Even though God is not mentioned in the book of Esther, the message is clear: God does not forget.
He did not forget what the Amalekites did to the Israelites on their way out of Egypt (Deuteronomy 25:17-19). He did not forget King Saul not destroying the Amalekites as instructed, nor King Saul allowing his men to plunder the Amalekites, rather than destroy everything the Amalekites owned (1 Samuel 15:3). And the proof that he did not forget all these things is the book of Esther.
Because in Esther’s day another Amalekite, Haman, had appeared, who was just as determined to do to the Jews what his ancestors had done to Israel. But this time God had a couple of Benjamites ready for him, to finish off what their Benjamite ancestor, King Saul, didn’t do. As a result of Esther’s plea to King Xerxes to spare her people from Haman’s genocidal madness, Haman and all ten of his sons are killed and hanged, bringing an end to the Amalekite line of Haman. God had not forgotten what the Amalekites were like, and the need, therefore, to totally wipe them out.
But why was it, when the Jews of Esther’s day were allowed by King Xerxes to kill all those who hated them, that the Jews “did not lay their hands on the plunder,” Esther 9:10? And it’s repeated twice more too, in verses 15 and 16.
Well, what was King Saul’s reason for not destroying everything the Amalekites owned as God had instructed? It was “Saul and his army sparing the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat calves and lambs – everything (they deemed) as good. These they were unwilling to destroy completely” (1 Samuel 15:9). Under pressure Saul had given in to his men wanting to plunder the best for themselves. And that’s what led to God rejecting Saul as king, and replacing him with David.
When the chance then came up again 500 years later for the Jews to plunder their enemies, they didn’t do it. God had not forgotten the Saul debacle, and neither had they. And they planned to never forget it too, because they made this entire incident a time to “be remembered and observed in every generation,” Esther 9:28.
They’d learnt an important lesson from 500 years of God not forgetting, that when “Amalekite-like” psychopaths seek to destroy his people, “God takes things personally”….(next blog)
