Esther 2:19-23
Recorded in the Chronicles
19When the virgins were assembled a second time, Mordecai was sitting at the king’s gate.
20Esther still had not revealed her lineage or her people, just as Mordecai had instructed. She obeyed Mordecai’s command, as she had done under his care.
21In those days, while Mordecai was sitting at the king’s gate, Bigthan and Teresh, two of the king’s eunuchs who guarded the entrance, grew angry and conspired to assassinate King Xerxes.
22When Mordecai learned of the plot, he reported it to Queen Esther, and she informed the king on Mordecai’s behalf.
23After the report had been investigated and verified, both officials were hanged on the gallows. And all this was recorded in the Book of the Chronicles in the presence of the king.
Berean Standard Bible
Time has moved on, and the account drops in a fact about Mordecai on the way past.
When the virgins were assembled a second time, Mordecai was sitting at the king's gate.
The gate is where officials sat, so Mordecai holds a post of some kind now. How he came by it, we are not told, any more than we were told why Hegai took to Esther. Esther, meanwhile, has still not said who her people are, because Mordecai told her not to, and she is still doing what he says, the way she did when he was bringing her up. She is queen of Persia, crowned, and nobody in that building knows what family she comes from. The word carrying the weight is still. It takes for granted that we already know, and it says the thing over again anyway.
Then, with no warning at all, an assassination plot. Bigthan and Teresh, two of the eunuchs who guarded the door, grew angry and agreed between them to kill Xerxes. Nobody tells us what they were angry about. They get a grievance, a plan and no motive, and the account is done with them in a sentence.
Mordecai hears of it, and the easy option is sitting right there in front of him. This is the king whose officials took the girl he had raised as his own daughter. This is the palace that runs on the arrangement we have just finished reading about. Mordecai owes the man nothing, and keeping his mouth shut would have cost him nothing either.
When Mordecai learned of the plot, he reported it to Queen Esther, and she informed the king on Mordecai's behalf.
He passed it up the line, and he let his name travel with it. The report was looked into, it held up, and Bigthan and Teresh were hanged. A king's life was saved by a man at the gate who had every reason in the world to let it happen.
And all this was recorded in the Book of the Chronicles in the presence of the king.
A clerk wrote it down while the king stood there. Nobody thanked Mordecai. Nobody paid him or promoted him, and he went back to his seat at the gate with exactly what he had before. The entry went into a book, the book went onto a shelf, and so far as anybody in the palace was concerned the matter was closed. Somebody is going to read that page again on a night when the king cannot sleep.
How We Know
Verse 23 sets up a sentence at 6:1-2, and nothing in either place points at the other. A setup and a payoff fitting that exactly point hard at a book composed as one piece, though deliberateness is what the text withholds.
Here Mordecai's report is investigated, the conspirators are executed, and the whole thing is recorded in the Book of the Chronicles in the king's presence. No reward is given and the book does not remark on the omission.
At 6:1 the king cannot sleep and calls for the Book of Records, the Chronicles, to be read to him. At 6:2 the entry that gets read is this one. At 6:3 the king asks what honor was given to Mordecai for it, and is told nothing was.
So the gap left open here is the exact gap the king notices later. The account does not say it left it open on purpose.
Questions
1 Where is Mordecai sitting now, and what does that tell us about him?
AnswerAt the king's gate, which is where officials sat, so he holds a post of some kind. How he came by it never gets explained. Leaving that sort of thing out is a habit of this book by now.
2 One fact about Esther gets said a second time instead of being assumed. Which one?
AnswerThat she has still not revealed her people or her family. She is crowned and married and nobody in the palace knows where she comes from. The account says it again rather than trusting us to carry it, which usually means it will be needed.
3 Mordecai could have kept quiet about the plot. Why would that have been the easy choice?
AnswerBecause this is the king whose officials took the girl he raised as his own daughter. Esther 2:8 has her gathered into the citadel with the rest of them, and this is the palace that runs on that arrangement. He owed the man nothing, and silence would have cost him nothing. He reported it anyway, through Esther, in his own name.
4 When you do something right and nobody notices, what does it do to you?
AnswerMordecai got nothing for saving the king's life. No thanks and no reward. What he got was a line in a record book, written up with the king standing in the room, and he had no way of knowing it would ever matter. Most of us want the noticing more than we care to admit.
What This Means for Us
He got nothing, and it was written down. A great deal of ordinary faithfulness goes exactly like that. You do the right thing, at some risk, for somebody who has not earned it from you, and then nothing happens: no thanks, no notice, nothing altered, and you go back to your usual seat.
What Mordecai did not know was that a clerk had made a record, and a record can sit unread for years and still be there on the night somebody needs it. So we do the right thing without checking afterward whether it registered anywhere. The registering is not our department.
Prayer
Father, we do good quietly and then we watch to see whether anybody noticed, and we are disappointed. Thank you that nothing is lost with you, and that you keep records we cannot see. Free us from needing the credit now. Amen.