For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” Esther 4:14
Esther Promises to Intercede for Her People
Mordecai informs Esther and urges her to intercede with the king. Because of prejudice against the Jews, Mordecai had earlier counseled Esther not to reveal her race. Esther is fearful, yet she promises to do what she can. She urges all the Jews of Susa to undertake a total fast on her behalf for three days. Then she will act.
When Mordecai learned all that had happened, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the midst of the city. He cried out with a loud and bitter cry. 2 He went as far as the front of the king’s gate, for no one might enter the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth. 3 And in every province where the king’s command and decree arrived, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes. 4 So Esther’s maids and eunuchs came and told her, and the queen was deeply distressed. Then she sent garments to clothe Mordecai and take his sackcloth away from him, but he would not accept them.
Deliverance will arise (4:14). Esther’s reluctance brought an affirmation of faith from Mordecai. Although God remains unnamed, Mordecai is undoubtedly remembering the Lord’s promises to Abraham and David, which could not be kept if the race was wiped out.
11 “All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that any man or woman who goes into the inner court to the king, who has not been called, he has but one law: put all to death, except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter, that he may live. Yet I myself have not been called to go in to the king these thirty days.” 12 So they told Mordecai Esther’s words. 13 And Mordecai told them to answer Esther: “Do not think in your heart that you will escape in the king’s palace any more than all the other Jews. 14 For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
Fasting (4:16). This is another allusion to God, for prayer is often linked with fasting in the OT. In essence, fasting acknowledges human frailty before God and appeals to His mercy.
16 “Go, gather all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me; neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will fast likewise. And so I will go to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish!” 17 So Mordecai went his way and did according to all that Esther commanded him.
–> The Queen’s courage and act of faith in spite of her fear of death saved the lives of the Jews. She had a humble origin (an orphan) but ended up becoming a true Queen through her actions.
