Off With Their Heads! | Esther 4:9-11 | Week 4 Day 4 Study of Esther

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 with Esther to go to the king and beg for mercy on behalf of she and her people, she was very worried. The king had made a rule that no one was allowed to come see him unsolicited without risking their lives to do it. If he was in a bad mood, he could have you put to death just for coming to see him, and Esther knew this applied to her as well. At least, she was afraid it would, and she had Vashti as an example she didn’t want to repeat.

This also shows just how disengaged the king was. There is no better way to insulate yourself from reality than to make everyone afraid to ever come and bring you bad news. This is exactly what this bizarre rule would have accomplished. 

Some years had passed since Esther became queen. When she was young and beautiful, the king adored her, but now she had put on a few years and it seems the king had found some newer and younger girls to keep him entertained. He hadn’t called for her to come and see him in a month. The implication here is that the king wasn’t going without, just going without Esther. Much like Mel Brooks’ King Louis XIV, it was good to be the king in the worst possible way.

Esther had her attendant tell this bit of incredibly embarrassing personal information to Mordecai, so that he would understand that she just couldn’t risk going to see the king. 

What would you have done in Esther’s shoes? How would you have felt?

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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 Esther as we look at the emotions, the world and the meanings of one of the most cherished, and often misunderstood books of the Bible.

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