Real Men Do Cry Series

Consider also Mordecai’s statement –‘By his words ‘on behalf of her people’ Mordecai was now for the first time revealing the fact that to the servants that Esther was a Jewess. Personal considerations were no longer important. The existence of a whole nation was at stake.

4.9 ‘And Hathach came and told Esther the words of Mordecai.’

We will see now that after Hathach returned to Esther and told her what Mordecai had said. She will send him on a return trip back to Mordecai.

Esther then sent a message to Mordecai pointing out that what he was asking would put her life in danger. Approaching the king in the way required (was dangerous in the extreme. Anyone attempting it would be subject to the whim of the king, and at present she did not appear to be in high favor, not having been summoned by the king in the previous thirty days.

4.10 ‘Then Esther spoke to Hathach, and gave him a message to Mordecai (saying) 11 ‘All the king’s servants, and the people of the king’s provinces, know, that whoever, whether man or woman, shall come to the king into the inner court, who is not called, there is one law for him, that he be put to death, except for those to whom the king shall hold out the golden sceptre, that he may live. But I have not been called to come in to the king these thirty days.’

She pointed out what was well known by all, both king’s servants (the officials who served the king), and peoples of the provinces. And that was that a direct personal approach to the king without previous representations was fraught with danger. To personally approach the king in the inner court, without having been authorized to do so, or without having been summoned, was to court death. The only exception was in cases where the king was pleased to extend his golden sceptre towards someone, indicating that he was ready to receive them, with the consequence that they would be allowed to live. Such an approach would thus only be made in the direst of emergencies. And she then pointed out that at that time she did not appear to be in favor with the king, for he had not summoned her for ‘thirty days’, that is for over the equivalent of a moon period. Thus she would have no certainty of acceptance. The ‘thirty days’ was probably a general indication rather than an exact figure.

It is true that we know from Herodotus that it was possible to submit a petition requesting the privilege of coming into the king’s presence, in which case the above would not apply. Permission would already have been granted. But this course was, of course, excluded for Esther, for that petition would have had to include within it the reasons for the approach, and as Esther recognized, her only hope of obtaining deliverance for her people was through her own personal intercession in intimacy with the king. She would be attempting to overturn the king’s decree, and she recognized that such a petition to approach him in order to alter the king’s decree would have been rejected out of hand. And she would especially think this because at that time she appeared to be out of favor with the king. She would know that the only hope lay in a personal approach which would bring her into the king’s favor, after which she could divulge the reason for her approach. Her aims were most likely to succeed if the king thought that her approach to him was made out of her desire to please him. We should consider in this regard the elaborate way in which she went about things, gradually bringing herself back into his favor by a number of stratagems. Esther knew her Ahasuerus. We can consider how even today women will often save difficult requests to their husbands for moments of intimacy, after a period of special favor, knowing that then they are most likely to succeed.