NOTES for Est 8:1-17

It is difficult for us to imagine the predicament that befell King Artaxerxes. What is he to do if his decree was issued under the influence of a malicious courtier, if the king himself disagrees with the decree, yet a royal decree cannot be revoked? The modern world, which knows that no one is immune from error, looks at matters much more simply. To a considerable extent, this reflects the beneficial influence of biblical monotheism, which confesses that no one is holy except God alone.

Artaxerxes nevertheless emerges from the trial with honor by allowing the Jews to resist by force the execution of his own irrevocable decree. Later, the Lord Jesus Christ would say ironically that the children of this age are more shrewd in their own generation than the children of the Kingdom...

A highly significant observation made by the book’s author in the closing verses of the chapter draws our attention. Many inhabitants of the country, he writes, became Jews because they saw that some invisible power protected them. The surrounding pagans perceived this sudden change in the chosen people’s fate as evidence of the saving hand of the God of Israel. Some prophets had spoken of this before; this intervention of God in human destiny becomes the reason for the establishment of a feast.