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Esther 5 v
1 – 8
1 On the third day Esther
put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the palace, in front of
the king's hall. The king was sitting on his royal throne in the hall, facing
the entrance.
2 When he saw Queen Esther
standing in the court, he was pleased with her and held out to her the gold
sceptre that was in his hand. So Esther approached and touched the tip of the
sceptre.
3 Then the king asked,
What is it, Queen Esther? What is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it
will be given you.
4 If it pleases the king,
replied Esther, let the king, together with Haman, come today to a banquet I
have prepared for him.
5 Bring Haman at once, the
king said, so that we may do what Esther asks. So the king and Haman went to
the banquet Esther had prepared.
6 As they were drinking
wine, the king again asked Esther, Now what is your petition? It will be given
you. And what is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be granted.
7 Esther replied, My petition and my
request is this:
8 If the king regards me with favour and
if it pleases the king to grant my petition and fulfil my request, let the king
and Haman come tomorrow to the banquet I will prepare for them. Then I will
answer the king's question.
Esther 5 v
1 – 8
So last time, Esther found out about Haman’s plan to have
all the Jews killed on a certain day and she immediately started praying and
asked her cousin and the rest of the Jews to do the same. She was putting her
trust in God and God alone and we now start to see the outcome of her faith and
trust.
(Verses
1 – 6)
So, Esther did not go in demanding for something to be done
about the law or proclaiming loudly who she was but instead she wisely stood in
the corner, not wanting to seem too intrusive and waited for the king to see
her.
Of course, eventually the king saw here and here we see how
God answered her prays in that she found favour in the king and he was pleased
to see her. She wisely went along with the custom of touching the end of the
sceptre and wisely waited for the king to speak to her first rather than rudely
butting in and when she did speak she was submissive and humble.
Now, the king gave her the option to ask for absolutely
anything but instead of rushing in with her request, Esther used the wisdom
given to her by God and invited him and Haman to a feast.
But why did she invite Haman as well? After all, he was the
one who had condemned her people to death and issued the decree. There is a phrase
that goes ‘keep your friends close but your enemies closer’. Esther would not
have wanted Haman thinking that she was planning something behind his back and,
in fact, inviting him caused him to do the opposite, totally letting his guard
down. He would have thought that he was in favour with the queen and would have
felt very special and important to have been invited to Esther’s special and
private banquet and we will see later how this was exactly what he thought as
just how proud he had become.
So, where do you think Esther got all this wisdom from?
Although not directly stated, it is fairly obvious that God
was working in an amazing way. Not only was he giving Esther wisdom to respond
to the king in the best way but he also made the king unusually happy to see
her and unusually generous in how he spoke to her.
Of course, Haman did not detect a hint of a problem with
Esther’s request and was not at all suspicious of her and instead was just
growing in pride as he thought how important he must be for being invited to
such a banquet.
Now, if we quickly look back at verses 3 and 6, we see how,
even before he knew her request, the king was saying that her request would be
granted. This was a throw away comment and he most likely did not really mean
it and he would have been shocked if Esther really had asked for half his
kingdom. It was also a very stupid thing to say however he said this to a
trustworthy girl who would never take advantage.
Sometimes, we use throw away comments that say that we would
do anything to have such and such a thing or would not do such and such over
your dead body. Although this isn’t as extreme as Xerxes throw away comment, we
still need to be careful of what we say when we’re not thinking. If we don’t
think about what we say, we could end up deeply regretting what we said.
(Verses 7 –
8)
So, after the banquet, the men would have been well fed and
feeling very accommodating and generous. Again, the king asked Esther what she
wanted and she had his full attention. She could have easily asked the king for
her request. To us, this might seem the idea point in the story to ask the king
to save her people and punish Haman but that was not what she did. Instead, all
she did was to invite them both back to another banquet the next day.
So why did she delay? It doesn’t make sense to us and it may
not have made sense to Esther but God would have known that the timing was not quite
right and that God had more to do with Xerxes before he would have been ready
to Esther. Esther was guided to wait and for some reason felt she had to wait
until the following day.
Similarly, we shouldn’t always rush into things but, when
faced with decisions, we should pray to God and listen to him as to what we
should do. God’s timing is much better than ours and he knows when we should
wait longer and when we should go ahead and why we should wait or go ahead. It
is always important to pray about the hard decisions we face as God is much better
than us at guiding our decisions.
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Current book I'm reading: 'Friends like these' by Danny Wallace
Listening to music? If so, what?: 'Goodnight Bright Eyes' by Mike Lombardo has just finished and his other song 'Right Now' has just begun.
Last thing I watched: I was starting to try re-watch the TV Sherlock Holmes - A Study in Pink but iPlayer kept freezing.
Current NaNoWriMo count: 50 031!!!!! Oh yes!! :) If you want to read my 'novel', I won't be posting it on here but if you email me and ask me nicely I will send you a copy. :)
welcome back to the blogosphere! =]
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