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  present in Susa, and fast for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or
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  day. I and my maidens will also fast the same way.
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  Then I will go in to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I
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  perish.” So Mordecai went his way, and did according to all that Esther had commanded
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  him.
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  So that's the choice. A law that kills anyone who walks in uninvited.
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  A queen who has not been called for thirty days. And her answer, sent back to the man
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  in sackcloth at the gate: if I perish, I perish.
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  To feel how sharp that is, we need the court she is walking into.
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  The book opens with King Ahasuerus, who reigns from India even to Ethiopia, over
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  one hundred and twenty-seven provinces. His throne is at Susa, the palace city.
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  Most scholars identify him with the Persian king the Greeks called Xerxes, in
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  the fifth century BCE. The old Greek translation of Esther calls him Artaxerxes
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  instead. The Hebrew name is the clue people follow toward Xerxes.
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  I'll leave the argument there, except to say it is a real one, and it isn't settled
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  by the story itself.
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  When the book was written is a separate question, and scholars differ.
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  Many place it after the Persian period, perhaps in the third or second century
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  BCE, among Jews living far from Judah. Others argue for earlier.
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  Some readers take the book as court history with a festival attached.
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  Others hear a story shaped to be told at that festival.
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  Both kinds of reading are old. I won't pick a winner.
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  In the third year of his reign the king gives a feast.
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  On the seventh day, merry with wine, he sends for Queen Vashti, wearing her crown,
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  so the princes can see her beauty. She refuses to come.
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  The king is very angry, and Vashti is set aside. A search begins for another queen.
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  Young women are gathered to the citadel of Susa, into the care of Hegai, keeper of
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  the women.
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  One of them is Esther, whose Hebrew name is Hadassah.
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  She is an orphan. Her cousin Mordecai, a Benjamite, has brought her up as his own
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  daughter. His family had been carried away from Jerusalem with Jeconiah, king of
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  Judah, when Nebuchadnezzar took captives to Babylon.
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  Esther pleases Hegai. She is taken into the king's house.
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  And she does not tell anyone her people or her family, because Mordecai has told her
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  not to. He walks every day in front of the women's house, to learn how she is.
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  That secret is the hinge of chapter four. She is queen, and she is hidden.
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  The book also gives Mordecai a moment of loyalty that will matter later.
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  While he sits in the king's gate, two doorkeepers, Bigthan and Teresh, plot
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  against the king. Mordecai hears of it, tells Esther, and Esther tells the king in
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  Mordecai's name. The plot is investigated. The two men are hanged.
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  The thing is written in the book of the chronicles, in the king's presence.
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  Then everyone seems to forget it. The book doesn't.
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  After this, the king promotes Haman, son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, and sets his
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  seat above the other princes. Everyone at the gate bows to Haman.
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  Mordecai does not. The servants ask why. He tells them he is a Jew.
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  Haman is full of wrath, and he scorns the thought of punishing Mordecai alone.
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  He looks for a way to destroy all the Jews in the kingdom.
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  They cast Pur, that is, the lot, and the lot falls on the twelfth month, the month
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  Adar. Haman goes to the king. There is a certain people, he says, scattered through
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  your provinces, with laws different from everyone else's.
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  It is not for the king's profit to let them remain.
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  Let it be written that they be destroyed. He offers to pay ten thousand talents of
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  silver into the treasury. A note in this translation puts a talent at about thirty
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  kilograms. The sum is huge. The king gives Haman his ring and says the silver is
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  given to him, and the people also, to do with as seems good.
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  Haman's name for them is not spoken in that meeting.
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  The decree goes out. In every province there is mourning, fasting, weeping.
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  Mordecai puts on sackcloth and ashes and goes as far as the king's gate.
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  Sackcloth is not allowed inside it. That is where our reading began.
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  Notice what Esther does first. She doesn't yet know the decree.
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  She knows her cousin is in sackcloth, and she sends him ordinary clothes, so he can
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  take the sackcloth off. He won't receive them. Grief, in this scene, refuses to be
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  tidied away. Only then does she send Hathach to ask what it means, and why.
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  Mordecai sends back the copy of the writing itself, and the sum of money Haman
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  promised, and a charge: go in to the king and plead for your people.
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  Esther's reply is the law of the inner court. Uncalled, you die, unless the king
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  holds out the golden sceptre. She has not been called these thirty days.
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  Mordecai's answer is the line the book is famous for.
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  Don't think you will escape in the king's house any more than the other Jews.
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  If you stay silent, relief and deliverance will come from another place, and you and
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  your father's house will perish. Who knows if you haven't come to the kingdom for
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  such a time as this?
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  "Who knows." He doesn't claim to see the future. He refuses her the comfort of
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  thinking the palace is a hiding place. And he leaves her a choice.
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  She takes it. Gather the Jews in Susa. Fast for me, three days, night and day.
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  My maidens and I will fast too. Then I will go in, which is against the law.
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  If I perish, I perish. Mordecai goes and does what she has commanded.
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  The cousin who has been giving the orders is now taking them.
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  That small reversal is easy to miss, and it matters.
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  Esther has become the one who decides.
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  A word about God, because many listeners wait for him to be named, and in this book
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  they will wait in vain. I checked all ten chapters of Esther in this edition.
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  The words God and the LORD do not appear. Not in the danger, not in the deliverance,
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  not in the feast at the end. In a story about a people under a death sentence,
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  that silence is one of the strangest things in the Hebrew Bible.
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  Many readers of faith hear a trust in Mordecai's "another place," as if he means
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  God and will not say so. The sentence doesn't say it.
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  It says "another place." I'll leave it as written.
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  On the third day Esther puts on her royal clothing and stands in the inner court.
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  The king sees her. She obtains favour. He holds out the golden sceptre, and she
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  touches the top of it. He offers her up to half the kingdom.
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  She doesn't make her request yet. She asks the king and Haman to a banquet.
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  At the banquet he asks again, and she asks them to a second one, tomorrow.
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  The delay is hers. The book doesn't explain it. What it shows is Haman leaving
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  that first banquet happy, until he sees Mordecai at the gate, still not bowing.
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  He goes home and boasts, and the boasting doesn't satisfy him.
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  His wife Zeresh and his friends tell him to build a gallows.
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  The note in this translation says the gallows Haman makes is fifty cubits high,
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  and a cubit is about eighteen inches. Do the sum if you like.
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  It is a height meant to be seen.
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  That night the king can't sleep. He has the book of records read to him, and they
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  come to the place where Mordecai uncovered the doorkeepers' plot.
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  What honour has been given for this? Nothing, the servants say.
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  And at that moment Haman is in the outer court, come to ask permission to hang
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  Mordecai. The king calls him in and asks, what shall be done for the man the king
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  delights to honour? Haman, sure the man is himself, describes royal robes, the king's
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  horse, a crown, and a prince to lead him through the city square proclaiming the
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  honour. The king says, do all of it for Mordecai the Jew, who sits at the gate.
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  Let nothing fail. Haman has to lead him. The man he came to hang is the man he has
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  to praise in the street.
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  At the second banquet the king asks a third time. Esther answers.
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  Let my life be given me, and my people. We are sold, I and my people, to be
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  destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. The king asks who.
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  "An adversary and an enemy, even this wicked Haman!"
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  Haman is afraid. The king rises in wrath and goes into the palace garden.
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  Haman stays to beg Esther for his life, and falls on the couch where she is.
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  The king comes back and says, "Will he even assault the queen in front of me in
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  the house?" They cover Haman's face. A eunuch, Harbonah, points to the gallows
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  Haman built for Mordecai. The king says, "Hang him on it!"
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  And they do.
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  The danger doesn't end with Haman, and the book doesn't pretend it does.
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  A decree signed with the king's ring is not simply torn up.
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  A second decree goes out. It lets the Jews gather and defend their lives, and the
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  wording also speaks of destroying and killing. There is fighting.
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  Haman's sons are hanged. The book tells this plainly, and then it tells of rest,
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  and of a feast. Mordecai writes to the Jews of the provinces that they should
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  keep the fourteenth and fifteenth days of Adar, days of feasting and gladness, of
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  sending food to one another and gifts to the needy.
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  They call the feast Purim, from Pur, the lot Haman cast.
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  The day chosen for their destruction becomes the day they remember.
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  In Jewish practice the scroll of Esther, the Megillah, is read on Purim, in the
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  evening and again in the morning. It is one of the five short scrolls.
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  People come to hear a story in which the villain's lot is reversed, and in which a
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  hidden queen speaks at the moment silence would have been safer.
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  Esther and Ruth are the only two books of the Hebrew Bible named for women.
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  Ruth's story is a family and a field. Esther's is an empire and a law.
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  Both turn on a woman who could have stayed where she was.
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  Mordecai asked, who knows if you haven't come to the kingdom for such a time as
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  this? Esther's answer isn't a claim that she was born for greatness.
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  It is a fast, and a door, and a sentence she may not survive.
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  The book lets her live. It doesn't promise that everyone who speaks will.
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  So here's a question to sit with, and there's no right answer to it.
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  What would you risk saying, if staying quiet might keep you safe?
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  Thanks for listening to Behind the Bible Verse. Scripture readings are from the
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  World English Bible, British Edition, which is in the public domain.
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  Every episode is checked against the text and the historical record.