Esther 4 Study Notes

4:13-14 Mordecai’s reply to Esther was direct and to the point: Esther had no safe choices. Appearing unbidden before the king could mean death, but remaining silent, when so many servants and eunuchs knew of her connection to Mordecai the Jew, could likewise result in her death once the genocide was carried out.

Mordecai’s statement that help would come from another place if Esther remained quiet is intriguing. The most obvious interpretation is to understand the phrase “another place” (Hb mimmaqom ’acher) as a veiled reference to God, an interpretation supported by the Greek additions to Esther (Alpha Text 5:9), both Aramaic Targums, and Josephus. Others find it more likely that “another place” refers to a human source of deliverance, possibly Mordecai himself or another well-placed Jewish official similar to Nehemiah, who served Ahasuerus’s son (Artaxerxes) as cupbearer. Mordecai and Esther would regard relief and deliverance, whatever the source, as attributable ultimately to God’s providential care for his people. This conclusion is supported by Mordecai’s famous suggestion that Esther had come to your royal position for such a time as this. As Timothy Laniak notes, this meant God had a “destiny for Esther. Haven’t all of the serendipitous events in the last four years put her in this position for this very moment?”

4:15-16 Often in times of crisis God’s people would fast and pray, seeking God’s help and deliverance (Jdg 20:26; 1Kg 21:9; Jr 36:9). Fasting took on an even more prominent role in the postexilic community (Ezr 8:21-23; Neh 1:4; 9:1-2). But this fast was unusually long, highlighting the severity of the threat to the Jewish people. Esther’s last comment to Mordecai in this chapter (If I perish, I perish) is not just resigned fatalism. As Michael Fox writes, this statement “does not suggest a person seeking an escape route, but one facing and coming to grips with a danger. The statement recognizes the possibility of failure, yet also expresses the hope—though not certainty—of success” (Character).

4:17 Verses 12-17 serve as the turning point in the development of Esther’s character. In 2:20 we are told that she “obeyed Mordecai’s orders, as she always had while he raised her.” Now Mordecai went and did everything Esther had commanded him. “From a dependent orphan, completely submissive to her uncle’s manipulations and the king’s whims, she emerges at plot’s end in control of her own life—and the life of a nation” (G. H. Johnston).