Mordecai Uncovers a Conspiracy
“When the virgins were assembled a second time, Mordecai was sitting at the king’s gate. But Esther had kept secret her family background and nationality just as Mordecai had told her to do, for she continued to follow Mordecai’s instructions as she had done when he was bringing her up.
During the time Mordecai was sitting at the king’s gate, Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s officers who guarded the doorway, became angry and conspired to assassinate King Xerxes. But Mordecai found out about the plot and told Queen Esther, who in turn reported it to the king, giving credit to Mordecai. And when the report was investigated and found to be true, the two officials were impaled on poles. All this was recorded in the book of the annals in the presence of the king.”
“Who’s that old guy sitting there by the gate?” Bigthana asked Teresh as the two gate guards stood at the entry way to the court of King Xerxes in Susa. “Oh, that’s that wretched Jew Mordecai; he’s harmless. Mordecai walks by here every day and sometimes he sits in the gate with the other old men. He probably can’t even see or hear very well. Don’t worry about him; he’s no threat to us. But when do you think we can get rid of King Xerxes?” The position of gate guard was a very important one; only strong warriors who were trustworthy were selected for this work.
We don’t know why these two guards began scheming to assassinate King Xerxes; however, ignoring Mordecai proved to be a fatal mistake. Mordecai was neither blind nor deaf and he evidently enjoyed a good reputation in the city of Susa. When Mordecai got wind of the assassination plot, he told Esther and Esther informed King Xerxes. Xerxes immediately investigated and summarily dealt with the two conspirators, putting them to death in a grisly fashion to discourage future threats. And some scribe sitting in a Persian office dutifully recorded Mordecai’s name and his acts for the records. Remember that scribe, because his records will prove to be vitally important.
Meanwhile, back in the palace, Esther was maintaining a low profile as far as her nationality was concerned. Xerxes didn’t care; he was enticed by Esther’s beauty and her lovely personality. The Persian Empire included thousands of different nationalities, so Esther’s origins were of little interest to the king. Somehow, Mordecai and Esther were continuing to communicate, perhaps through Hegai, the head of the royal harem.
APPLICATION: Mordecai was an exile, “a stranger in a strange land.” Although Mordecai could have remained bitter about being carried off from his home country, he maintained a positive attitude. Why? The answers lie in a letter God had the prophet Jeremiah write to those in exile as recorded in Jeremiah 29:1-7.
“This is the text of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders among the exiles and to the priests, the prophets and all the other people Nebuchadnezzar had carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon. (This was after King Jehoiachin and the queen mother, the court officials and the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem, the skilled workers and the artisans had gone into exile from Jerusalem.) He entrusted the letter to Elasah son of Shaphan and to Gemariah son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to King Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon. It said:
This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”
Given the fact that Mordecai was an observant Jew, he would certainly have known about Jeremiah’s message and would have respected it. It’s quite likely that as Mordecai was walking around Susa, he was praying for the city and especially for Esther and King Xerxes. Once Esther became queen, Mordecai needed to pray for Xerxes to have a long healthy reign. Were Xerxes to die, Esther might find herself relegated to the harem for the remainder of her life. For all of these reasons, Mordecai needed to report any threats to the king as quickly as possible.
APPLICATION: No matter where we live, we are all subject to governments which are fallible. Political parties rise and fall, economies can collapse, and nothing is certain. God’s advice through Jeremiah is as important for us today as it was to the Jews in the Persian Empire.
- Continue to pray for the government of the country in which you live.
- Pray for righteous leadership and pray for protection for the righteous.
- Seek the peace and prosperity of the country in which you live.
- Pray for your fellow citizens to know God.
- Remember that no matter how evil a ruler might be, God still loved that man or woman so much that He sent His Son Jesus Christ to die for their sins. There is nobody so evil that he or she is beyond the reach of God.
PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us. Help us to pray for our towns and villages and for our countries. Help us to view all of our fellow citizens as people for whom Jesus died. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.
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