Esther - A Profile of Courage

What makes a hero?  Ask one, and you may find a surprising nonchalance:  “I’m sure other people would have done exactly the same thing,” they say.  “I was just in the right place at the right time.”

People become heroes because they take quick action at that "right time," while others stand watching in horror.  The true hero recognizes the crisis and moves to meet it.  This kind of courage made Esther great - worthy of a book in the Bible.

By the “accident” of her beauty and the “accident” of the former queen’s dismissal, Esther found herself queen of one of the greatest powers of the world.  Then, when all seemed smooth, her crucial moment came.

This moment has been echoed many times since.  As a successful racial minority in the Persian empire, Esther’s people, the Jews, had not melted into their surroundings.  Others were jealous of their success and separatism.  A vengeful prime minister, Haman, made up his mind to destroy them.  He issued an edict of government-sponsored genocide.

Would Queen Esther intervene?  Doing so would risk her life.  And what difference could she make?  She was a powerless sex partner to a king who strongly preferred women who never interfered with his wishes.  She came only when he called, and he had not called her for a month.  And yet she alone, of all the Jews, had access to the king.

Esther’s cousin Mordecai reminded her of her unique place.  “Who knows but that you have come to a royal position for such a time as this?”  Esther responded with action.  Her courageous words are a classic statement of heroism:  “I will go to the king, even though it is against the law.  And if I perish, I perish”.

The book of Esther shows, though indirectly, God’s heroic concern for the Jews.  The story runs on a series of extraordinary coincidences.  Esther just “happened” to be chosen as the new queen.  The king just “happened” to be unable to sleep, and when he picked up some reading, just “happened” across an account of a good deed Esther’s cousin Mordecai had done.  The evil Haman just “happened” along at that crucial moment.  These coincidences, along with Esther’s courage, tilted terrible events toward the Jews’ favor.

Were these really mere coincidences?  Or was God behind them?  The book of Esther does not say directly.  God is not mentioned even once, and sometimes seems deliberately left out.  But believing readers, whether Jews or Christians, can have no doubt.  All of life is under God’s command.  Nothing just happens.  These coincidences were part of God’s plan to save the Jews.

God protected his people because he loved them – because he had chosen them from the beginning.  Even their enemies knew the power of the Jews.  Esther’s story is another chapter in the amazing story of God’s perpetual love for the Jews.  Though sometimes far from his will, this tiny, often hated minority has survived and thrived down the centuries.

From Haman to Hitler, vindictive leaders have hated the Jews.  Yet while no other group has been so hated, no other group has shown the Jews’ ability to overcome adversity.  Nor can any other ethnic group alive today point to such continuity with their ancestors.  They have endured as a unique and great people.  How?  Esther shows that God’s exquisite timing – combined with the courage of individuals who “happened” to be in the right place at the right time – made his chosen people prosper.

(The Devotional Study Bible)