The Girl Queen, the Captive Conqueror: A Devotional Commentary on the Book of Esther (6:1-10)

Esther 6:1 lies right at the literary centre of this story, and the narrative unfolds on either side of this verse in a chiasmic structure. Chiasm (meaning ‘X’ in Greek) was a very common story-telling device in Hebrew literature, where the story follows an A-B-C-D-C-B-A kind of pattern (or an ‘X’ shape, if you can visualize it). Let me illustrate:

A1. The King’s great Feast (1:1-12)
..B1. Esther made Queen, with feasting (2:1-17)
....C1. The King’s decree to destroy the Jews (3:1-15)
......D1. The King offers Esther up to half his kingdom (5:3)
........E1. Esther’s 1st banquet (5:5-8)
..........F1. Haman plots to murder Mordecai (5:9-14)
............G. The King can’t sleep (6:12)
..........F2. Haman forced to honor Mordecai (6:4-14)
........E2. Esther’s 2nd banquet (7:1-2)
......D2. The King offers Esther up to half his kingdom (7:3)
....C2. The King’s decree to save the Jews (8:1-14)
..B2. Mordecai royally honored, with feasting (9:15-17)
A2. The Feast of Purim (9:18-32)

So that’s pretty tidy, but there’s more going on here, I think, than just fitting the story into a nice neat pattern. Usually in a Hebrew Chiasm, the key idea of the story is found at the centre of the chiasm, in this case at point “G”: the King can't sleep. This is the turning point for Esther and her people. Chapter 5 ended with the ominous sounds of Haman building his gallows; Chapter 6 opens with this insomniac king. A chance sleepless night, but it leads to him asking for the records to be read (a little bedtime reading, I guess) and, coincidentally, he comes across the record of Mordecai’s hitherto unrewarded good deed, back in chapter 2. Haman (again coincidentally) enters at just that moment and, thinking the King’s talking about himself, tells him to lavish riches and royalty on the “man the King delights to honor.” Little does he know the King was talking about Mordecai. So begins the slow, somewhat comic, totally unexpected ascent out of the utter despair of 5:14. And the story, as I’ve said, will reverse the fortunes of God’s people, step for step all the way back up.

And here’s where I’m going with all this: it seemed like a random sleepless night for King Ahasuerus, and yet, when you step back, and see how his insomnia fits in to this bigger, orderly scheme, you realize that it was no coincidence at all; nor was Haman’s random entrance at the moment the record books were being read; nor was Mordecai’s “chance” uncovering of a plot to kill Ahasuerus back in chapter 2. All these events, it turns out, happened “for such a time as this” (4:14). There is an order to God’s activity in this story that is invisible until you step back to see it all laid out, but when you do it’s beautiful and compelling, even at times comical.

It leaves me wondering about the 1001 apparently random coincidences that happen to me day in and day out, and how seldom, really, I notice God’s overarching “chiasm” to the events—that is to say, I seldom stop to wonder if this chance occurrence isn’t God doing or saying something really important right now. I usually just slog on, going about my business unawares. I posted earlier about how careful we need to be not to name God before he’s ready to reveal himself. I think the author of Esther would also say, “Yeah, but when he does reveal himself, you’ll see: there are no accidents with God.