This weekend, Jewish people from all over the world will be celebrating Purim, a holiday which honors God for saving His people from the wicked Haman during the time of the Medo-Persian Empire. We can learn a lot about courage and bravery from this story about two Queens who stood up for what was right.
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Hi! I’m Miss Tyler and welcome to another episode of Context for Kids where I teach you guys stuff most adults don’t even know. If this is your first time hearing or if you have missed anything, you can find all the episodes archived at contextforkids.podbean.com, which has them downloadable, or at contextforkids.com, where I have transcripts for readers or on my Context for Kids YouTube channel.
Parents, just FYI, the story of Esther involves the use of alcohol and so if you do not want your kids to hear this, then you might want to turn off the radio and listen to the podcast or read the transcript before you let the kids listen. As always, my goal is to equip and not to override parental oversight.
Have you guys ever heard of the Feast of Purim? You won’t find it in Exodus, Leviticus or Deuteronomy. Nope, Moses never celebrated it or King David or Abraham because the reason for this celebration happened hundreds of years after they were all dead! In fact, we learn about this celebration in the only book of the Old Testament that was written about someone who didn’t ever live in Israel at all. The name of this book of the Bible is called Esther, and it is one of two books in the Bible written entirely about a woman and named after a woman. The name of the other book is Ruth. Ruth was born in the foreign land of Moab, which was Israel’s next-door neighbor, but Esther was born in Susa in the land of what the Bible calls Elam. Instead of being in modern day Iraq like Babylonia and Assyria, Susa was even farther away in modern day Iran. When Nehemiah traveled from Susa to Jerusalem, it took him three whole months to get there. That’s one long way away from home! But for most Jews who were alive when Esther was born, Susa or one of the other cities of the Persians was the only home they had ever known. Of course, they had been told stories about Jerusalem but who had even been there in the last hundred years? The Jews, except the poorest, had been forced to walk from Jerusalem about 1300 miles to Babylon. The Prophet Ezekiel told them that they would be there for seventy years and that they needed to settle down, plant gardens, have families and work and pray for the good of the cities they had been moved to. Esther’s grandfather had been one of the men forced to walk all that way and when her parents died, her cousin Mordecai took care of her.
But they lived a strange life as Jews in a foreign land. Their religion was nothing like the religion of the people around them. They worshiped one and only one God: the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They didn’t go near the pagan temples or eat the meat from their sacrifices. They didn’t have idols in their homes. They followed the commandments that Moses had given them at Mt Sinai after God had freed His people from slavery. But their grandparents and great-grandparents actually did worship idols and some of them even did it in God’s very own Temple. Their grandmothers cried in the Temple for Tammuz in the hot months of summer, praying for him to come back from the underworld so that the rain would fall again. And they baked unleavened bread not for God but for the Queen of Heaven whom they thought was God’s wife! And the men were bowing down to the sun and when they did that, they were sticking their rear ends in the air toward God’s Temple. So not cool. And they had carved pictures of every creepy crawly thing on the walls of the Temple and were worshiping them too! They even brought idols of other gods into the Temple. One day, after God had warned them for hundreds and hundreds of years, His glory that had always lived in the Holy of Holies just picked up and left and never came back and once He was gone, they were easy pickings for the Babylonian army to come and destroy. And so, they came to live in Babylon, and then in places like Susa and many other cities. When King Cyrus told them that they could go back home to Israel, most stayed right where they were—like Esther and Mordecai’s families. It was very comfortable in Susa and much safer than it was back in Israel, where people struggled to rebuild the walls and the city and the Temple in Jerusalem.
Esther and Mordecai were related to the very first King of Israel—a man named Saul. And God told Saul to go to war with people called the Amalekites, who were very evil and cruel and were always trying to kill them. But when Saul had the chance, he tried to let a King named Agag live. Because God had told him that Agag had to die and Saul had disobeyed, God took His Holy Spirit away from Saul and made someone else king. But without the Holy Spirit, Saul became insane and very dangerous. Although the prophet Samuel obeyed God and killed the wicked king, Agag must have had a son who got away because Esther and Mordecai are going to meet a terrible enemy who is an Agagite, and that means he is a descendant of that wicked King of Amalek, the hated enemies of Israel since they came out of Egypt.
Of course, none of that is Esther or Mordecai’s fault but it’s going to create some very bad problems.
But Esther isn’t the first brave queen that we meet in the book of Esther. The first Queen is not a Jew at all, but a very beautiful woman named Vashti. We don’t really know much of anything about Vashti except for what happened to her when her husband the King threw one big party. You see, the King had been showing off to everyone in all of the Persian Empire, from Africa to India, how rich and powerful and amazing he was for six whole months—half a year. And when he was done with that, he threw a huge party (in his own honor) for everyone who lived in Susa, where his palace was. Rich people, poor people, powerful people, and people who had no power at all. Everyone was invited and they were allowed to eat whatever they wanted to and drink as much wine as they wanted. The party was at his palace and it lasted for seven straight days. And if you don’t know what happens when people drink all the wine they want for seven days, lemme tell you that some people get silly and other people get really mean and other people are falling down. It is not a pretty sight. And people throw up and when they stop drinking they get terrible headaches. So, I want you to think about everyone in the entire city being like this. It’s kind of my nightmare. And they were all invited into the palace, so I would seriously hate to be working there during this party.
And this brave queen, Vashti, was having her own party with just the women who were in the palace. Vashti was special, and pretty, but very few people ever got to see her. She couldn’t go outside the palace to go shopping or get her hair and nails done or buy a new dress or shoes, nor could she have a job or go to school. Nope, everyone came to her. She was protected because it was a very dangerous world and besides, the King believed that only he and the people who worked in the palace should be able to be around her and very few people could actually touch her. Was she a mom? We don’t know if they had any children. Was she a princess from far away or was she born right there in Susa? We don’t know that either. In fact, we don’t know anything about her thoughts or beliefs or how she spent her time. Did she have hobbies, or did she sit around all day being pampered? Could she play musical instruments? Did she have a nice singing voice? What was her favorite color? The Bible doesn’t tell us those kinds of things about, well, just about anyone. That’s not what the Bible is for. The Bible is for us to teach us about God and not about the everyday lives of the people mentioned in it. We learn about God based on how He reacts when people do certain things—whether He is patient or angry or whatever. Mostly, He is just really patient which is a really good thing, or He would have zapped me with a bolt of lightning a long time ago.
Well, she was having her private dinner party with the other ladies while, somewhere else, everyone is totally messed up from drinking wine for seven days straight and her husband, the King, decided that he wanted everyone to see how beautiful she was and so he told her to come to them in her crown so he could show her off. I don’t know about you, but if I were her I would be really scared to do something like that because when people have been drinking too much wine, you never know what they are going to do because people who are drunk are very unpredictable. They aren’t their normal selves because they can’t control themselves like they normally do. Unpredictable is a word that means you just don’t know for sure how they are going to act or exactly what they are going to do. When I was a kid, I had someone in my life like that and I never really felt safe. It’s important for us to always be safe people and to be able to control the things we do. Jesus had wine to drink too, but we never see him acting badly. A little wine is fine, but seven days’ worth of wine is a really bad idea!
So, what did Vashti do when she was told to come to her husband’s party where everyone in the whole city was drunk? She had a very hard decision to make, because no one was allowed to say no to the King but showing up at a party where everyone was drunk was very shameful and she had been taught since she was a small child the importance of never being shamed. Being shamed was very dangerous for a woman, and although her husband wasn’t thinking straight because he was drunk, Vashti knew that what he was asking her to do could ruin her reputation. It was a terrible choice to have to make, but Vashti couldn’t allow herself to be shamed just so her husband could show off. When he wasn’t drunk, he would remember that, and Vashti had to trust that he would be happy that she had disobeyed him because shame to her was also shame to him. In the ancient world, nothing was more important to people than having everyone respect you. And a man’s reputation, even if he was embarrassed for a while, could be fixed again, but not if you were a woman. So, Vashti trusted her husband and said no.
But her husband was a very proud and impulsive man—which will get many people into a lot of trouble as the story continues. To be impulsive means that he often did things without really thinking about the consequences. He was also very easily manipulated and influenced by others—which means that his councilors could get him to do what they wanted him to do. He was angry, and so it was easy for his councilors to convince him that he needed to get rid of Queen Vashti because, if he didn’t, then it would be ruining family life for everyone because every man’s wife would believe that she could say no to him and they didn’t think that a woman should ever be able to say no to a man. About anything! And so, they used what Vashti did to make it so that all women were required to obey their husbands no matter what and that Vashti couldn’t be Queen anymore and could never see the King again. The King was so drunk and angry that he agreed, but after the party was over, he remembered her and regretted it. Unfortunately, any law of Persia couldn’t be undone, and so bad laws were laws forever—which is a really terrible idea. I would really be scared to live in a country where you could never change the laws. I wouldn’t even be able to vote! But there are much worse laws than that which we have had to get rid of and I am grateful they are gone.
But his councilors came up with a plan to get a new queen for the King. It involved sending officers out into all of the 127 provinces, from Africa to India, and taking the beautiful, unmarried young women (teenagers), away from their families and taking them to the harem for the rest of their lives. They would get to live in a fancy place and would have plenty of food and nice clothing but they would never see their families again or have families of their own with a husband or children. And all this so that the King could choose a new queen but the ones who weren’t chosen weren’t ever sent home again. After four years, the King finally chose a young woman named Hadassah, who was also called Esther.
And we’ve already talked a bit about Esther and her cousin Mordecai. Esther was very beautiful and the people who ran the harem where she lived were very impressed with her and they gave her the best room and seven servants and the best food and the best everything. So, she lived there for four years before becoming Queen of Persia. But even after she became queen, she didn’t live a normal life. She couldn’t visit her husband, he had to decide to see her! Did she like her husband? We have no idea. Esther didn’t really have a choice, and he could have her killed anytime he wanted to, so she had to be very careful. Esther’s cousin Mordecai had told her not to let them know that she was Jewish. And that was very wise because if she made the King angry, he might take it out on the Jews in some way. By hiding her identity, Esther protected her people from a king who could be very dangerous.
But because of the hatred between her cousin Mordecai and a powerful man named Haman, a time came when Esther would have to make a difficult choice, just like Vashti. You see, her cousin had refused to bow down before Haman as he passed through the streets of Susa and although Haman never noticed, someone told him and when he found out that Mordecai was a Jew, a member of the same people who had killed his ancestors, well that made Haman furious and he decided to get revenge. But he didn’t just want Mordecai dead, he wanted every Jew in the Persian Empire—from Africa to India—dead. Some scholars, that’s people who study the historical context of the Bible, think that there were about 750,000 Jews spread out all over the place. Just think about someone who is so ridiculous that he would want to kill that many people just because someone disrespected him! That’s someone who should have never been given power because he is way too touchy and prideful to be trusted with it.
And so, Haman tricked the King with lies about the Jews not being good citizens and being dangerous to his kingdom and the King didn’t even ask who they were or fact check anything but gave Haman permission to just have them all murdered by their neighbors, who would also be allowed to rob their houses and businesses afterward. But God had other plans because when Haman cast lots to figure out when the gods wanted him to do it, he was forced to wait almost an entire year, until the end of winter. Haman was given permission to write a law that gave people the legal power to kill all of their Jewish neighbors and take their stuff. And if you remember, once something was a law in Persia, it couldn’t ever be taken back no matter what. But the King was a very foolish man who chose to trust wicked people and who didn’t stop to think before making terrible decisions. When the law was read in the 127 provinces of Persia, the Jews were terrified and they put on sackcloth and wailed in the streets. This is how people in the ancient world responded when something terrible was happening and especially when someone had died. But now they were all going to die. But God had different plans.
When Esther was told that her cousin was dressed in sackcloth and had covered his head in ashes and was wailing in the streets and at the King’s Gate, she had her servants send him nice clothes and ask what was wrong—because she didn’t know. Remember that she couldn’t leave the palace and was kept away from everything the king was doing. She was shocked and terrified when she found out that in eleven months, her people were all going to be killed! Mordecai told Esther that she had to do something to stop it, and that this must be why she was made Queen of Persia. But Esther was scared because her husband the king was gathering more young girls and he hadn’t seen her in a month—Esther knew that he was probably thinking of replacing her with someone else. Maybe Esther couldn’t have any babies. They had been married for quite a few years now but he had already gotten rid of one queen and Esther knew that she might be next. Also, she wasn’t allowed to go see the king just anytime she wanted to. If she went to him and he got angry, he could have her killed on the spot. He had to take his scepter and hold it out to her to welcome her. But he wasn’t interested in seeing her anymore, so she knew he would probably just have her killed. But she asked Mordecai to have all of the Jews fast for three days—no food and no water. Fasting is a way of humbling ourselves before God, it is a form of prayer, showing God that we are completely in His hands. And so, all of the Jews in Susa did this for three days.
On the third day, Esther had her servants prepare a great feast for three people and she put on her best clothes and went before the king. It was the first time she had seen him in a month so she didn’t know how he felt about her anymore. She was surprised when he held out his scepter to her and welcomed her to come closer. He asked her what she wanted and told her that he would give her up to half the Kingdom. Wow, when God wants to give someone favor, which means that He makes it so that people like us and want to do things to help us or even just so that they will listen to us, He really knows how to give us favor in a big way. But Esther didn’t ask for anything for herself. She only asked that the King would join her for a feast in his honor and that he would bring Haman as well. Now, that might shock you that she asked for the enemy of her people to come but she had a very smart plan. So, they came to her quarters and ate and drank with her and her husband the King asked again what she wanted, that he would give her just about anything. And she surprised him by asking him to come again tomorrow, and then she would tell him what it was that she wanted.
It was like the best day ever for Haman because in those days, inviting someone to eat with you meant that you were honoring them and showing them that you think they are important. It was an incredible honor—he worked for the King, but the Queen chose him to have a feast with when she was almost never around men at all unless they were servants. And so he went home and bragged about it to everyone. But then something happened that made Haman very angry and that’s when things started going very wrong for him—and it is a funny story that I will teach you next year—but he showed up at Esther’s second feast the next day as planned, even though he had been having the worst day ever—but it was about to get a lot worse. As they were feasting, the King asked Esther what she wanted, and again promised her up to half the Kingdom. And that was when Esther begged the King not to have her killed. The King was surprised and angry when she told him that there was a law that was written that gave everyone in the Kingdom permission to kill every Jew in all of the territories of Persia. Shockingly, the King was clueless about who had done this even though he had been the one who gave permission for Haman to write that law and even gave Haman his signet ring so he could make the law official—as if the King had written it himself. This shows us how careless and thoughtless the King was that he didn’t even remember what he had agreed to!
And so, he demanded that Esther tell him who on earth had come up with such an evil plan—and she pointed at Haman and said it was him. The King was so angry that he had been tricked into a plan that would kill his own wife, and the man who had saved his life years earlier—her cousin Mordecai, that he stormed out into her gardens and when he did, Haman was so panicked that he went to Esther and begged her to have mercy and spare his life but he made a terrible mistake. He flopped himself down on the couch where Esther was reclining and that was a huge no-no. No man could touch the Queen unless that man was a special type of servant who was sworn to protect and serve her. Any other man who touched the Queen was guilty of treason and when the King came back and saw Haman with the Queen, he accused him of trying to harm her. And then it got even worse because Harbona, one of the servants of the King, told him that Haman had built a gallows so that he could hang her cousin Mordecai, who had saved the Kings life. The King told Harbona to hang Haman on his own gallows.
When the King calmed down, he gave Esther everything that had belonged to Haman and he gave her cousin Mordecai Haman’s job. But the problem wasn’t over yet because there was still a law giving everyone in the Kingdom permission to kill the Jews and rob them. And the law couldn’t be taken back. So Esther and Mordecai worked together to come up with a plan that gave the Jews permission to fight back against anyone who wanted to hurt them, and that they could do to those people what would have been done to the Jews. And on the day that they would have been destroyed, the 13th of the month of Adar, they instead were able to defeat all of their enemies—but they didn’t take anything that belonged to them. The Jews were saved and so there is a great celebration on the 15th of Adar to celebrate what God did for them, and they called it Purim.
I love you. I am praying for you. And I want you to remember that Esther’s God is your God too, and He loves you a whole lot more than I do.