Scripture Daily

Context No. 4240 of 4322 · Esther (Greek)

Context · Reflection

Esther (Greek) 10:1-14: in context

1The king levied a tax upon his kingdom both by land and sea. 2As for his strength and valour, and the wealth and glory of his kingdom, behold, they are written in the book of the Persians and Medes for a memorial. 3Mordecai was viceroy to King Ahasuerus, and was a great man in the kingdom, honored by the Jews, and lived his life loved by all his nation. 4[Mordecai said, “These things have come from God. 5For I remember the dream which I had concerning these matters; for not one detail of them has failed. 6There was the little spring which became a river, and there was light, and the sun and much water. The river is Esther, whom the king married and made queen. 7The two serpents are Haman and me. 8The nations are those which combined to destroy the name of the Jews. 9But as for my nation, this is Israel, even those who cried to God and were delivered; for the Lord delivered his people. The Lord rescued us out of all these calamities; and God worked such signs and great wonders as have not been done among the nations. 10Therefore he ordained two lots. One for the people of God, and one for all the other nations. 11And these two lots came for an appointed season, and for a day of judgment, before God, and for all the nations. 12God remembered his people and vindicated his inheritance. 13They shall observe these days in the month Adar, on the fourteenth and on the fifteenth day of the month, with an assembly, joy, and gladness before God, throughout the generations forever among his people Israel. 14In the fourth year of the reign of Ptolemeus and Cleopatra, Dositheus, who said he was a priest and Levite, and Ptolemeus his son brought this letter of Purim, which they said was authentic, and that Lysimachus the son of Ptolemeus, who was in Jerusalem, had interpreted.]

Looking back on all that had happened, the deliverance of the Jews from Haman's plot, Mordecai draws one clear conclusion: these things have come from God. He recalls a dream he had been given, and now sees it fulfilled in every detail. The rise of Esther, the downfall of the enemy, the rescue of his people, all of it, he recognizes, was God's doing. The Lord delivered his people, he says; God remembered his own and vindicated them.

What stands out is Mordecai's readiness to give God the credit. He does not attribute the deliverance to Esther's courage alone, or to his own wisdom, or to good fortune. He looks back and sees God's hand in it all: these things came from God. In hindsight, the pattern of providence becomes clear, and Mordecai names its author.

It is easy to attribute our rescues to luck, to other people, or to ourselves, and to move on without a thought of God. Mordecai shows a better way: to look back, trace the pattern of providence, and say, these things came from God. Such remembering gives God the glory he is due and strengthens our trust for what lies ahead. The God who delivered then is the same God we face the future with.

When I look back on my life and the times I have been delivered, do I trace the hand of God and say, as Mordecai did, these things came from God, giving him the credit rather than crediting luck, others, or myself, and letting the remembering strengthen my trust?

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