The 10 Week Bible Study Podcast

Esther is simultaneously a victory and a tragedy. In some ways, If you look at it through a modern lens, it should be called the Victory of Mordecai and the Tragedy of Esther. Esther loses her parents and then is taken into the harem of a despotic king to be used as he wishes. Mordecai ends up, like Daniel, a very high official and ruler in his expatriated land.  This will be a great study of Esth...

Esther is simultaneously a victory and a tragedy. In some ways, If you look at it through a modern lens, it should be called the Victory of Mordecai and the Tragedy of Esther. Esther loses her parents and then is taken into the harem of a despotic king to be used as he wishes. Mordecai ends up, like Daniel, a very high official and ruler in his expatriated land.  This will be a great study of Esth...

Esther is simultaneously a victory and a tragedy. In some ways, If you look at it through a modern lens, it should be called the Victory of Mordecai and the Tragedy of Esther. Esther loses her parents and then is taken into the harem of a despotic king to be used as he wishes. Mordecai ends up, like Daniel, a very high official and ruler in his expatriated land.  This will be a great study of Esth...

Esther is simultaneously a victory and a tragedy. In some ways, If you look at it through a modern lens, it should be called the Victory of Mordecai and the Tragedy of Esther. Esther loses her parents and then is taken into the harem of a despotic king to be used as he wishes. Mordecai ends up, like Daniel, a very high official and ruler in his expatriated land.  This will be a great study of Esth...

Esther is simultaneously a victory and a tragedy. In some ways, If you look at it through a modern lens, it should be called the Victory of Mordecai and the Tragedy of Esther. Esther loses her parents and then is taken into the harem of a despotic king to be used as he wishes. Mordecai ends up, like Daniel, a very high official and ruler in his expatriated land.  This will be a great study of Esth...

Esther is simultaneously a victory and a tragedy. In some ways, If you look at it through a modern lens, it should be called the Victory of Mordecai and the Tragedy of Esther. Esther loses her parents and then is taken into the harem of a despotic king to be used as he wishes. Mordecai ends up, like Daniel, a very high official and ruler in his expatriated land.  This will be a great study of Esth...

Esther is simultaneously a victory and a tragedy. In some ways, If you look at it through a modern lens, it should be called the Victory of Mordecai and the Tragedy of Esther. Esther loses her parents and then is taken into the harem of a despotic king to be used as he wishes. Mordecai ends up, like Daniel, a very high official and ruler in his expatriated land.  This will be a great study of Esth...

Esther is simultaneously a victory and a tragedy. In some ways, If you look at it through a modern lens, it should be called the Victory of Mordecai and the Tragedy of Esther. Esther loses her parents and then is taken into the harem of a despotic king to be used as he wishes. Mordecai ends up, like Daniel, a very high official and ruler in his expatriated land.  This will be a great study of Esth...

Esther is simultaneously a victory and a tragedy. In some ways, If you look at it through a modern lens, it should be called the Victory of Mordecai and the Tragedy of Esther. Esther loses her parents and then is taken into the harem of a despotic king to be used as he wishes. Mordecai ends up, like Daniel, a very high official and ruler in his expatriated land.  This will be a great study of Esth...

Esther is simultaneously a victory and a tragedy. In some ways, If you look at it through a modern lens, it should be called the Victory of Mordecai and the Tragedy of Esther. Esther loses her parents and then is taken into the harem of a despotic king to be used as he wishes. Mordecai ends up, like Daniel, a very high official and ruler in his expatriated land.  This will be a great study of Esth...

Esther is simultaneously a victory and a tragedy. In some ways, If you look at it through a modern lens, it should be called the Victory of Mordecai and the Tragedy of Esther. Esther loses her parents and then is taken into the harem of a despotic king to be used as he wishes. Mordecai ends up, like Daniel, a very high official and ruler in his expatriated land.  This will be a great study of Esth...

After Haman paraded Mordecai around the city, he ran home to pout. His plans to have Mordecai put to death that day had gone very poorly, to say the least. The man he had gone to ask to kill, he was forced to honor in front of the entire city.  When he told his wife what had happened, she wasn’t terribly comforting, but she was smart. She knew that everything was upside down now and that because h...

Haman had just finished telling the king all the most presumptuous ways he would want to be honored, assuming the king was planning to honor him. Haman probably found it impossible to hide the smug smile on his face, sure of what was coming next from the king. I imagine the world went into slow motion for Haman as the name Mordecai came out of his mouth. M    -    O    -    R    -    D    -    E ...

When the king asked Haman what should be done for someone the king really likes, he probably knew he would get an honest answer out of him. My guess is that he asked it in such a way that he knew Haman would assume it was to honor him, and being the narcissist that he was, he would find out exactly what Haman would have done for him if he were the one being honored. Haman didn’t disappoint the kin...

To say that this is a reversal of fates is a biblical understatement. The Lord has orchestrated something truly spectacular here in the story of Esther.  The king couldn’t sleep that night. As stated before, maybe it was because Haman’s workmen building the death device specifically for Mordecai is what kept him up. Maybe it was just the providence of the Lord. One way or another, the Lord kept hi...

After Haman had expressed how little she meant to him as long as Mordecai was still alive, she had a bright idea: just put him to death immediately! It makes one wonder if Haman had been treating his wife more and more poorly as his hatred and contempt for Mordecai had been increasing. Maybe she had been wondering why his mood was growing considerably worse even as he was being promoted at such a...

Up to this point, Haman has been very patient and contrived. He’s a schemer, for sure. But something about this banquet, and the prospect of the one tomorrow got him thinking. He thought of all the ways he must have been the most blessed and wealthy person in all of the Persian kingdom, and how that meant nothing to him if Mordecai wouldn’t bow.  He had passed by Mordecai day in and day out for we...

It’s always been unclear to me whether or not Esther had the two banquets planned, or if she had only intended one and then chickened out in the moment a the first one. Here we see that everything is in place for Esther to reveal Haman as the evil man trying to destroy she and her people, but instead she tells the king that her request, equal up to half the kingdom, is for the king and Haman to sh...

The king’s statement to Esther here almost defies logic. It is essentially as if he said to her, “Esther! I haven’t sent for you for over a month and I’ve instead been with my concubines and other wives. But now that you’re here, I really like you and even though I haven’t really thought about you at all lately, what is it that you want? I’ll give you up to half my kingdom!” As preposterous as tha...

After Esther had fasted and prayed for three days, she got dressed again in her fancy royal clothes. It was time to face her fears. Let’s not forget that her fears were well-founded.  Vashti was removed as queen (and only the Lord knows what happened to her afterward) for a very similar act of rebellion. When she was called for, she didn’t come. Now, the king’s rule was that anyone who came that w...

This is one of the most recognized passages in all of scripture, and it is probably the one phrase that the book of Esther is known for.  In this phrase is all the emotion, disappointment and tragedy that we should have felt in this book up until now. We can almost hear Mordecai saying, “This isn’t what anyone would have chosen for you, Esther, but it looks like the Lord may have been behind this...

There is a scene in Mel Brooks’ movie History of the World Part II where he is playing King Louis XIV and he’s surrounded by several suggestively dressed women. He looks at them and then looks at the camera and says, “It’s good to be the king.” It was meant to be a sexually subversive statement for comedic effect, but it was realistically spot on, at least for Ahaserus it was. When Mordecai plead...

When Esther’s eunuch Hathak met with Mordecai to find out what was wrong and why he was in sackcloth, Mordecai told him the entire situation. He gave him a copy of the edict, but even more importantly, Mordecai told him to tell Esther that Haman had offered to pay for the entire campaign out of his own pocket.  This is no small detail. When was the last time you heard of a congressperson or a sena...

It’s clear from Esther’s situation that she’s something of a prisoner of the palace. It doesn’t appear that she is allowed to leave since she can only communicate with Mordecai through intermediaries.  When Esther heard that Mordecai was in sackcloth, she was very worried about him. She couldn’t check Twitter or the internet for information on what might be troubling him, so she had to send her eu...

Weeping in sackcloth and ashes was so common a thing in the ancient world that king Ahaseurus made a rule that no one was allowed to enter his presence in that condition. As we look closely at Persia’s king in the coming chapters, we will see that something is definitely wrong. He has completely checked out of wanting to be a ruler. To his credit, when you’ve conquered such a geographically large...