A New Queen

Esther 1

The stage is set, God’s plan on saving the Jews is getting ready. In this chapter we see what needed to take place in order for God’s woman, Esther to be able to be in the position to be used by God to save many lives. He knows all thing in advance as we trust God in his will. 

King Ahasuerus

Known in the Greek as Xerxes, he was king over all of Persia. A vast empire at this time, only second to that of the Roman Empire. The Persians were very powerful as they were the ones that took over Babylon when Babylon was great. 

The Bible gives us enough information to know that this guy was one powerful man. His kingdom was vast and when he spoke a law that was written everyone in this vast kingdom had to follow it. We see that there was a queen in Persia whose name was Vashti. They had a huge feast celebrating the power and ability of the king and his conquests. During this celebration feasts, we see that the king wanted to have his queen come to him (which was custom at this time. When the king summoned the queen, that is when and only when she would come). Queen Vashti refused. She did not want to come when he commanded. Due to this she was relieved of queen and a decree went out to all of the land about this, women needing to listen to their husbands. The result of a rebellious queen was that there needed to be another. A decree went out to all of the land that they are going to be looking for a new queen. They were having tryouts and they sent the location and date.

It would be easy to just stick with the details and know that history talks about this man, but we need to look at God’s providence. That is God’s divine grace and planning in this time of history. God allowed this man to be king and allowed this woman to be queen. He knew that she would be rebellious and that he would then be able to supply the right woman for at the right time in history. We read on tomorrow for that.

Praise be to God who knows what tomorrow already has. Our trust and hope is in him.