Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 16 · January 16
After the Sceptre
“For how can I endure to see the evil that shall come unto my people? or how can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred?”
What do you do when you have won, and nothing has changed?
Esther is on the floor before the king. She has already done the brave thing everyone remembers: she went in to the king without being called, and she lived. Haman has been hanged on the gallows he built for Mordecai. Yet now Esther "fell down at his feet, and besought him with tears."
The reason is a rule of Persian law, and the king himself states it two verses after today's verse: "the writing which is written in the king's name, and sealed with the king's ring, may no man reverse." The order to kill her people went out with that seal on it, and it has already been sent to every province. Haman is dead, but his letter is still on its way. Winning did not call it back.
So Esther asks the king for something careful, legal and almost hopeless: "let it be written to reverse the letters devised by Haman." Then she gives her reason, and for once she sets aside her court manners and speaks from the heart: "For how can I endure to see the evil that shall come unto my people? or how can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred?"
Stay with the word "endure." Esther's own life was safe once Haman had been hanged and his house given to her. What she is saying is that she cannot go on living comfortably while her people are destroyed. The king does not cancel the first order, because even he cannot. He says, "Write ye also for the Jews, as it liketh you." So a second letter goes out after the first, to the same provinces, and everything after that has to be fought for. God is never named in the book of Esther, yet His people are not left alone with the first letter.
Whose ruin could you not bear to watch? Ask yourself whether you are close enough to their trouble to feel it, or only close enough to hear about it. Then go closer. The God who answered Esther's tears with a second letter still sends help to those in danger, and He very often sends it by way of someone who could not bear to stay at a distance.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 16 is The Great Shepherd (Hebrews 13:20-21).