The Girl Queen, the Captive Conqueror: A Devotional Commentary on the Book of Esther (9:1-20)

Three times in Esther 9 it points out that in defending themselves from their enemies, the Jews did not “lay their hands on the plunder” (9:10, 9:15, 9:15), even though back in 8:11, King Ahasuerus explicitly granted them the right to do so. This is one of those off-hand comments that doesn’t look like much, but actually has the weight of redemption behind it, when you scratch the surface. Because Haman, the one who hatched the original plot to destroy the Jews, was an Amalekite—a descendant, of King Agag, in fact—and three times in chapters 8-9, the story takes pains to remind us of his lineage (8:3, 8:10, 9:24).

The reason Haman’s family tree matters so much here, is because Mordecai is a direct descendant of King Saul, Israel’s first and failed King (2:5). And here’s the point: in 1 Samuel 15, the reason Saul failed—specifically—and the reason God rejected him as King over Israel, is because he fought a battle against King Agag of the Amalekites, and, instead of completely destroying everything, he “swooped on the plunder” for his own personal gain. In 1 Samuel 15:19, Samuel indicts Saul with this burning question: “Why did you pounce on the plunder and do evil in the eyes of the Lord?” And for the record, when Ahasuerus gives the Jews to plunder their enemies in Esther 8:11, it uses the same Hebrew word for “plunder” (shâlâl) as Samuel used in 1 Samuel 15:19.

This is more than just some curious piece of Bible Trivia. What’s happening here, I think, is the redemption of Saul’s story, in the faithfulness of his descendants, Mordecai and Esther. Where Saul failed, pouncing on the plunder and making messiahship about his own personal aggrandizement, they succeed, refusing to lay a hand on the plunder and making messiahship (inasmuch as Esther’s whole story is a type of the Messiah) about God’s deliverance and God’s glory alone.

 There are a lot of directions we could go with this, once we notice it, but here’s especially why it matters to me: if God could redeem Saul’s story—Saul, whose miserable reign ended with widows lamenting his failed house and carrion bird picking the remains (see 2 Samuel 21)—if God can bring deliverance out of that story, then there’s no story, no mis-step, no failure, I guess, that he can’t redeem, yours and mine included. Mordecai and Esther’s refusal to “pounce on the plunder” assures us of this: that God will have the last word on all our spiritual failures, and in the Messiah, he is able to make them into something beautiful.