Hebrew Scriptures

Leigh Weber
Hebrew Scriptures
December 1, 2010
Esther 4:9-17
Hebrew Scriptures is filled with call stories, of unlikely characters who struggle with   human limitations and inadequacies and the steadfast Divine Yahweh who is at work in and through those persons crafting a story and a purpose of Eternal proportions.   Such is the story of Queen Esther, an unlikely Jewish heroine in Persia, under the reign of Ahasuerus (Xerxes I).   Under the leadership of Haman, the Prime Minister, a plan was developed not only to eliminate all Jewish persons in the city but throughout the entirety of Persia.   While the author only makes elliptical references to the Divine, Yahweh is at work in the life a Jewish girl made queen to rescue the people from this plot, once again preserving the people of Israel and continuing the overall promise made initially to Abraham and then to Moses and many others.   Esther becomes a runner in the Eternal race entering into the Divine plan for God’s people as she answers the call for such a time as this.   In doing so the author puts squarely in front of each of us the idea that we are uniquely called for our place in time in a plan of Eternal Design.
Esther is a unique book of Hebrew Scripture, with no direct reference to Yahweh, its central figure being a woman, in a time when women were rather marginalized.   It reads as a comedic twist of a story with (emphasis on plot rather than development of character.)   Esther, the cousin/step-daughter of Mordecai is a young Jewish girl chosen as bride to replace Vasthi, the disobedient queen of Ahasuerus.   Mordecai admonishes her to keep her Jewish identity unknown and the girl takes her place in the palace.   After overhearing a plot to kill the king, Mordecai tells Esther who warns the king and ends up saving the king’s life in the process.   When Mordecai, however, refuses to bow down to Haman, the king’s prime minister, Haman uses this disobedience to justify killing the Jews in the land of Persia,...