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 it has changed nothing?
Esther is on the floor. She has already done the brave thing everybody remembers, gone in uninvited, survived it, and watched Haman hanged on the gallows he built. And she falls down at his feet, and besought him with tears.
Because Persian law has a clause in it. 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 sealed. It is in the post, in every province, and Haman is dead while the letter is not. Winning did not recall it.
So she asks, and the request is careful and legal and hopeless: let it be written to reverse the letters devised by Haman. Then her reason, which is the one place you hear her without the court manners on. 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?
Endure is the word to sit with. Her own safety was settled the moment the sceptre came out. What she is saying is that she cannot be in the world while that happens in it. The king's answer is not a cancellation. Write ye also for the Jews, as it liketh you. A second letter, going out after the first, arriving in the same houses, and everything after that has to be fought for.
Whose survival would ruin you to watch fail? And are you close enough to their trouble to be unable to endure it, or only close enough to hear about it?
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 16 is The Great Shepherd (Hebrews 13:20-21).