Season two of Love in Context podcast welcomes you. Get ready for engaging unscripted conversations
with your hosts, Ben and Spencer. Our mission remains unchanged to explore the Bible through
the powerful lens of love. In this new season, we'll embark on a journey together, unearthing
fresh insights and gaining deeper understanding of how we can love God and live out our faith
in practical ways. So let's dive into this season of Love in Context, where love in the
context of the Bible intersect to transform our lives. Welcome to the Love in Context
podcast. Today, we are going to be continuing in our Kings and Kingdoms series, and we are
going to be talking about Oshawares, or as I like to say, aha, Shoes-R-S. Yes, you nailed
it. You nailed it. I think I've heard in the last two weeks, you pronounce his name 55
different ways. Yeah, I'm going for 60. Yeah, so that's pretty great. Yeah. I mean, it's,
I mean, phonetically, it does not, it should be different than how we say it. Yeah, it
does. Well, phonetically, it just looks really weird. Yeah. By the way, I'm not even positive
that I'm pronouncing it correctly. I just went off of what or how I heard somebody pronounce
it. And I'm like, yeah. You all heard that. Ben is mispronouncing a word in the Bible.
There you go. But we've been in the, so the King and Kingdom series, we've been talking
about these non-Israelite kings and their impact on the story and also just like what
we can learn from them as just individuals. Because a lot of times we have a tendency
to focus on the biblical characters, which is a good reason to. Yeah. But there's a lot
going on around them. And historically that the original readers of the text would have
been pretty familiar with that we are not. Yes. You know, so just kind of taking a, like
before we get into the actual biblical narrative, we want to talk briefly about, okay, so who
is King Osuarez, right? How did he shape society? How did he shape culture? You know, things
that we've been talking about over the last couple of weeks. So one of the first things
we know is that he is the son of Darius I. Right? So he is the one who succeeds the guy
we talked about last week. Yep. And so there's a few things that you remember from Darius
that he had set up like these providences that called satraps and like there's all these
regions that now kind of come back and they have this conversation. But like he's overseeing
all these people who are in charge of smaller regions. And it's kind of like a upwards authority
chain. Right? So his reign was between 486 and 465 BCE. And it came before his son, Arta
Circeis the first. Man, I was like, I was reading his name and I was like, I don't know
if I'm going to pronounce this right. So just, yeah, just a reminder, like Darius had been
pushing things forward. He made it a lot more free for religions, but there was one religion
specifically that he was pushing. We're going to come back to that because his son, not
surprisingly does a very similar thing. Yeah. And so let's just take a look here. So Osuarez
is actually the name is only actually used in the Bible. And the name Osuarez is actually
literally translated in Hebrew as King. And it's one that's used in Ezra. It's used in
Esther and it's used in Daniel to refer to Persian Kings specifically. Most scholars
agree that the King in the time of Esther though was Xerxes the first. So if we say
Xerxes the first or we say Osuarez, we're talking about the same person. Right? By the
way, this is very similar to how I like in Torah and all throughout the Bible, like they
talk about Pharaoh. Yeah. They don't talk about a specific Pharaoh. They just use the
ruler of Egypt is Pharaoh. Right? So both in the time of when Joseph and his family
go down to Egypt and the Pharaoh, when they're leaving Egypt, they're both just Pharaoh.
Yeah. Right. Now, obviously those are different people, but they're, it's almost like the
biblical account is like, Hey, this is like a typecast of who's who who's an authority
here, but it's not a story is not about them. Yeah. Right. It's about some somebody else.
So he ruled during the height of the Persian Empire, overseeing its vast territories and
diverse peoples. So a few places he's talked about in history, we've talked about this
guy before, but he is Herodias, Herodotus. I totally said that name right. The first
time it's Herodias. No, that's definitely Herodotus. You're Herodotus. Look at it. I've
always pronounced it Herodias. Well, let's take a look. Let's ask. Let's ask. Let's ask
a chat how to how to pronounce that. How do you pronounce Herodotus? I shouldn't actually
say it that way for it. That's Herodotus. Herodotus. Herodotus. So we're both wrong.
Yep. So we're both wrong. We actually looked up the pronunciation. It's Herodotus. So Herodotus,
he's known as one of the fathers of history. He's a fifth century Greek historian. He provides
a comprehensive account of Xerxes the first. Some of the key details of this was the invasion
of Greece. He describes Xerxes massive military campaign. Now, if you remember when we were
talking about Darius the first, one of the Persia's defining features is that they have
a lot of people. A lot of people overwhelmed. So in 480 BCE, it includes the battles of
Thermopylae, Somalis, and Plataea. By the way, if anybody is a historian in any of these
things and I'm saying the names wrong, just deal with it. Like that's not the... Wow,
flashlight. I went to turn on Do Not Disturb and I hit flashlight on it. Perfect. I was
like, man. And then so at Thermopylae, you actually may remember this story from a famous
movie that they made. Xerxes forces defeats a small coalition of Greek city-states led
by King Leonidas of Sparta. If you remember the movie 300, it is a retelling, creative
retelling probably of the story of Thermopylae. That the story becomes legendary about them.
They slow down the Persians and so they're not... Everybody else behind them is able
to get their act together before they get in there. And he has another one. It's Salamis.
He suffered this massive major defeat at the hands of the Greek fleet, forcing him to retreat.
And there's conversation about how this became the beginning of the end of Persia's naval
dominance. There is an interesting thing he's really famous for with engineers. So if you're
an engineer, throw on your engineer hat. At the Hell's Pond bridge, he ordered the construction
of these pontoon bridges across the Hell's Pond. It's modern day called the Darnedonellas.
We'll go with that, yeah? Yeah, that looks right. So to actually transfer his army into
Greece. And so it's like these temporary pontoons that they actually used to cross. And then
when they actually crossed, it was like an engineering marvel because it was like a temporary
bridge that he put into place. But most of Herodotus... I'm nailing these names today,
man. If you're expecting a child anytime soon, you can take any one of the translation for
the two names we've messed up. Yes, Ossowarez, I would recommend that. That just like flows
off the name. It flows off the tongue. But especially like if you think of it as a bridge,
if you think about it, when you think about these names, you got to think about like,
if I had to yell at my child across the room, right? Ah, shoes are us. Ah, shoes are us.
Yeah, it's probably not going to work right. So a lot of Herodotus, his details really
emphasize Persian failures and Greek heroism. Not surprising because he's a Greek historian,
right? So his stories are going to be maybe exaggerate some of Xerxes flaws. So Ben decided
to hand it over to me at the name of... You guys ready for this? Ashikulus? Ashikulus?
I'm taking it. It's a Greek tragedy writer, right? A-E-S-C-H-Y-L-U-S. Yeah. I mean, that
sounds more like something that a sound you make when you sneeze. Ashikulus. Yeah. So
I, full disclosure, I probably just butchered that and we're going with it. So in his play,
he dramatizes his defeat at Somalis from the perspective of the Persian court. Yeah. And
specifically it's dramatizing and really puffing up Xerxes as a really proud individual, right?
That it's his pride that actually leads to the downfall of his army. Yeah. Yeah. That
is, I believe that the Persians and it says 472 BCE is when that's actually written. There's
a guy by the name of Ctesias of Sinaitis. Man, these guys really liked these names.
And he's a Greek physician who worked in the Persian court from fifth century BCE. So he
wrote a history of Persia and his accounts of Xerxes are a lot less detailed than the
other others, but they offer some alternate perspectives such as like court intrigue and
Persian culture. But unfortunately, like most of the manuscripts from like these times,
most of it didn't survive. So they have pieces. They have pieces of it and they have to kind
of push it together. Yeah. But then a very familiar name, Josephus, right? He is one
of the first century Jewish historians. He actually refers to Xerxes as Ossowar as he's
talking about the book of Esther. That's actually a lot of reasons that we associate Xerxes
with that time as well as other historical evidence. Other greater Greek writers and
Roman writers like Plutarch, by the way, naming kids, Diodorus, these are good names, Cericulus.
They mentioned Xerxes in their broader histories of Persia, often highlighting their military
campaign and then interaction with the Greeks. So he's pretty well documented in history,
which is why they don't have any trouble placing him in the story of Esther and of what was
going on. And we talked about that a few weeks ago where the further we get in the series,
the more documentation we're going to have. Yeah. I think next week we're talking about
Herod the Great and there's literally more things to talk about than I have places to
put them. It would be like a four hour episode. And then after that, we're going to talk about
Caesar Augustus. Yeah, right. I don't even think we have time to record that. You know,
I definitely don't have time to edit it, especially with the way we're pronouncing names today.
So he I just want to touch on a few, a few inscriptions, archaeological things that are
going on. So there's a bunch of inscriptions that were left talking about Xerxes at Persepolis.
He also has dedicated inscriptions detailing his dedications to Zoroastrianism. Remember
we talked about that last week, the primary religion of his empire and his efforts to
maintain or within it. So there's also some archaeological evidence that Xerxes went and
destroyed temples and statues associated with local religions. Good examples are Babylon
and Egypt as part of his attempt to center center practice around Zoroastrianism. The
Babylon Escalia Chronicle mentions Xerxes suppressing revolts in Babylon and potentially
desecrating the Temple of Marduk. That's actually really interesting. You should actually go
read on that. That's about the worship of Marduk. You're going to find some really interesting
connections into biblical narrative. Not not our point today. We talked about the Hell
Pond Bridge, the modern architecture and how he shows up. He shows up in both Babylonian
and Egyptian records specifically because both of those regions he quelled rebellions.
Yes, he brought in the army to call rebellions. Now remember we talked about there's a sat
traps and they're all in charge of these different regions. Great. But if they rebel,
now you got to come in and usually you're having to take out a few people because they
they combine together to try to rebel. Yeah. So some key events of his reign is that he
failed to invade Greece. Right. That's one of that's actually probably the most well
known for Xerxes the first in the Greco-Persian Wars. And most of you who've gone through
history actually probably remember that from your world history classes. The Thermopylae
and Salamis. Those are the big examples. So with that, because of that, he actually failed
to consolidate the Greek territories that he had actually inherited from his father
because his father had actually been defeated at Marathon in 490. And despite the immense
amount of resources that Xerxes actually devotes to this conquering of Greece, just can't do
it. Right. He's not able to subjugate its city-states, leaving it largely independent.
So it marks this turning point in the Greco-Persian Wars, shifting the balance of power toward
the Greeks. Right. So we're starting to see in the life of Ossowar as you're starting
to see the decline of Persia, which is going to lead to the rise of Greece. Yes. Of course,
then you're going to see the decline of Greece into the rise of Rome. Right. If you're a
student of history, you know what we're talking about. Ossowar is also, he did have some infrastructural
achievements where he did maintain and expand the Persian Royal Road, which that was that
network that we talked about where they could actually deliver messages faster than Amazon
get packages to Alaska. All right. So careful. Jeff Bezos is going to listen and get really
get on us. Well, I'm not wrong. So you're not wrong. So that's, that's one of the achievements
that he had was he was actually able to help maintain that and expand that. And then he
also had some achievements as far as monumental status. He built colossal winged bowls at
the gate of all nations, blending Mesopotamian, Mesopotamian and Persian styles. Right. So
he was doing a thing where he was trying to blend things together to be like, no, we are
Ossos active unification to be like, we are one people. Right. Right. Which also focusing
on multilingualism, multilingualism. That's a hard word. Word. That is a difficult word.
I'm picking hard words today. We're doing, but taking all the languages and actually
making sure that like all these languages are actually being understood throughout the
country. Yeah. The road systems is really important because one of the things we talked
about in Darius with them developing this railroad system is that when Christianity
shows up and Rome has now made all these roads everywhere because it's like, it becomes a
thing moving forward. It actually allows for the spread of Christianity at a rapid pace
because of that. It's almost like God knows what his timing is doing. Yep. Right. One
of the things that's going to be important to the narrative today is he also consolidated
the city to Susa became his, it became his city that he reigns from. Yep. Yep. So you,
when you get to this biblical narrative, right? Yep. That's where we are. So this, where you
actually see the start of this is actually an Esther one versus one through nine, where
it actually talks about our Oshawa is as wealth and power. Yep. Right. So this guy, and when
they're describing it and just to paraphrase it here real quick, when they're describing
it, they're not describing like, oh yeah, he's semi wealthy. They're not saying that
there's, they're, they're actually equating him to Jeff Bezos status. Like being like,
so we quoted him twice. We may get flagged. We might. Yeah. They're equating him to Elon
Musk status. There we go. Um, so use whichever one you want. Yeah. Actually, if you look
here, uh, so I just want to point out a couple of things because we've already talked about
historical context to Persia verse one of chapter one of Esther. This is what happened
during the time of Oshawa is, uh, the, the Xerxes who ruled over 127 provinces, stretching
from India to Kush at that time, King Xerxes. I'm just going to use Xerxes because that's
within the biblical, uh, translated English, even though it's actually Oshawa is in Hebrew.
Yeah. Uh, reigned from his Royal throne in the Citadel of Susa. And then the third year
of his reign, he gave a banquet for all his nobles and officials, the military leaders
of Persia, the princes and the noble nobles of the provinces were present for a full 180
days. He displayed the vast wealth of the kingdom and the splendid glory of his majesty.
When those days were over, the King gave a banquet lasting seven days in the enclosed
garden of the King's palace for all the people from the least to the greatest who were in
the Citadel of Susa. Okay. So 127 providence is from India to Ethiopia. He hosts 180 day
festival. This is massive display of just like power wealth, all these different things.
So the question is why is he doing this? Uh, there's a book I'm going to recommend written
by Rabbi David Foreman. It's called the queen. You thought, you know, um, he gets into some
of the things going on in Oshawa and we're just going to be like skimming a stone across
the front, but he's got, it's a really good deep dive into his, uh, into the book of Esther.
So to give you guys kind of an idea of the kingdom he ruled, uh, uh, this is according
to a quick Google search, right? It is about 6,827 kilometers to get from India to Ethiopia,
which would go up into Kush. Yeah. Right. So, um, that right there is actually bigger than
the span that you would act is actually a little bit bigger than the span from East
coast to West coast in the United States. Right. If you leave, if you leave on Alaska,
um, but so this kingdom that he's ruling is massive. Yeah. And, and definitely bigger
than anything they've seen up to this point. So there's, and there's 127 providences. So
we talked about these sat traps and we talked about these people who are in charge of these
regions. So he's got sat traps. He's got princes. He's got people who like rule over regions.
He's got all these people at his, at his place and he's throwing 180 day festival to, uh,
to show them the wealth, the power, the prestige of Persia. Why is that important? 180 days.
180 days. That's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot of partying. And then after that he does
a, uh, he does a seven day banquet in Susa for all the great and small people who are
there. Now, why is he doing this? Because as the ruler of Persia, you need all these
people on board with you. Right? Cause I, this is not, this is not Nebuchadnezzar. This
is not, I rule with an iron fist. You do what I say or a trap your head off. Right? This
is, this is Darius the first, this is Xerxes the first. They are, they are, um, yes, they're
all powerful. They're in charge of the entire region, but they actually need the support
of their, I'm going to call them underlings. They need support of their underlings in order
to actually move forward. Like, and, and that's going to be a big, uh, big piece of understanding
us wires throughout the story. Right? Yeah. And you need to also understand, like you
need to understand his personality a little bit, right? He is an ambitious and indulgent
individual. Correct. Right? Like he's, uh, I, I would go as far as say he's gluttonous.
Oh, absolutely. Like, um, so he's, he has this huge amount of ambition. He wants to
show how great powerful he is. He's not just going to do that, but like, look at everything
I have. He's like, I am so powerful. I can throw 180 day party. We can be gluttonous
for half a year. Right? And then we'll, then we'll party some more. Right? And we'll just
be indulgent gluttonous people. And this is how wealthy I am, how powerful I am. So with,
uh, Oshawa is you have this gluttonous personality. You have this prideful personality. You have
this ambitious personality, um, which spoiler alert eventually leads to the downfall of
the Persian empire. Yeah. I want to read this actually from, uh, cause this is leading into
the next portion of where, where, what happens at this banquet. Uh, it says in verse 10,
uh, so his wife, queen Vashti was running a separate banquet at the same time for the
women because this is very patriarchal culture. The women are going to be separate from the
men. Um, also after 180 dudes of days of dudes partying, you probably don't want to be around
them anyways. They probably smell. Yeah. But, um, it says in verse 10 of chapter, chapter
one on the seventh day when King Xerxes was in high spirits from wine. Yeah. He's drunk.
He commanded the seven eunuchs who served him, by the way, eunuchs are people who are
not going to have, hmm, what's a good way to say that they can't have relations. They
can't have relations. So they're the good ones to go get your wife. Right. Um, and then
to bring before him queen Vashti wearing her royal crown in order to display her beauty
to the peoples and noble for she was lovely to look at. Um, now, first of all, the first
thing I want to point out is that Persian queens, um, held power, but were expected
to remain in the royal harem and follow strict social norms. So her refusal to meet, it was
already out of the norms to call her out there to be at the party. Yep. It was already like
questionable social mores, right? Um, there is some conversation in the Babylonian Talmud
about whether or not, like that, uh, they suggest that when he invite tells her to show
up in a royal crown, the implication is the royal crown and nothing else. Yeah. Now that
is subjective, but it would also add to this level of outside of the social norms, right?
Uh, that he's trying to display what, what is, what is his. And so her divine to her
defiance in this, in this place, uh, even though it, um, it is outside of the social
norms, her defiance is seen as a direct opposition to his power and his authority. Now, why is
he having this party? Because he's trying to get these people to rally behind him in
order for him to go to war, to take conquest, to take over more areas, to continue to push
his influence forward. And so he's already known for being impulsive, quick tempered
and apparently seven days into a wine high. Right. And, uh, and then it says that his
advisors, uh, play a key role in his decision making and suggest deposing Vashti to preserve
preserve his authority. All right. Now this is important because it's already going to
be apparent that, uh, Xerxes in this, in this story is going to defer to a lot of the judgment
of his advisors. Why is that going to be important? Well, we'll get there, but he, he listens
to his advisors. He allows them to have, uh, input into his ears and he, it typically causes
that he makes decisions, rash, impertinent decisions that have big implications for his
community because Vashti, when he married her would have been for a political reason
to begin with. So having her, uh, taken out of the court, divorcing her, killing her,
depending on how you read that, not, not going to be a good look for his reign. Yeah. Like
it's going to cause problems. Yes. You're the most powerful person in the world, but
you also have an entire country that needs to rally around you. And apparently Vashti
was pretty well thought of. So, and Persian decrees, um, they're the, because we're not
Nebuchadnezzar where he said one thing and then he was like, you know what, actually
I just, I'm changing my mind. We're going to do this and he doesn't have the iron, iron
fist, right? The, when the Persian decrees are made, they're made irrevocable. We're
going to see this later in Esther eight eight when, when we're at the end of the story.
Um, so when he makes this decree, he's, um, it likely served as propaganda to reinforce
his authority and also, uh, to perpetuate this authority of man over woman in their
country as well, which is not great. So now you have, uh, where Esther comes into the
story and this is, uh, starting at Esther chapter two. And incidentally, my wife does
like Esther's name. So in Hebrew it's Hadassah. So if you are thinking about naming a little
girl Hadassah is a great name. Hadassah Esther. Yeah. Hadassah Esther. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so,
uh, if you have your Bible, go ahead and turn to it, go to Esther two, one through 18. I'm
going to give an overview. Ben's probably going to read some verses out there as well.
Okay. But so at this point, Oshawa is starts looking for a new queen. Okay. Um, and so
the, his advisors, they're bringing beautiful women into the court and being like, do any
of these people please you? So again, this also says something about the society that
they're living in, right? There is very patriarchal. So he's not, they're not being like, Hey,
this person has good education. This person knows a lot. This person speaks well. He's
they're like, here's a bunch of hot babes. Which one do you like? Okay. We're not saying
this is the right way to select a mate. We're saying this is culturally what's going on
right now. Uh, side note, we both disagree with that, this method, but this is what's
going on right now. Okay. So Esther was a Jewish woman who was raised by her cousin
Mordecai. Okay. Another great name, by the way, you can also tell which names we've said
more often when we're reading the texts, like cause Mordecai, we didn't even hesitate. No,
no. Yeah. We're not also not going to hesitate with Haman, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right.
So, uh, so Esther raised by Mordecai is selected to be come the new queen of Persia, of the
Persian empire. Yes. And the, the biggest thing to take away from this chapter, cause we're
not actually going to spend a lot of time talking about Esther, because even though
it's a great story, King or Queen, you thought you knew great, great book. Yeah. Right. Um,
but the biggest thing that's important to the way that the story plays out and specifically
we're talking about the King is that nobody knows that she's a Jew except for Mordecai.
Yeah. Um, they have no idea where she comes from. Now, once again, what you're like, Oh,
how could that even be the case? Well, because also what's also where he's been doing though,
but he's been, he's been mingling everybody together. He's taken away like, uh, identifying
marks like language, culture, uh, practices, all these different things that people are
familiar with that identify themselves. They're actually becoming more of a melting pot, right?
So it's not going to be a normal thing. Like you're not going to see a young Jewish girl
in exile and necessarily think, Oh, Jewish, because of the way that they dress and because
of their practices and things, because it's just not going to be the same. And so, um,
that's really important because then we come into chapter three and there's this guy by
the name of Haman. Now Haman is an agogite. So who is an agogite? Do you know where they
come from? I actually don't. They come from the Malachites who were a thorn in the side
of the ancient Israelites. Now, if you remember back to Exodus 17, when we were having this
story about these, this desert dwelling, uh, raiding people, like I call them like the
desert people, the sand people, but from star wars, but they're, you know, Tuscan Raiders,
the Tuscan Raiders. Thank you. I knew that. Yeah. Tuscan Raiders. They're like the Tuscan
Raiders. They're out in the middle of the, of the desert and they tend to pick on these
clans and specifically they go and attack the weakest portion of the clan. Yes. So the
Malachites were known to be desert Raiders and they would always go after the weakest
people in your, in your place. So they're usually the people who are struggling on the
back. Incidentally, that's why God instructs the biggest tribe to go in front and the second
biggest tribe in the back, in the back, because you always keep your weak in the middle because
they're, they're meant to be protected. Um, so that's, that's who, that's who they are.
And then they also talk about them at first Samuel 15. Um, and it, and they, there's just
a history of hostile hostility toward the Jewish people. So if you're reading this book
and you're a Jew and you say, Hey, man, the Agagite and they go, Oh, Oh, there's an Agagite.
That's not good. Yeah. Um, Agagite actually connecting to King Agog, right? Um, so, uh,
he is, he's a huge deal. And so he gets promoted by Osowares, um, probably because, you know,
he's descendant of a King. He's, he's probably got authority. He's got some influence in
the region, but he gets, he gets elevated for some reason, um, to the point that, uh,
um, he actually starts asking people to bow down in his presence. He says, uh, and so,
uh, bowing in the Persian court culture, uh, would have been submission to the Persian
court. So Mordecai's refusal, sorry, I was trying to get ahead of myself. He tells the
everybody that have to bow down in his presence, but there's a guy by the name of Mordecai who
we've heard about already. He's the uncle of Esther who just won't do it. Now that's
a problem for Mordecai because if you don't bow when you're supposed to, it's seen as
an affront to the Persian court.
Side, side note and Esther in this part of the story, it doesn't specifically say why
Mordecai doesn't bow. Correct. Right. Uh, it's likely because of religious reasons. Yeah.
Likely because of his faith in God. It's, it might be because he knew he, he's an Agagite.
Yeah. Right. Right. He doesn't, we don't know. Uh, so just, uh, I've, I've heard people preach
on this and they immediately jumped to this because he was a faithful man of God. And
we're like, we actually don't know that. Yeah. We don't know that. All we know is that he
didn't bow. Right. So Haman is not thrilled about it because, uh, if you give somebody
a little bit of power, then they're going to corrupt that power. Absolutely. Um, and
so he goes to Osuarez and he makes a statement. He says that, uh, the Jews are following completely
separate laws. That's a big deal in this culture where everybody's supposed to be following
a standard law. Right. And they're, uh, exploiting fears of disloyalty in this diverse Persian
population. They're trying to be, they're trying to take away from what you're trying
to do. Xerxes, Xerxes. You're trying to take away from who you're trying to become. Yeah.
They're essentially, he's, he's spreading this lie being like, they're trying to revolt.
Yeah. Which by the way, in earlier in our episode, we talked about how our Oshawa is
actually put down revolts. So, I mean, he's going to be kind of, kind of sensitive to
that. Right. So then, uh, the King in a typical move, because he, he tends to, uh, just do
whatever his advisors tell him to do, approves Haman's plan without investigating it at all.
He was like, yep, sounds good to me. Here we go. Let's go and eliminate the Jews. No
investigation. Uh, and so he's completely detached, uh, from the, the, the responsibility
of kingship, right? Because if something's being brought here, like you're going to go
put it on a rebellion of an entire people, you should probably make sure that those reports
are true before you go and do that. And at this point, uh, you have Esther who then goes
before the King at the potential penalty of death for going before the King uninvited
to be like, Hey, I'm a Jew and the rest of the Jews, we're not trying to do this. We're
not trying to revolt. We're not trying to uprising and pleads for their lives. Right.
Now she does this at the risk of her own life. Okay. Um, and Esther and Oshawa is extends
his golden scepter was sparing her life. So he shows mercy. Um, and then, uh, he offers
up half of her kingdom and she invites her kingdom. No, he offers up half of his kingdom
and she invites him, uh, invites him and Haman to a banquet. It's, I mean, it's crazy because
you think that like, if you were Esther, right at this point and he offers you up to half
his kingdom, you're like, Hey, can you just not kill the Jews? Yeah. Right. Right. That'd
be cool. But once again, still neither Haman nor Oshawa is know that she's a Jew. So she
invites, uh, the King and Haman to a dinner. Now, one of the things I think that Rabbi
David Foreman does a really good job of kind of unpacking here in the language is she's
building a lot of tension between Oshawa and Haman. Yeah. So imagine, imagine if you're
like, uh, your, your spouse comes in and you're, you're super happy with them and you're like,
man, just, I love you so much. I'll give you whatever you want. And they're like, let's
have dinner with this person and us. What? Like what? And then, then they have dinner
and then it comes to the end of the day and you're like, man, I love you so much. Like
you can have whatever you want. And they're like, can we have another dinner with us and
this person? And so it says that, uh, Oshawa has trouble sleeping in chapter six. I wonder
why I wonder why he's having trouble sleeping. Right. It's not, not the fact that his queen
that he's very enamored with keeps inviting this guy, extra guy over to the, to the mill,
right? Nothing to do with that. Right. He finds out that Mordecai had earlier in the
story, uh, uncovered a plot to assassinate him. And so he calls in Haman and he's like,
Hey, what should I do for somebody that the King really loves now? Haman being very proud
of himself and being like, man, I'm, I'm super famous. Like I'm going to dinners with the
King and the queen and not realizing that there's probably a freight train coming at
that light at the end of the tunnel. Right. He's like, well, you should probably, uh,
put your royal robe on him and let him ride your, your, your horse through town and people
should sing his praises talking about how great he is. He's like, great. So you know,
Mordecai, you know, Mordecai, that guy, that guy. So he saved my life. We should, we should
do that for him. So as you can imagine, Haman's not super excited, right? And then they come
to the second banquet and Esther actually reveals this plot and, uh, Osuarez, uh, leaves
the leaves the dinner to go walk about. I can't remember exactly why he goes out. I
could actually look in the text, but he steps out and Haman pleads for his life, but it
says that he actually falls on Esther. And then Osuarez comes back in to see Haman all
over Esther and then goes and executes him. Read, read the, read the story, read the queen
you thought you knew. I, it's going to be very difficult for you to see anything else
happening in this text. And the fact that there's a very proud, uh, powerful person
who acts rationally and that there's a, there's a situation being set up here, right now.
And so what, and so Haman is actually deposed. He's, he's, uh, then, uh, executed by Osuarez.
That's actually not where the story ends. And I think a lot of people think that's where
the story ends because then she comes back to him and she's like, Hey, can we not kill
the Jews now? But he's like, I'm not going to, I'm not going to, you can't revoke a decree.
It's a decree that's already gone out. And so what ends up happening is that, that Mordecai
and Esther, they come up with a decree that he's also going to issue that allows the Jews
essentially to defend themselves and to even attack back and take from the other people
if they're aggressed upon. And, uh, so they don't actually reverse the decree. They give
another decree that allows them to act in response to it. It's, it's interesting when
you're looking at this story of Osuarez is that we're like, Oh, we'll just take back
your decree, but that's not how Persians work. And he's also very proud guy. He's a very
stuck on himself. And like, honestly, it probably doesn't matter to him that much that the Jews
would be eliminated. So, I mean, up to this point in history, just in general, admitting
you were wrong, even especially when you're in the place of being like a leader of a country,
of a nation, of an empire, it was something you did not do. Yeah. Right. You actually
see that in Osuarez father to Darius, uh, when, when, when he realized he was wrong
about the decree he made that put Daniel in the lions den, he didn't reverse it. Right.
Right. Because he's like, I can't do that because once I make the decree, it's, it's
set in stone. Like that's a cultural thing that's going on. Not there also in Babylon
also happens in Egypt. Uh, so just around the world, it's actually a common culture
thing at the time. You know, the interesting thing about that is so Darius is deceived
by his trusted advisors. And once again, here we have Haman, the Agagite coming in and giving
a Xerxes Osuarez bad advice that is ultimately not going to be well for his kingdom. There
is this thing that sometimes generationally father to son, son to father, like we start
to see, uh, repeats of the same pattern. Um, we saw that in Genesis with like Abraham to
Isaac, Isaac to Jacob, Jacob to Joseph, right? That there's a lot of like these repeats of
the same character. So, uh, so you start getting into this, this, uh, thing of like, are you
going to learn from the mistakes of your past or are you going to just be doomed or repeat
them? Yeah. I think the invitation is to be different, right? To, to understand your past
so that you can, it can inform your future. Um, one of the things we talk about in churches
is, and I think this is, this has taken on different, um, places depending on your, on
the way that you practice faith, right? But when we talk about generational curses, we're
talking about things that are in people's lives that show up generation to generation
to generation to generation. And, uh, one of the things that, uh, God spoke to me a
few years ago about is that, is that there are, um, there are things in my life, like
my parents were good, right? So I'm on, I want to stress that. Like my parents did a
good job with me, but they weren't perfect. I'm, I'm doing a good job with my son, but
I'm not perfect. So what I try to do is I try to think of the things that I know were
wrong and I try to do them different. Yeah. And I try to do them better for the next generation.
Yeah. And I'll make my own mistakes. I'll make my own, but my hope would be is that
my son then when he has kids is a better father than I was and that his son is a better father
than he is. Right. And in the church, uh, I think a lot of times we have this, this
mentality when we're raising up the generation after us that we're like, Oh, well they don't
know they're not going to be able, I was like, but we want the next generation to be better
than us. Can you imagine if the next generation was better at loving God and loving other
people better at spreading grace and mercy, better at living in truth, but standing in
the middle of the world, right? Right. Better at being generous, better at laying themselves
down on behalf of other people. Yeah. And we did that generation to generation. So like
our kids are, let's just say 14% better than us. Right. And their kids are 20% better than
them. Yeah. And their kids are 25% better than I was like, you know, what do you eventually
get is heaven on earth? Literally because the kingdom of heaven is actually the very
domain that we walk in. Yeah. Absolutely. So there's a few key takeaways, I think from
this passage, one is the danger of being impulsive. It gets him in a lot of trouble, right? Uh,
and not just him, but Darius as well. You saw that some with Darius his life as well.
But this idea of being impulsive of like, I'm just going to make jump, make rash decisions.
It actually ends up getting him to where he in his decrees is actually creating conflicting
decrees. One saying Jews have to be eliminated. He's like, actually, I can't take that away.
But Jews, you can actually defend yourself now. Right. Which by the way, if you have
127 providences that are receiving both those instructions, it's very confusing. Uh huh.
Right. So he's, he's made some decrees that if they went out and people would be like,
something's happening somewhere and I'm not sure what's going on. Yeah. But, uh, and then,
and then it leads people to be like, well, I can legally try to beat that Jew up, but
they can fight back. They can legally fight back. One of the, one of the things that,
uh, is, uh, people have, if you've been on the podcast for a while, you remember the
episode we had with Ed McDowell on here. So I'm going to use him as an example. Um, Ed
McDowell is a very thoughtful person. Uh huh. Um, when you ask questions, he pauses for
a second. Uh huh. And then he answers slowly and like builds his like statement of like,
cause he's not, he's not in a hurry to respond. Yeah. He's not impulsive. Like he's like,
Hey, let me actually think about like how to answer this in terms of like what I actually
think. Yeah. Right. And, uh, there's a lot of, a lot of wisdom in that because when you
have, when you live an impulsive lifestyle, um, you think about the things that he did
impulsively, he, he eliminates fasty impulsively. Right. So now he has a power vacuum at a queen.
So then he has to, uh, go and find a new queen. And then he gets a executive order from our
executive requests from Haman. And he's like, sure, just eliminate these people. I believe
you. Like you need to take a pause and say, okay, Haman, let's talk about that. Can you,
can you give me some examples? And then he realizes that his wife is one of those people
and not, doesn't reverse it, but it's like, okay, well I can't take the other one away,
but your people can now fight back. Yeah. Right. Well, and, and mostly he just says,
you guys can figure that you get, you can issue a decree and I'll stamp it. Yeah. Right.
So Esther and Mordecai actually have to come up with the decree and then he does rubber
stamps it, which by the way is what got him in this, in this situation to begin with.
Right. Like letting other people rubber stamp things for him. Um, now that impulsiveness
I think goes with the second takeaway, which is there is a, there's a ton of consequences
of having pride and power. Yes. Right. Like those two things will cause you to also act
impulsively and, and usually to abuse it. Which by the way, those two things should
never go together. Pride and power. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, like, uh, if you are someone
who is in place of power, you actually need to be living a life of humility because that's
actually going to allow you to be more generous. That's going to allow you to see the brokenness
around you, the hurting around you and be able to take action. Right. When we, when
we live in a place where we're like, look how good I am and you are living in a place
of power, what you, what ends up happening is you end up being like, I am better than
anybody else in this room, anybody else in this town. And guess what? I know it, you
know it. So get over it. And then you end up belittling people and doing the opposite
of what Christ calls us to. Absolutely. I was just thinking that when I edit this for
like a, uh, like a social media clip, I could, I could literally clip you just saying that.
You're like, I'm the best. I'm no, no, no. You're going to do it and send it to a few
people. Yeah. I'll send it to your parents. I'll be like, Hey, just so you know what Spencer
said on the podcast and I will text them and be like, Ben's pulling this out of context.
It's out of context. It'd be a love and out of context. So like, but this idea is, it's
the opposite of being prideful and powerful is the opposite of what Jesus teaches. In
fact, actually what Jesus tells us is that it's actually going to be important for us
to have justice, but also accountability. Yes. Right. So we're not, even when we have
power, we should have accountability. Yeah. Right. Um, I, I'm always hesitant. Like I
think it's completely fine. If a church has a pastor who makes the large bulk of their
decisions, right? It's crazy to me if they don't have a church board, elder board, deacon
board, somebody who's going to come alongside the pastor and be like, Hey, have you thought
about this? Right. Um, even in your case with young life, you have a, you have a committee
who, like if you're like, Hey, I'm thinking about this. What do you think? Right. And
sometimes we go, that's great. And sometimes we're like, well, hold on, maybe this, right.
And, uh, and it's not because, uh, it's not because we think you're going to abuse your
power, but it's, it's to make sure that you, you always are seeing all angles of things
because you're not going to be able to. Right. It's accountability structure. It's accountability
structure, right? Um, because, uh, the, uh, this is the other thing, accountability, uh,
power without accountability, uh, leads to pride. Yeah. And so like, you have to have
that. Uh, and so whenever I'm, you might even say it leads to tyranny. Yeah. Yeah. So you,
you absolutely have to have accountability when you're in your leadership, like, uh,
in leadership roles. Yeah. Um, and then the other one is a call to courage and advocacy.
And this is really more of Esther, but it's in the story of us whereas Esther had a huge
amount of courage to be like, Hey, I'm going to go to the king at the risk of my own life
to see if he will spare my people. Right. Huge amount of courage. Right. Um, and so,
and the other thing is, is what does she have encouraged for? She's having courage for her
people. She's advocating for people that currently don't have a voice and are about to go under
ghosts, massive persecution. Right. Uh, this actually ties over to Matthew 25 where, where
when Jesus is separating out sheep and sheep and the goats, he lists these things and the
sheep are like, yes, we saw he's a sheep. You saw that you acted. The goats are like,
well, when did we see you naked? When did we see you hungry? When did we see you in
prison? And Jesus says, when you did this to the least of these, when you saw the least
of these. Right. And so we have this call as Christians to, to be advocates in our community.
Now I want to preface, we should preface this a little bit though, because sometimes when
people are advocates, they go about it the wrong way. Yeah. Um, advocate advocacy does
not mean that you go around swinging hammers at people. Yes. That is, that's actually a
construction work. That's a completely different field. If you have anger management issues,
demo work with a sledgehammer is great. Yep. Um, but, uh, yeah, it's, it doesn't mean that
you, cause a lot of times we can become advocates at the belittlement of other people who are
also need to be advocated for. Yeah. One, one little piece I want to throw in here.
We weren't spending a lot of time talking about Esther, but I think it's, it's important
when we're talking about this advocacy role, um, in the, when Mordecai comes to Esther,
he makes a bunch of different statements. Uh, and, and, and I'm not going to get into
it because it's in the book and it's also in some teachings by Rabbi David Foreman,
but there is a contextual link to a story in the book of numbers. I believe it's the
book of numbers. I might be misquoting the book, but it's the story of when a husband
is able to, um, override a wife's vow. Right. And I think we talked about this briefly when
we were in Torah. Um, but essentially the conversation that Mordecai has coming in with
Esther is he says, uh, he quotes from this, this chapter because there's not three choices.
There's not, you can speak up, say nothing or, or, um, silently align that if you silently
align, you're essentially saying that what they're doing is okay. Yeah. Okay. Um, being
quiet is not a third choice. It's choosing to align yourself with what they're doing.
And that doesn't mean that you're going to, uh, like we were saying, take a hammer and
start throwing it at people. But if you don't speak up and you don't make a statement about
injustice, you don't make it, you don't do something with your life to stand against
it. Then essentially you're saying the injustice is okay. It's, it's not, there is no third
choice you either for the injustice or you're against the injustice. And I'm not what, like
to your point is that advocacy doesn't mean that you start, you know, throwing fists,
right? You don't, you don't put out a fire by starting a fire in another location. Correct.
Right. But if you also are just like, this is fine or I'm just not going to say anything
about a fire. So if I'm driving down the road and I see a house on fire and I don't call
911, my choice was not to be silent and that I was not in favor of the fire. It means that
I was, I was, I was taking an active role in not suppressing the fire. I had an option
to stand up and to do what was right. And I chose not to.
So I have a friend, he describes advocacy this way where he's like a lot of times when
we are being advocates, we'll see a fire in one spot and then we'll go start a fire somewhere
else. And it'll be like, but look how much worse that fire is. Right. And, and, and to
that he's like, what good did you just do? Now you have two fires. Yeah. Not one. Right.
Like if you want to put a fire out, you need to have a, you need to have something that
puts fire out. You need to have, you need to have some water or some dirt or something
like that to where you can be like, okay, here is an issue. Here's a problem. How can
we come alongside and help address this? Right. Because if you're going to be an advocate,
you need to be part of the solution. Right. Uh, if you're going to try to be an advocate
and make, make someone else part of the solution, that's not going to work. Right. Which incidentally
that's exactly what also ours does. Uh huh. Right. And, uh, and his, his rain doesn't
last very long. I don't remember if you guys heard me at the beginning, uh, his rain, we're
only talking about 30 years. Uh, that's pretty, that's pretty low amount of years for somebody
in a, in that kind of position. Yeah. A lifetime appointment. Yeah. Lifetime appointment. Like
it's a, it's a pretty short term. Yeah. But another way to think of advocacy real quick
is if I, let's say my car broke down and I went to Ben and said, you need to fix my car.
First of all, it would never get fixed. No, it would not. I would be like, are these tires?
You're like, that's definitely a steering wheel. Nick is going to listen to this and
he's going to be like, why would you ask Ben? Yeah. He's like, why would you ask Ben to
fix your car? Uh, uh, right. Versus I could actually go to a shop and advocate for my
car to be fixed. Yeah. Right. It's might cost me some time. Might cost me some money. Right.
But if I, if I just went to Ben and I was picking on Ben because Ben and I both know
he doesn't know much about cars. Uh, side note, Thanksgiving dinner, uh, we, uh, there's
another friend there and him and I were both talking cars and Ben's over there. He's like
engines, wheels. Yeah. I was like oil change timing belt. I just started saying random
random things that were like, that has nothing to do with what we're talking about, but you
know, um, so, but right, right. If you're going to advocate for someone, you need to
actually go to a source to where that's avocation is going to be successful. Yeah. It's interesting.
So when you have the, the life of us, whereas like that is a complete opposite of who he
was like, so he's about accumulation of power and about authority and about pride and all
these different things that, uh, he has money, his wealth, his status has kind of given him
and he actually stopped like in some ways, Darius was better about this, but he was an
advocate of actually bringing people together. Yeah. Right. About actually finding ways to
work together. Um, I don't like a lot of his stuff ended out poorly, but like that, that
was the goal in what he was trying to do. Um, whereas Asuara is almost, almost every
decision he keeps making does more to divide people. Yep. Right. Um, he kills off Vashti,
who's likely a political, you know, ally. Um, he marries, uh, Esther, who's an unknown,
right. And then he elevates Hainan, Haman, who wants to eradicate an entire people. Like
he's not actually advocating for the people under his rule. He's just kind of going with
the path of the resistance and what's going to bring the most power for himself. That's
definitely not what you want in advocacy. Right. And so there, there's this, this idea
that we have to, we have to be careful. Uh, the Asuara sees us a lot about not being impatient
about, about learning how to walk in humility, not to let pride and power control us, but
how to advocate for those and pursue justice for people around the world, but to do it
in such a way that we bring kingdom to earth, not our perspective. Yeah. Asuara is, is a
great example of what not to do. Yeah. If you want to live those three things out. Yeah.
There are figures in history that teach you what to do because of the good things that
they do. And there are other figures that teach you what to do because you're like,
well, don't do that. So we're both, both you and I are, uh, we have older siblings, right?
I can much older in my case, my brother's not gonna listen to this. I don't want to
say it anyways. Uh, uh, but in, uh, I'm sure in your case, my case though, like I had the
opportunity to look at how my siblings behaved and see the consequences they got from my
parents and to kind of weigh out in my head, like, Oh, that might not be a good idea or
Oh, they got praise for that. That's probably is a good idea. Now that I follow through
with that, that's another question. I was just saying, I got away with everything according
to them because I was the baby. Yeah. So, um, so point being is we can do that with
history too. You can look at people and be like, wow, they did everything wrong. And
it's like, good note that don't do that. Right. You can look at people and be like, man, they
did a lot of good. Okay. Note that maybe follow their example. So yeah. Why was it good? Why
was it bad? How did those apply to our modern context? That's what it happens with reading
literature in its context. It helps you actually understand like, what does this actually have
for me? Like in my context. So, um, that's going to be Kings and kingdoms. King also
our is we only butchered it like 80,000 shoes. Our shoes are us. I really, why is it? So
I don't, it comes out as an accent every time. Uh, we got two more episodes that are going
to be coming up. Uh, we're going to be talking about Herod the great misleading, uh, and
Caesar Augustus. Yeah. What I'm going to tell you about Herod the great is that any person
who puts the great at the end of their name usually wasn't that great. So, uh, we also
will tell you about Spencer the great. No, just kidding. I want you to know I did not
put that at the end of my name. Yeah. All right. Until next time. And that's a wrap
for today's episode of love and context. We hope you enjoyed this engaging conversation
and gain valuable insights into the powerful message of love within the Bible. We'd love
to hear from you and continue the conversation. Connect with us by sending us your questions,
thoughts, and suggestions to love and context at gmail.com. We greatly appreciate your feedback
and ideas for future episodes. Stay connected with us on social media for updates, behind
the scenes content and additional resources. You can find us on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube,
and Facebook at love and context. Don't forget to hit that follow button to stay up to date
with the latest episodes and join our growing community. Thank you for being part of the
love and context family. Remember love is at the heart of it all until next time. Keep
seeking wisdom, embracing love and living out your faith in the context of today's world.