Jesus and Esther

You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.
John 5:39

Jesus can be found in every book in the OT.  He is more clearly seen in some books than in others.  Though I am not going to cover every book, I do want to draw our attention to two more.

The first is Esther.  Esther is the story of what God graciously did to preserve the exiles who did not return to Jerusalem in Judea with Ezra and Nehemiah.  That’s correct, some remained in Persia.

Persia? Yes, Persia.  Yes, Judah was conquered by the Babylonians, but 70 years later, Babylon was conquered by the Persians.  That means that the exile began in Babylon but ended up in Persia.

Why did any of the exiles remain in Persia when the Persians, who conquered Babylon, allowed the Jews to return to their homeland? 

First, let’s not forget that God’s early message to the exiles was essentially to settle in for the long haul: Build homes and have families.  After all, you are going to be in exile in Babylon for seventy years!’ So they did.  Persia was now home.

Second, let’s not forget that the exiles were there for seventy years.  That means many, if not most, of the people deported to Babylon had already died when the Persians allowed them to return to Judah.  For the vast majority of the exiles who were allowed to relocate to Judah, Babylon/Persia was the only home they ever knew.

Third, traveling to and rebuilding Jerusalem would be expensive, and arduous. Lest we forget, travel is a bit easier today than in 450 BC!

What has any of this to do with Esther and Jesus?

A sinister plot was hatched by an evil man named Haman to destroy all the Jews in the Persian Empire (which included those living in Judea, since it was part of Persia). Since the Deliverer was coming from the Jews—the Judeans in particular—Satan would have loved to destroy all of them. God thwarted Haman’s plan through a beautiful Jewish girl named Esther. The plan worked. God used Esther to save the Jews, through whom Jesus, the Deliverer, would one day come.