The rebuilding of the temple is complete! 🎉 The people celebrate joyously and they keep the Passover.
Over in Persia, King Ahasuerus is having a massive 7 day drunken party and on the 7th day, when he is all liquored up, he asks for the beautiful Queen Vashti to come to him so he can show her off to everyone. But she refuses to come and partake in that nonsense, which doesn’t please King Ahasuerus, so he has her removed from the position of queen.
Now the hunt for a new queen is on! This is when we meet Mordecai, a Jew from the tribe of Benjamin, who was born in captivity in Babylon. Mordecai raised his brother’s beautiful daughter, Esther, who was an orphan. Because of Esther’s beauty, she is taken to the King’s palace and ends up becoming the new queen. However, Mordecai asks her to keep her heritage a secret.
Mordecai is faithful to the king. So when he hears of a plot against the king’s life, he tells Esther “and Esther informed the king in Mordecai’s name,” resulting in the king being spared and the men plotting against him being killed.
Mordecai is also faithful to the Lord. Therefore he refuses to bow down to Haman, King Ahasuerus’s #1 man. This really gets under proud Haman’s skin. So, for retaliation, Haman has the king sign a decree to totally annihilate all of the Jews, Mordecai’s and Esther’s people. 😱
The Jews go into great mourning and Mordecai sends a request to Esther to intercede for her people. Esther is hesitant bc she could be killed if she approaches the king without the king requesting her. But Mordecai responds, “For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” Then Esther replies, “And so I will go to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish!” 💪
The Lord is never mentioned in the Book of Esther but He is clearly active. Keep reading to see how God is working behind the scenes for the good of His people.
(Ezra 6:14-22, Ezra 4:6, Esther 1:1-4:17)
#bibleliteracymovement #chronologicalbibleteaching
Chronological Bible in Layman's Terms 