The story of Esther wouldn’t have existed if King Saul had wiped out the Amalekites 500 years earlier as God had instructed (1 Samuel 15:1-3). But the Amalekites lived to see another day, and the chance again to eradicate the Jews, which Haman the Amalekite in the days of Esther leapt at when that chance came (Esther 3:6).
If only King Saul, Esther’s Benjamite ancestor, had been the “ravenous wolf devouring and plundering” that his tribe was meant to be in Jacob’s prophecy for Benjamin in Genesis 49:27. But in Mordecai, Esther’s cousin, God had another brave Benjamite who would complete what Saul had failed to do, and it would also settle an old score in “God’s personal war against the Amalekites from generation to generation” (Exodus 17:16).
But it would also put Esther’s life in mortal danger, because to stop Haman’s plan to destroy every Jew in Persia (Esther 3:9, 13), Mordecai “urged Esther to go into the king’s presence and plead with him for her people” (4:8). But no one dared do that if not summoned by the king first, because the penalty by law for those who did dare was death (4:11). And for the last thirty days the king hadn’t asked to see Esther, so for her to just turn up uninvited was a death wish.
But to Mordecai if Esther did nothing she and her family would be killed along with all the other Jews (13). And what if her position in the royal household was actually God’s way of rescuing the Jews? (14). Mordecai the Benjamite was not backing down.
At which point Esther’s Benjamite ancestry kicked in too. She sent a message to Mordecai to “gather all the Jews in Susa (her home city), and fast for me” – meaning no food or drink for three days and three nights, and she and her staff would join them. And “When this is done,” she said, “I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish” (15-16). Esther the Benjamite wasn’t backing down either.
God had chosen well in his weapons for settling his score with the Amalekites. And this time, unlike King Saul, the Benjamites would be true to his purpose for their tribe. But if God felt this deeply about destroying the Amalekites for their cruelty against his people, why didn’t he simply wipe them out himself, and kill Haman too, rather than drag Esther into it and put her life on the line as well? Or is Esther’s willingness to put her life on the line a picture of “What it takes to destroy evil”?….(next blog)
