Esther 4:9-14
For Such a Time as This
9So Hathach went back and relayed Mordecai’s response to Esther.
10Then Esther spoke to Hathach and instructed him to tell Mordecai,
11“All the royal officials and the people of the king’s provinces know that one law applies to every man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned—that he be put to death. Only if the king extends the gold scepter may that person live. But I have not been summoned to appear before the king for the past thirty days.”
12When Esther’s words were relayed to Mordecai,
13he sent back to her this reply: “Do not imagine that because you are in the king’s palace you alone will escape the fate of all the Jews.
14For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows if perhaps you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
Berean Standard Bible
Esther sends her answer back through the same messenger, and it is not a refusal. It is a description of the room she is in.
All the royal officials and the people of the king's provinces know that one law applies to every man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned, that he be put to death.
Everybody knows this. She is not telling Mordecai something he could not have found out; she is saying it out loud so the size of it is on the table. One law, one exception, and the exception is that the king may hold out the gold scepter if he feels like it. Nothing in the rule obliges him to.
Then she adds a detail nobody asked her for.
But I have not been summoned to appear before the king for the past thirty days.
She has been counting. She is queen of the empire, and she knows exactly how long it has been since her husband wanted to see her, and the number is not encouraging. Going in uninvited is dangerous for anyone. Going in uninvited when you have been out of mind for a month is worse, and she is the one who has to weigh it.
Mordecai's reply is short and it does not comfort her. He tells her not to imagine that being in the king's palace will let her alone escape what is coming to all the Jews. That removes an exit she had not even mentioned. Whatever she decides, she is one of the people the decree is about, and no address protects her from a document that names her nation.
Then he says something stranger. If she stays silent, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but she and her father's house will perish. He does not say who provides the relief. This book never uses the name of God, and here is the sentence where you would most expect it, and it says another place and stops.
What he is telling her is that the rescue does not depend on her. She is not the only door. She is the door standing open right now, and if she closes it the rescue will come some other way and she will have missed it.
And who knows if perhaps you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?
Notice that it is a question. He does not tell her that God put her there for this. He asks whether she has considered it, and leaves her holding the question, which is a harder thing to be handed than an instruction.
How We Know
Two sentences here are weaker than the argument they sit inside.
Esther 4:11 has the queen reporting that she has not been summoned for thirty days. The detail is unflattering to her, it is not needed to explain the law she has just quoted, and it undercuts the standing of the person saying it.
Esther 4:14 credits the coming deliverance to another place and does not name who sends it. The line about coming to the kingdom for such a time as this is put as a question rather than a claim.
Kept material that lowers the temperature at the two hottest points gives modest evidence of candor.
Questions
1 What is the law Esther describes, and what is the only way around it?
AnswerAnyone who goes to the king in the inner court without being summoned is put to death. The single exception is that the king may extend the gold scepter. The rule leaves that entirely to him.
2 Esther mentions that she has not been summoned in thirty days. Why say it at all?
AnswerBecause it is the part she is actually frightened of. She has been keeping count. The law is dangerous for anybody, and it is more dangerous for a wife the king has not sent for in a month, and she is the one who has to do that arithmetic.
3 Mordecai says relief will come from another place even if she says nothing. How does that change what he is asking her to do?
AnswerIt takes the weight of the whole rescue off her. She is not being told that everything depends on her, which would be a crushing thing to say to somebody. She is being told the deliverance is coming and she can be part of it or not.
4 The last line is a question rather than a statement. Think of a question somebody once asked you that you could not put down. What did it do to you?
AnswerIt stays with you longer than being told would. Mordecai does not say God put her in the palace for this moment. He asks whether she has thought about it, and then he stops talking, and she has to answer it herself.
What This Means for Us
Mordecai hands her two things at once, and they pull against each other. She is not the savior here. And this may be exactly why she is standing where she is standing.
We tend to need one or the other. Either everything rests on us, which is exhausting and slightly flattering, or nothing does, which is comfortable and lets us off. He will not let her have either.
So think about the position you are in this week: the job, the room, the group that listens to you. It probably is not the last hope of anybody. It may still be the place you were put. Both of those can be true, and holding them together is what he is asking her to do.
Prayer
Father, save us from thinking everything depends on us, and from thinking nothing does. Show us what is in front of us to do, and give us the nerve to do it. Thank you that your rescue does not hang on our courage. Amen.