Deeper Commentary

Esther 10:1 King Ahasuerus laid a tribute on the land, and on the islands of the sea- The idea is of imposed forced labour, such as Solomon ordered, and which caused much resentment. Why mention this? Perhaps it is included to signal that all was not well, although the story is to end with good triumphing over evil; see on :3. Or we can understand that Haman's offer to make the king rich by killing the Jews and taking their spoil was matched by this taxation policy of Mordecai. For the implication of :2 is that this tribute was one of the "acts" of Mordecai.

Esther 10:2 All the acts of his power and of his might, and the full account of the greatness of Mordecai to which the king advanced him, aren’t they written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia?- As noted on :1, the story ends positively, but with the subtext that all was not as it could have been. A Jew and a Jewish queen become almost the most influential people on earth at the time, with huge power and might. But still they did not lead their people back to their God and to their land. That is the unspoken conclusion which any spiritually minded, sensitive reader or hearer will come to. Again it is a story of so much potential and Divine grace being as it were wasted. Mordecai and Esther contrast unfavourably not only with Daniel, but also with Nehemiah. Although cup bearer to the Persian king, he used that permission to beg the king to let him go and assist the returned exiles in Jerusalem, and he grieved because of their situation. There is nothing like that recorded of Mordecai and Esther. Admittedly it is an argument against them from silence, but the silence is quite deafening.

Esther 10:3 For Mordecai the Jew was next to King Ahasuerus, and great among the Jews, and accepted by the multitude of his brothers, seeking the good of his people and speaking peace to all his descendants- Even though Mordecai was so highly respected amongst the Jews, there is the implication noted on :2 that Mordecai failed to realize his full potential before God, even if he died respected by his own people. Not only did Cyrus and the other various potential fulfillments of the servant songs fail to rise up to their potential; Judah preferred to stay in the soft life. The sad ending of the book of Esther leaves Judah prosperous in Babylon, having declined the potential exodus back to Zion which God had set them up with. Mordecai and Esther ought surely to have used their huge power to move the Jews to return to the land, as was clearly the wish of God as expressed in the prophets. But they didn't; it seems the secularism which characterized their earlier lives may have returned in later life, and tradition has it that Esther was murdered when the Persian empire fell to the Greeks. And perhaps that is why there is no mention of God's Name in the book, nor any further allusion to Esther nor Mordecai in the Bible. We note that this epilogue makes no mention of Esther. She remained married to an alcoholic, abusive man. There is no happy ending for Esther. And that was to some degree, of her own making. Her willingness to go along with Mordecai's immoral usage of her had consequences, to the end of her days. It worked for Mordecai- he indeed achieved glory through the marriage of his adopted daughter. He got what he dreamt of. Haman got what he deserved, the king remained foolish and distant from domestic reality. But for her... ?

The story ends with the greatness of Mordecai, who out of such initial weakness was made strong. The account of him is full of reference to the Babylonian tales of the god Marduk, recorded in the Enuma Elish. Especially his glorification in Esther 8:15. Mordecai is a form of "Marduk", and so maybe the idea was to show Persia that in fact Marduk had no real existence; rather does God work through His weak people by His invisible hand, to exalt them.