The Girl-Queen, the Captive Conqueror: A Devotional Commentary on Esther (5:9-14)

In Esther 5:14, after Mordecai once again snubs him, Haman sets about building the 50-foot gallows on which he intends to exact his revenge. There is a layer to this conflict between Mordecai and Haman that isn’t immediately apparent, but once you notice it, some very subtle themes in the Book of Esther start to stand out sharply. Mordecai is from the tribe of Benjamin, a descendant, in fact, of Kish, who was the father of King Saul (2:5). Haman is an Amalekite, a descendant of King Agag (3:1).

This is more than just some random family history. Back in 1 Samuel 15, some 500 years or so before Esther, Saul had led Israel in battle against the Amalekites, and, though God told him to completely destroy Agag’s line, he instead took him hostage (presumably for the ransom or tribute he could exact from him), making the war about his own self-advancement as King, instead of serving the Lord. His “taking matters into his own hands” like this is one of the reasons the Lord rejected him as king; and now, some 500 years later, the whole of God’s people are teetering on the knife-edge of destruction because of a plot hatched by one of Agag’s descendants. On the one hand, the Book of Esther re-frames 1 Samuel 15 for us a little bit, putting Saul’s divine directive to destroy King Agag into fresh perspective. Had Saul followed through on his orders then, Haman would not be scheming now to slaughter God’s people (although, I admit, it only re-frames things a little bit; the violence of 1 Samuel 15 is still hard for Christians to get, and should be). But now, 500 years after the fact, a descendant of Saul must grapple with a descendant of Agag, faithfully succeeding where Saul himself had faithlessly failed.

Christians, of course, interpret the battles of the Old Testament spiritually (our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against spiritual forces in the heavenly realms, Eph. 6:12), and when we view this Saul-Mordecai/Haman-Agag conflict from that perspective, a poignant question comes into focus: Who’s to say what beautiful consequence my obedience today may result in centuries from now, in the saving plan of God?

Saul, of course, had no way of knowing that *disobedience* in the Agag affair would blossom into Haman’s genocidal plot some five centuries later, anymore than he could have known that obedience might have averted Haman’s evil. In the same way, we don’t know how God intends to use our victories over the spiritual “Agags” that we’re asked to face, and resist and overcome (again, our battle is not against flesh and blood), years from now, centuries, even, in the mysterious plan of his saving grace. But one of the messages of Esther, I think, is that with Him, no act of obedience is wasted.