And Esther spoke to Hatach, and gave him commandment unto Mordecai
Esther sits inside a palace that knows nothing of the panic outside. She can reach Mordecai only through a servant who carries words back and forth. Her reply is not a refusal. She names the one obstacle between her people and their only hope: the door to the king is shut.
Esther acts in this crisis only through a messenger. She lived shut away from the news of the empire.
Esther, in the secluded part of the palace, knew nothing of the great edict that had gone out. Her maids and attendants, whom she may have used to keep in touch with her uncle, then told her that Mordecai was missing from inside the gate. He was sitting outside in a most pitiful state, weeping and wailing… She therefore sent Hathach, one of the king's court officials and her personal attendant, to Mordecai to find out the cause of his mourning.
Mordecai chose his words to Esther with care.
He did not say "for this people" but "for her people." This made Esther's Jewish origin known to Hathach.
What Esther sends back is the law of the Persian court. One writer draws out how thin her hope is.
If Esther appears before Ahasuerus without an invitation, she faces death. He has neglected her for thirty days. One feeble resource is left: the king may be pleased to hold out the golden sceptre to her. So the only way of escape is the grace of the one clothed with sovereign authority. But can Esther count on this grace? Not at all: everything depends on the king's good pleasure. Can one count on the good pleasure of a man who has just, with a single word, wiped an entire people off the face of the earth?
Esther answers by describing the danger in front of her. One writer finds no fault in her for it.
She sees difficulty, and feels dangers; and for a time she speaks from her circumstances. There is nothing wrong in this. She tells Mordecai of the risk she would run if she went into the royal presence uninvited. Again I say, there is nothing wrong in speaking this way, though there may be weakness. But Mordecai counsels her as the stronger one. In the cause of God and His people, he stands above both his circumstances and his own affections.
Rescue does not come the moment the danger appears.
It is striking to see how the furnace may be heated seven times before the rescue comes. Esther fully realises that her life was at stake in the charge her cousin laid on her. Mordecai, however, is only the bolder in his demand, and the strength of his faith is as plain as that of Abraham.
The book of Esther never names God.
Mordecai tears his clothes and puts on sackcloth. He goes into the middle of the city and cries with a loud and bitter cry (Esther 4:1). God's name is not written and does not appear. Even so, God's ears heard.
That hidden work runs on two levels at once.
The hand and the Spirit of God work together so wonderfully in the story of Israel, as we find it in the Psalms and in the Prophets. His hand shapes their circumstances; the Spirit shapes their mind.
The sceptre Esther dreads becomes a picture of welcome.
The golden sceptre speaks of divine righteousness, power and grace. That sceptre is held out to all who come to God in the blessed and worthy Name of Christ. We can come with confidence to the throne of grace, receiving mercy and finding grace to help in time of need.
- Shut in. Esther lives shut away from the news, and answers Mordecai only through a servant. Mordecai's careful wording, "her people," tells that servant she is a Jew.
- Shut out. Her reply names the real problem. Entering the inner court uninvited means death, and the king has not called for her in thirty days.
- One hope. The only escape is the sceptre — that is, the free goodwill of the one on the throne, which no one can command.
- Honest weakness. Esther speaks out of her circumstances, and no writer faults her for it. Mordecai's stronger faith then steadies her.
- Hidden hand. God's name never appears in the story. Yet He hears the cry, shapes the events, and holds out the sceptre — and He still holds it out to all who come in the name of Christ.
All the king's servants and the people of the king's provinces do know that whoever, whether man or woman, shall come to the king into the inner court, who is not called, there is *one* law, to put [him] to death, except [such] to whom the king shall hold out the golden sceptre, that he may live; and I have not been called to come in unto the king these thirty days.
Mordecai has asked Esther to go to the king and plead for her people. Her reply names the one thing standing between her nation and rescue: a law that turns an uninvited visit into a death sentence. It also raises the question the whole book turns on: when every legal door is shut, what is left?
Esther is not making an excuse. She is reporting a rule so well known that "all the king's servants" could recite it. It made no allowance for rank.
Esther sent the answer. Mordecai heard the alarming news that the king was unapproachable. Esther herself had not seen his face for a whole month. To enter the king's presence uninvited would mean certain death. Death to all "except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter so that he may live." So Esther told Mordecai that she is under the same law. If she breaks it, no exception will be made, even though she is the queen.
The scepter she pins her survival on is the king's badge of office.
One of the distinguishing marks of royalty: a rod or staff of dignity. It was held out by the king to Esther. Esther 4:11.
So the very thing that could kill her — royal authority — is the one thing that can spare her when the king holds it out.
Esther's "unless" is thin. Everything hangs on a will she cannot control or predict.
If Esther comes before Ahasuerus without being invited — and he has ignored her for thirty days — she will be put to death. One weak hope is left: the king may be pleased to hold out the golden scepter to her. So the only way of escape is the grace of the man who holds sovereign authority. But can Esther count on this grace? Not at all: everything depends on the king's good pleasure. And who can count on the good pleasure of a man who has just erased a whole people from the land of the living with a single word?
The same writer reads the whole scene as a picture of a later trouble, when a people find every avenue closed:
But how can we speak of resource, when there is none, and when any access to a righteously irritated God is intercepted?
The last line of the verse is easy to skim past. It is the strangest part — a wife who cannot get in to see her husband.
Esther has no right to come into the king's presence: She had not been "called" to see the king for 30 days! This seems strange, given that she was the king's wife and had found great favour in his eyes. Worse still, the "one law" that barred anyone from the king's presence on pain of death seemed to apply to Esther just as much as to anyone else (v. 11).
Read at ground level, this is a message of despair, not strategy. Esther is telling Mordecai the case cannot be won.
Esther then gives Hatach a message for Mordecai telling him the hopelessness of the case. The object was that she might go and make supplication to the king. But how? It was one of the laws of the Persian empire that nobody could go into the king's presence. The king must send, and the king had not sent for the queen for thirty days. It was against the law to venture there.
Writers set this closed door beside the open door Christians have. What Esther risked her life for, believers already hold — and on far better ground.
A law that could not be changed guarded the way into the room where king Ahasuerus received people: anyone who came uninvited was to be put to death… Esther gained access to the king's favour, and so won the lives of her people. Those justified by faith have access into the favour of God. And to undeserving people like us, the Lord Jesus Christ is infinitely more than the golden scepter held out to Esther.
The gap God has closed is far wider than a palace corridor. The place He gives us outranks anything in creation:
God has in Christ saved us out of a misery much worse and brought us into His own presence. This place of privilege at His own table means close fellowship with Him, true spiritual honour, and the greatness that goes with such a high position. It should fill our hearts to overflowing with thankfulness and praise… Even the highest created beings, the angels, do not have such a privilege; they are only servants.
- Law. One rule covered everyone in the palace: come to the king uninvited, and you die. Being queen bought Esther no exemption.
- Distance. Thirty days without a summons showed she had no right of entry, though she was the king's own wife.
- Scepter. The golden staff was the mark of royal authority. The power that could condemn her was the only power that could spare her.
- Grace. Her one "unless" rested on the king's good pleasure. She could not command it, and had no promise of it.
- Access. Christians face no such closed door. Through Christ they have access into the favour of God — a nearness the angels themselves do not have.
And they told Mordecai Esther's words.
This verse is one line of reporting: the servants carry Esther's answer back to Mordecai. Her words describe a closed door and admit her fear, and they draw an answer of faith out of him.
What the servants carried back was a legal impossibility. One writer shows how thin the remaining hope was.
There is still one ray of hope, although it is very weak. It is that Esther should go in to the king and plead with him for her people. Mordecai commands her to do this. But what use is his command when even the way into the king's presence is closed? Esther charges her messenger to tell Mordecai this fact... If Esther goes to Ahasuerus without an invitation, she will be put to death. And he has neglected her for thirty days. She has one feeble hope left: the king may be pleased to hold out the golden scepter to her. So the only way of escape is the grace of the one who holds sovereign authority. But can Esther count on this grace? Not at all. Everything depends on the king's good pleasure. Can anyone count on the good pleasure of a man who has just erased a whole people from the land of the living with a single word?
Esther's report is honest. One commentator refuses to blame her for speaking out of her situation, while still naming what it lacked.
She sees difficulty, and feels dangers; and she speaks, for a time, from her circumstances. Nothing wrong in this. She tells Mordecai of the risk she would run if she went into the royal presence uninvited. Nothing wrong, I say again, in speaking this way out of her circumstances, though there may be weakness. But Mordecai counsels her as a stronger vessel. In the cause of God and His people, he appears as one above both circumstances and affections.
Once her words reach him, Mordecai answers with a certainty that never names the One he counts on.
Mordecai sends her a very clear but severe message. "Do not think to yourself," he said, "that you will escape in the king's house any more than all the Jews. For if you keep completely silent at this time, then relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place." Not a word about God. He is hidden. He means God. But God's secrecy is kept so perfectly that he gives only a vague hint of it in this remarkable way. God would look down from heaven, but Mordecai speaks of the place and not of the person.
Mordecai could have asked Esther to save him and his own family. He asked for something larger.
It would have been quite natural for Mordecai to say, "If you cannot save all the people, at least save me and the house of your father, for you belong to the king's own house, which no one can touch." He does not think of his own interest and safety. The salvation of his people is what is on his heart. He knows that Esther is in a position not only to be saved herself, but also to save her people.
The message of danger did not end there. Mordecai's answer changed the queen who sent it.
He had warned her faithfully and solemnly of certain ruin to herself and her father's house if she stayed silent. But at the same time he expressed the fullest certainty that relief and deliverance would come from another place. This is the victory that overcomes, even faith, as we may surely apply here. Its effect was as clear in Esther as Andrew's was on his own brother Simon. The queen is ready to perish in such a cause, if need be. The unseen hand that sustains the universe strengthened her, and that same hand would turn the king's heart at His will.
One writer reads the whole story as a picture of what comes later.
In all the history we have considered, we cannot help seeing the working of God, as will be the case in the Great Tribulation period. Mordecai is a type of Christ, the chief object of the enemy's hatred, yet finally triumphant. Esther is a faint picture of the intercessory work of Christ on behalf of Israel.
- Report. Esther's answer, carried back in this verse, reports a closed door. No one enters the king's inner court uninvited and lives, and the king had not called for her in thirty days.
- Resource. The only opening left is the king's grace — the golden scepter held out at his pleasure alone.
- Weakness. Speaking out of her circumstances was not wrong, though it was weak. Mordecai, the stronger vessel, stood above both the danger and his own affections.
- Word. Mordecai's reply names no name, yet rests on God: deliverance will arise "from another place." He asks for his people's rescue, not his own.
- Result. Faith passed from one heart to another. The queen who had sent back an impossibility became ready to perish for her people.