Esther 4:12

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.