Esther 2:4

Providence planned to shield the Jews from the destruction hanging over them, unworthy as they were, and to punish their unrelenting enemies. That plan clearly moves forward here. A further step was now taken. A lofty one was put down, a lowly one is exalted. But God alone worked in this secretly. The king's servants had no idea of the outcome, any more than the king himself. They were afraid that Ahasuerus might break the policy of the empire, and that bringing the queen back would put them in immediate danger. So they propose that the king should choose as his wife the fairest young woman in his lands, whoever pleased him best.

How did this affect the poor people of God? It soon appears in seed form. Was it chance that gave an orphan of Israel a beauty beyond all others in those wide provinces?

How much had to happen before Israel could have help ready in time of need! On the surface, what great things had to come first! Only then could a Jewish girl rise to the throne of the Persian Empire by the power of her beauty. Look at the great meeting of all the officers of state, and the dreadful war with Greece with its unhappy end. In the hands of Providence, were these not so many stepping stones on Esther's path upward? … First drunkenness, then murderous rage, then fresh desire — these were the sad instruments that came before Israel's redemption.

In all these things we see a God of providence. He directs the thoughts and hearts of men, and the thoughts and heart of the king, according to His own purpose. In this way He carries out His plans of grace toward His people… These ways of divine Providence toward Israel were secretly preparing the future reign of His people over the nations. Yet see how humiliated she was in her actual condition! They hand the Jewish wife over by force to the king of the nations, like a slave that someone disposes of, and no one asks her! Her will counts for nothing in this alliance; she is forced into it. Every other young woman in the empire would have longed for such a position, but Esther could not.

The law (Deuteronomy 7:3) forbade these marriages. It told an Israelite not to give his daughter to a Gentile. But here everything had changed. The kings of the nations ruled over the unfaithful Jews. God had withdrawn Himself, and Nehemiah had to say that they were servants that day, and that the kings God had set over them because of their sins ruled over their bodies.

Here, from the very beginning, we find the hidden providence of God at work. Vashti's dismissal was decreed and could not be reversed. Yet it is not carried out until Ahasuerus returns. Only then can the Jewish wife, prepared by Providence, come on the scene and take the place of the Gentile wife at the right moment.

The great Gentile wife of the great king is discarded, and then the remarkable thing happens: a Jewess takes her place. I cannot doubt myself that this is what will follow. It comes when the Gentile has proved himself disobedient and has failed to display the beauty that ought to mark God's testimony before the world… According to the language of Romans 11, the branches of the wild olive — the Gentile — will be broken off, and the Jew will be grafted in again.