If you never read the book of ESTER in bible or Torah or watched the movie one night with the king your missing out its all about her Faith she never waiver in her faith to marry the king after all the competion and his concubines and a full year of waiting and beautification treatments but her purpose for him to pick her was only the FAVOR of God ONLY to save her Jewish people from destruction and so he could be a true follower of Gods ways Queen Esther (1878) by Edwin Long. Esther (/ˈɛstər/; Hebrew: אֶסְתֵּר, Modern Ester Tiberian ʼEstēr), born Hadassah, is the eponymous heroine of the Book of Esther. According to the Bible, Esther was a Jewish queen of the Persian king Ahasuerus. Ahasuerus is traditionally identified with Xerxes I during the time of the Achaemenid empire. Her story is the basis for the celebration of Purim in Jewish tradition. However, there have yet to be any non-biblical accounts to verify her existence. In the BibleEdit Main article: Book of Esther King Ahasuerus held a 180-day feast in Susa (Shoushan). While in high spirits from the wine, he ordered his queen, Vashti, to appear before him and his guests to display her beauty. But when the attendants delivered the kings command to Queen Vashti, she refused to come. Furious at her refusal to obey, the king asked his wise men what should be done. One of them said that all the women in the empire would hear that The King Ahasuerus commanded Vashti the queen to be brought in before him, but she came not. Then the women of the empire would despise their husbands. And this would cause many problems in the kingdom. Therefore it would be good to depose her.[1] To find a new queen suitable to the King, it was decreed that beautiful young virgins be gathered to the palace from every province of his kingdom. Each woman underwent twelve months of beautification in his harem, after which she would go to the king. When the womans turn came, she was given anything she wanted to take with her from the harem to the kings palace. She would then go to the king in the evening, and in the morning go to the harem where the concubines stayed. She would not return to the king unless he was pleased enough with her to summon her again by name.[2] For his queen, the King chose Esther, an orphan raised by her cousin,[3] Mordecai, to replace the recalcitrant Queen Vashti. Esther was originally named Hadassah, meaning myrtle. Esther 2:7: And he brought up Hadassah, that is, Esther, his uncles daughter: for she had neither father nor mother, and the maid was fair and beautiful; whom Mordecai, when her father and mother were dead, took for his own daughter. Esther was the daughter of a Benjamite, Abihail. When Cyrus gave permission for the exiles to return unto Jerusalem she stayed with Mordecai. Shortly, when Mordecai was sitting at the kings gates, he overheard two of the kings officers guarding the gates plotting to assassinate the king. Mordecai let Esther know, and she warned the king about it, and Mordecai was given credit. The two conspirators were hanged on a gallows. Soon after this, King Ahasuerus granted Haman the Agagite,[note 1] one of the most prominent princes of the realm, special honours. All the people were to bow down to Haman when he rode his horse through the streets. All complied except for Mordecai, a Jew, who would bow to no one but his God. This enraged Haman, who, with his wife and advisers, plotted against the Jews, making a plan to kill and extirpate all Jews throughout the Persian empire, selecting the date for this act by the drawing of lots (Esther 3:7). After laying charges of sedition against the Jews, Haman gained the kings approval to write a decree for their destruction; offering ten thousand silver talents to the king for approval of this plan (Esther 3:9-11). Mordecai tore his robes and put ash on his head (signs of mourning or grieving) on hearing this news. When Esther was told of this, she was grieved and sent Mordecai fresh robes, since none could enter into the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth. He refused and Esther sent Hatach, one of the king’s chamberlains appointed to wait on her, to ask Mordecai the cause of his mourning and why he refused the clothes. Mordecai sent back a reply explaining about Haman and the decree, sending her a copy of it, and the charge that she should go in unto the king, to make supplication unto him, and to make request before him for her people. Esther replied that there was a law that anyone who came unto the king uncalled by him should be put to death, except such to whom the king shall hold out the golden sceptre, that he may live: but I have not been called to come in unto the king these thirty days. (Esth. 4:11, KJV) Esther was terrified for her life if she did as Mordecai said. Mordecai was told Esthers reply, and he sent back a message that Esther should not think that she would escape the genocide because she was in the kings house, any more than all the other Jews. And further, that, if she held her peace at this time, deliverance would arise from somewhere else, but she and her fathers house would be destroyed. He ended his message with these consoling words: Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this? (Esth. 4:13-14, KJV.) Upon hearing Mordecais message, Esther exhibited her resolution by seeking spiritual strength for her before she went uncalled unto the king—that she might steadfast, whether to perhaps find favor in the kings sight and be the means of deliverance for their people, or else to die in the attempt—in returning to Mordecai this answer: Go, gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan, and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day: I also and my maidens will fast likewise; and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish. (Esther 4:16 KJV.) Mordecai followed her instructions. So she and her maid-servants and all the Jews present in Shushan, fasted earnestly for three days as part of a supplication to God on behalf of Esther. At the end of the three days, Esther dressed in her royal apparel (Esther 5:1) and bravely went before the king, standing in the inner court where he sat upon his throne. When the king saw Esther the queen standing in the court, (Esth. 5:2 KJV), he was pleased with her and held out his scepter to her, thus saving her from death (Esth. 4:11) and indicating that he accepted her visit. She came forward and touched his scepter. The king then asked Esther her will, and what her petition and request of him was, promising to grant even up to half his kingdom should she ask it. Esther humbly requested that the king and Haman come to a banquet she had prepared for the king. No one else was invited, which filled Haman with pride. During the banquet, Queen Esther requested of the king another banquet with him and Haman on the following day. Ahasuerus and Haman at the Feast of Esther, by Rembrandt After the banquet Haman ran into Mordecai sitting in the kings gate. Haman was so incensed with Mordecai for not deferring to him, that, on the advice of his wife and friends, he ordered a gallows constructed, 75 feet (23 m) high, on which to hang Mordecai the next day, after obtaining the kings consent. That night, the king couldnt sleep and so he had some histories read to him. From the reading the king remembered that Mordecai had saved him from an assassination attempt, and had received no reward in return. Early the next morning, Haman came to the king to ask permission to hang Mordecai, but before he could do so, the king asked him: What should be done for the man whom the king delights to honor? Haman thought the king meant himself, so he said that the man should wear a royal robe and be led on one of the kings horses through the city streets proclaiming before him, This is what is done for the man the king delights to honor! Pleased by this idea, the king startled Haman by commanding Haman to lead none other than Mordecai through the streets in this way, to honor him for previously telling the king of a plot against him. Haman obeyed then, while Mordecai returned to his spot by the kings gate, Haman rushed home, grieving, and told his wise men and wife everything. His wife said to him, You will surely come to ruin! That evening during the banquet, King Ahasuerus again asked Esther what her petition was and made her the same promise as before. Esther asked that her life be spared and the lives of her people, the Jews of the Persian Empire, who were the people Haman had previously convinced the king must be massacred (Esth. 3). In doing so, she declared her ethnicity. Hamans treachery so inflamed the king that he left the banquet and went into the palace garden. Haman, seeing that his situation was precarious, pled with Esther to save his life, ending up on her couch beside her as he begged—which caused the king to jump to an obvious conclusion upon returning to the banquet from the garden. Seeing Haman thus, the kings wrath knew no bounds, thinking that Haman was about to molest Esther. He cried, Will he force the queen also before me in the house? (Esth. 5: 8, KJV.) Whereupon, the kings chamberlains seized Haman, and one of them told the king of the gallows Haman had constructed for Mordecai. The king told them: Hang [Haman] thereon. And so Haman was hung on the gallows he had built for Mordecai, and the kings wrath pacified. (Esth. 7:10, KJV.) The king then appointed Mordecai as his prime minister, after which Esther went again before the king, and fell down at his feet, and besought him with tears to put away the mischief of Haman. Then, as before, the king held out the scepter toward Esther and she stood and pled with him to reverse the letters of Haman against the Jews. In consequence, the king instructed Mordecai to issue a decree giving the Jews the right to defend themselves. The second edict allowed the Jews to arm themselves, and kill not only their enemies but also their enemies wives and children, as well as partake of the plunder (Esther 8:11). This precipitated a series of reprisals by the Jews against their enemies. This fight began on the 13th of Adar, the date the Jews were originally slated to be exterminated. Altogether eight hundred were killed in Susa alone, 75,000 in the rest of the empire. The Jews took no plunder (Esther 9:10,9:15-16). The Jews established an annual feast, the feast of Purim, in memory of their deliverance. According to traditional rabbinic dating, this took place about fifty-two years after the start of the Babylonian Exile
Posted on: Wed, 19 Nov 2014 17:20:22 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015