Esther 2:1-23

2:1 |Secular history reports that as many as four years passed between the events of chapter 1 and 2, during which time Ahasuerus was at war. His realization that he had divorced the one person capable of cheering him up may have been heightened by his miserable defeat at the hands of the Romans, in which he lost more than one million men and his entire fleet.

2:5 | Second Chronicles 36 reports three different deportations of Jews under King Nebuchadnezzar. Mordecai was living in Shushan because his ancestors – likely his great-grandparents – had been deported in one of these waves (2 Kgs. 24-25).

2:7 | Like Daniel and his friends (Dan. 1:7), Hadassah was probably given a new name by her captors. Most scholars believe that the name Esther originates from a Babylonian deity, Ishtar.

2:10 | Perhaps Mordecai charged Esther not to reveal her heritage to protect her from potential violence, in case the Persians had an aversion to the Jews.

2:12-15 | The women had twelve months of preparation before their brief audience with the king. So much was at stake. Six months were spent with oil of myrrh, which served a double purpose: it was fragrant and also believed to have purifying powers.

2:12 | Myrrh was not only an ingredient in holy anointing oil (Ex. 30:22-33). It was also among the gifts presented by the Magi (Matt. 2:11), offered to Jesus as He hung on the cross (Mark 15:23), and used by Nicodemus to anoint Jesus’ body for burial (John 19:39).

2:15-17 | The king conducted the ungodly practice of choosing a queen by forcing hundreds of women to sleep with him. But God was not deterred. He silently worked through pagan people in a pagan culture to bring about His will and save His people from annihilation.

2:18 | Esther was not in any position to influence her success. It was God who quietly orchestrated her journey from obscurity to the second most-powerful position in the kingdom. Every believer is in the process of God’s will being worked out on his or her behalf.

2:20 | Esther had done everything that Mordecai advised to this point. This did not change once she became queen. In her continual heeding of Mordecai’s godly counsel, she exemplifies true submission to the ultimate will of God.