Esther 5:7

The sceptre, let us say again, was true to itself. What a truth this carries! The promise of God, the work of the Lord Jesus, is like this sceptre. These have gone before us. They are pledges given by the hand and the mouth of our God, and eternity will be true to them. Endless ages of glory, showing salvation, will make them good. Nothing is too great for the keeping of such pledges. Here the king lays half his lands at Esther's feet, for her to use as she wishes.

God gave her wisdom. She does not at once bring out what was such a heavy burden on her heart. "Whoever believes will not be in haste." The unseen God who was the object of her trust enabled her soul to wait. She asks not only the king to the banquet, but the king and Haman. How constantly this is the case. So with the Lord when He gives Judas the piece of bread even before that terrible betrayal which led to the cross. Little did Haman know what the God who did not appear was preparing for him. And at the banquet the king comes back to the question, because he knew well that queen Esther had more than a banquet in mind. He asks again what her wish and her request are, and promises it, even to half of the kingdom.

Deliverance has not happened yet, but the grace that brings deliverance has already appeared to Esther's eyes... Her requests could reach far beyond everything she wanted to ask him. But as long as the Enemy is powerful, one must join the caution of a serpent to the simplicity of a dove. Esther puts off her request to a later time and invites the king and Haman to her feast. In this way she gives the king the chance to confirm his promise. Now a confirmed promise, in which the sovereign alone was engaged, could not be annulled.

She has "the golden sceptre" on her side. With it comes the king's promise to give her whatever she asks, even to half his kingdom. But she is patient... Is this only virtue and a well-ordered heart, set against the passionate way of a Herodias who held the same offer? (Mark 6:23.) It may have been all this; but it was more. It was the way of one who knew and copied God's way in cases like this. The Lord holds all power, yet He is patient. He can bear with an Amorite for 400 years, until the measure of his sin is full. (Gen. 15:13-16.) So here, the one who had learned from Him, the one who had been in the school of communion, can be patient too. She holds the resources of a kingdom, yet she lets the "man of the earth" go on to the full measure of his sin.

But we do well to consider how Esther was led to put off the request that filled her heart. Nature would have spread it before the king at once, since he was so deeply moved by her beauty. And what a trial the delay of even one day, promising as it was, must have been to the Jews, if not to her cousin as well! But the Unseen was guiding in secret. He would use that delay, dangerous as it looked, to work for her and for everyone, and for His own deep and good purposes.