Esther 3:12-15
The King and Haman Sat Down to Drink
12On the thirteenth day of the first month, the royal scribes were summoned and the order was written exactly as Haman commanded the royal satraps, the governors of each province, and the officials of each people, in the script of each province and the language of every people. It was written in the name of King Xerxes and sealed with the royal signet ring.
13And the letters were sent by couriers to each of the royal provinces with the order to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the Jews—young and old, women and children—and to plunder their possessions on a single day, the thirteenth day of Adar, the twelfth month.
14A copy of the text of the edict was to be issued in every province and published to all the people, so that they would be ready on that day.
15The couriers left, spurred on by the king’s command, and the edict was issued in the citadel of Susa. Then the king and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of Susa was in confusion.
Berean Standard Bible
None of this is done in a hurry or in secret. The scribes are summoned. The order is written out exactly as Haman dictates it, and copies go to the satraps, to the governors of every province, and to the officials of each people, each copy in the script of that province and the language of that people. Somebody sat down and produced those copies, in one language after another. The whole apparatus of a government is turned to this, and it runs smoothly.
The order itself is written in the king's name and sealed with his ring, so nobody receiving it has any reason to wonder whether it is genuine.
to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the Jews—young and old, women and children—and to plunder their possessions on a single day
Three verbs where one would do. Whoever wrote that wanted no room left for a local official to decide he had done enough. Then it names who is included, and the two words that carry it are women and children. There is no way to read that as a security measure against a troublesome group. It is the removal of a people, written down and countersigned.
A copy is published in every province so that everyone will be ready on the day. So the intended victims read it too. Eleven months to think about it, with the date printed.
The couriers go out fast. The edict is issued in the citadel of Susa, which is where Mordecai sits and where Esther lives, and then comes the sentence the whole chapter has been walking toward.
Then the king and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of Susa was in confusion.
Two men have a drink. Outside the room, a city cannot make sense of what it has just been handed. The book puts those two things in one sentence, with nothing between them but a comma, and adds no comment.
That is the picture the chapter leaves you with. Not a monster in a dark room. Two men who have finished a piece of business and are now relaxing, while the people who will be killed read the notice in their own language.
How We Know
The book keeps describing a government that works in many languages at once.
Esther 3:12 has the order written to each province in its own script and to every people in its own language. Esther 1:22 said the same thing about an earlier decree. Esther 8:9 says it a third time about the counter-order, adding the Jews in their own script and language.
Three separate decrees, described the same administrative way each time, and the book never pauses to explain the practice or boast about it.
Detail repeated without comment, because the writer assumes it is ordinary, supports somebody familiar with how such orders were actually issued.
Questions
1 How many people had to help for this decree to reach the provinces?
AnswerA great many. Scribes summoned and set to writing, translators for every province and people, couriers to carry it, officials to publish it. None of them is named and none of them refuses.
2 The order says young and old, women and children. Why does the book bother to spell that out?
AnswerBecause it removes any other way of reading it. A government can call almost anything a security measure. Naming the children makes it what it is, and the book records the wording rather than describing it.
3 Copies are published everywhere so everyone will be ready. Who else ends up reading it?
AnswerThe people it is about. They get eleven months and a printed date. The notice written to organize their deaths is also the notice that tells them it is coming.
4 The last verse puts two men having a drink next to a city in confusion. What does that put in your mind?
AnswerUsually something ordinary and awful at the same time. The men who did this are not raving. They have finished for the day. The distance between the room where it was decided and the street where it lands is the whole point of the verse.
What This Means for Us
The machinery here is impressive and it never once resists. Scribes wrote what they were told. Translators found the right words in their own language. Couriers rode hard. Every one of them was doing his job well, and the job was this.
Most harm on a large scale needs people who are only doing their part. So the question for us is smaller and harder than whether we would sign the order. It is whether we would carry it, or copy it out, or translate it into the language of our own province, and tell ourselves that the decision was made further up.
Prayer
Father, give us the courage to stop when the work in front of us is wrong, even when everybody around us is carrying on. Do not let us hide behind our part of a thing. And keep us awake to what we are helping along. Amen.