I don’t recall reading the book of Ester before, not from beginning to end anyway. Reading this jewel as a stand-alone piece is extremely enjoyable and entertaining in itself. Paying attention to the fact that the scripture is an integrated message system gives me a different perspective when I read the book, because I am paying more attention to detail. The book of Ester revolves around three main players which are: Ester, Haman and Mordechai,
To give a synopsis of the book, The Jews are under the rule of the Persians when Xerxes I starts his hunt for a new queen. Mordechai, a Jew and the uncle of Ester talks her into applying for the job. She does and becomes Xerxes I’s new queen. Power hungry, and resident madman Haman, Xerxes right hand man, gets insulted by Mordechai and decides to punish him by wiping out all of the Jews under Persian rule. Shrewd Ester with the assistance and coaching of Mordechai, sets Haman up big time and saves the day. Other than a cool story the this little gem of a book that, on the surface, seems almost like a sidebar to the rest of the Tanach, is very, very important prophetically to the survival and continuance of the Jewish race. I elaborate more on this when I cover the Feast of Purim.
I am grateful to the research of Chuck Missler in his commentaries, for he points out Mordechai was on the scene to assist and coach his cousin Ester, because of the grace of King David, a man after the Lord’s own heart when he spared Modechai’s ancestor Shemei for cursing him. We also know that Haman, the bad guy of the story, was on the scene because of King Saul’s failure to carry God’s orders to kill Agag, a failure that sealed Saul’s decline and doom. We can infer this because of the inclusion by the Holy Spirit of the genealogy of these two characters at the beginning of the book. I also believe that Ester, being a cousin to Mordechai, was also a product of this grace assuming her mother or father were siblings to Modechai’s father.
Other than the obvious, I see a parallel type here in the story of this great woman I want to throw out.
I see also a ‘type’ on display here that commentators I have read don’t mention. Haman was a power hungry arrogant person who developed a hatred toward Mordechai and all he represented, which in my opinion was the will of the Jews to remain separate and faithful to their God rather that bow to the will of this pagan Gentile. For this, Haman sought to exterminate the Jews until Ester was able to assist and thwart the plans, thus saving her people from destruction because of the will of a mad man.
Fast forward twenty five hundred years and we find Hitler. Hitler had a personal vendetta against the Jews and was able to cause laws to be created that allowed the attempted extermination of the Jews until the allied forces, with the major player being the United States thwarted their plans and ended up saving the Jews from extermination. In this way I see Haman as type for Hitler and I see Mordechai and Ester as types for the allied forces and the United States.
As a sidebar: There is an example of Assyria destroying the Northern Kingdom of Israel by forcing assimilation of the Jews in that area that they captured into their culture therefore destroying they identity through dispersal rather than wholesale slaughter. This is a different method than the example I attempted to outline above. As far as I know these examples, Haman and Hitler were the only two attempts so far, to exterminate the Jewish race through violence.
God Bless
Jim
4-29-11
jimbussell 