Esther 4:15-17
If I Perish, I Perish
15Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai:
16“Go and assemble all the Jews who can be found in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day, and I and my maidens will fast as you do. After that, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish!”
17So Mordecai went and did all that Esther had instructed him.
Berean Standard Bible
Three verses, and the whole book turns over inside them.
Esther sends her answer, and the first thing in it is an instruction. Go and assemble all the Jews who can be found in Susa. Fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day, and she adds that she and her maidens will do the same. She is not asking to be prayed over from a safe distance. She is putting the whole city on the same footing as herself for three days.
The book does not say they prayed. It says they fasted, and it leaves the rest where it leaves everything else in this story, just under the surface where you can make it out without being told.
After that, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish!
She has not stopped being afraid. Nothing here says she has. She names the law she is about to break, and then she says the worst outcome out loud rather than talking herself round it. That is not confidence. It is a decision made with the cost fully in view, which is the only kind worth much.
Then the last verse, and it is easy to read past.
So Mordecai went and did all that Esther had instructed him.
He had been the one giving instructions. Back in chapter two she was doing what he told her, the way she had since he took her in. Now she says go, and he goes.
Nobody comments on it. The book does not pause to tell us that the girl has become the queen or that the guardian has become the messenger. It just changes who is giving orders in the middle of a sentence and carries on, and if you are reading quickly you will miss it entirely.
How We Know
The turn in these verses is made by grammar rather than by announcement, which is a small sign of a book reporting rather than arguing.
Esther 2:20 records that Esther still did what Mordecai told her, as she had when he was bringing her up. That is the standing arrangement the book has established.
Esther 4:16 has her giving him a set of instructions, and 4:17 records that he went and did all she had instructed him.
The reversal is complete and the book never mentions it. A story arranging itself to make a point about Esther would say so; this one changes the direction of the verbs and moves on, and settles nothing about Esther herself.
Questions
1 What does Esther ask the Jews in Susa to do, and what does she do herself?
AnswerAssemble and fast for three days, without eating or drinking, night or day. She says she and her maidens will fast in the same way. She does not ask anybody for something she is not doing.
2 She says if I perish, I perish. Is that the same as being brave?
AnswerNot quite. It is naming the worst thing that could happen and going anyway. She is still frightened, and she is still going, and she does not talk herself into pretending the danger is smaller than it is.
3 Who is giving the orders by the end of these three verses?
AnswerEsther. The last line says Mordecai went and did all that she had instructed him, which is the opposite of the arrangement the book set up earlier. Nobody in the story remarks on it.
4 Can you think of a time somebody in this family stepped up and took charge of something? What made it possible for them to do that?
AnswerOften somebody older stepped back at the right moment. Mordecai pushed her hard in the passage before this one, and then he did what she told him without a word about it. Making room for that is its own kind of work.
What This Means for Us
The line everybody remembers is if I perish, I perish. The line that shows what changed is the one after it, where the older man does what the young woman says.
He had raised her. He had told her what to do since she was a child. On the day she decided to walk into that court, he stopped directing and started carrying out, and the book gives that no ceremony whatsoever.
So here is the harder question for the adults in this room. When somebody younger than you is the one who has to act, can you take the instruction and go? That transfer usually costs the older person something, and it is almost never marked.
Prayer
Father, thank you for a woman who counted the cost out loud and went anyway. Give us courage that does not depend on feeling brave. And where somebody else should be leading, help us hand it over and do what we are asked. Amen.