Read Time: 7 minutesEsther 7–8
The reversal is completed at Esther’s second banquet — Haman is exposed, hanged on his own fifty-cubit gallows, and the condemned people are given the means of their deliverance. Esther names her petition at last: let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request; for we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed. The king demands who has dared it, and she points: this wicked Haman. He is taken, and a chamberlain notes the gallows Haman built for Mordecai — Hang him thereon. The gallows built for the righteous takes its builder — Haman dies on the very instrument of his malice, his device turned exactly back upon him.
The decree against the Jews, sealed with the king’s ring, cannot be revoked — the writing… may no man reverse. The condemnation stands on the books; it cannot be unwritten. The shape of what follows is the gospel’s own shape: the law that cannot be repealed is answered by a second law under the same seal. The first word is not deleted from the record; a stronger word is written beside it and given the same authority. Sin’s sentence is not cancelled either. It is answered — what the law could not do… God sending his own Son. The sentence cannot be cancelled — only answered — so a second decree goes out, sealed with the same ring, granting the Jews the right to gather and defend their lives. The first word of death is not erased; it is overpowered by a stronger word of life.
Mordecai is raised to the place Haman held, arrayed in royal apparel of blue and white, and with a great crown of gold, and the city of Shushan rejoiced and was glad. For the Jews there is light, and gladness, and joy, and honour. The condemned pass from death-sentence to light and gladness — the people who had mourned in sackcloth now keep festival, the reversal complete, the enemy destroyed and the doomed delivered.
The whole book closes its great pattern here. The hidden hand that emptied a throne, hid a queen, recorded a faithful deed, and timed a sleepless night has worked an unnamed deliverance from first to last. The unnamed hand finishes what it began in silence — no miracle, no voice from heaven, only providence threading every coincidence into a salvation; the seed of the serpent hanged on his own gallows, the seed of the woman delivered.
The gallows built for the righteous takes its builder; the sentence of death cannot be cancelled, only answered by a stronger word — and the condemned pass into light and gladness, delivered by the unnamed hand.
Obadiah 1
The shortest book in the Old Testament has one theme — the pride of Edom brought down — and one law of judgment: as thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee. The crime is not an ancient grudge: Edom stood at the top of the pass and watched Nebuchadnezzar burn Jerusalem, in the day that thou stoodest on the other side, and then went down and cut off the ones who got away in the crossway. Psalm 137 remembers what they were shouting — Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof. The brother did not strike the blow; he stood on the ridge and cheered, and then robbed the corpses. Edom, the children of Esau, trusted in the unreachable clefts of the rock: the pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock… that saith in his heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground? And Yahweh answers: Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down. The proud nest among the stars is brought down — no height is too high for the hand that searched the depths and the heavens in Amos; Edom’s rock-fortress is no refuge from Yahweh.
Edom’s crime is the old brother-enmity — Esau against Jacob, standing by and gloating in the day of Jacob’s calamity, even cutting off the survivors. The brother who gloated in the day of calamity — the deepest charge is not distant cruelty but fraternal betrayal, Esau rejoicing over Jacob’s ruin and joining the spoilers. The serpent-seed enmity again, brother against brother from the womb.
And the verdict is the law of the reversal stated bare. As thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee: thy reward shall return upon thine own head. As thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee — the very principle that hanged Haman on his own gallows; the deed returns upon the doer, the measure meted is measured back. Edom’s gloating over Jacob’s day becomes Edom’s own day of destruction.
The book ends where all the prophets end — on Zion and the kingdom. Upon mount Zion shall be deliverance… and saviours shall come up on mount Zion to judge the mount of Esau; and the kingdom shall be Yahweh’s. The kingdom shall be Yahweh’s — past the judgment of proud Edom lies deliverance on Zion and the kingdom restored to its true King. And do not let the plural go: and saviours shall come up on mount Zion. Not a savior. The word Obadiah ends his book with is the multitudinous one — the deliverers who come up with the King, the same company Daniel saw in the clouds and John saw on the white horses. The last line of the shortest book in the Old Testament is the multitudinous Christ, ascending Zion to judge the mount of Esau; and then, only then, the kingdom shall be Yahweh’s.
The proud nest among the stars is brought down, for as thou hast done it shall be done unto thee — and past the judgment of the gloating brother, the kingdom shall be Yahweh’s.
Hebrews 3–5
These chapters set before the saint the rest that still remains and the high priest who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities — the One made like us, now able to help us to the rest. Christ is a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence… firm unto the end. The warning is the wilderness generation: To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, for those who hardened theirs entered not in because of unbelief. The house is ours if we hold fast — the rest is real and the door is open, but the wilderness dead are the warning that unbelief forfeits it.
The rest that remains is the kingdom-sabbath. There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works. A rest remains for the people of God — not yet entered, still ahead, the true sabbath-keeping the seventh day always pointed toward; Joshua gave Israel the land but not this rest, so a greater rest waits, and the saint labors to enter it. And the word that searches whether we will is quick, and powerful… a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart — nothing hidden from it.
The ground of confidence is the high priest who knows our weakness from the inside. We have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Open the verb: sumpatheō — to suffer alongside, to feel the same thing at the same time; not pity looking down at weakness but weakness known from inside. He does not sympathize with our infirmities the way a strong man sympathizes with a sick one. He has had them. That is the whole reason Hebrews spent chapter 2 insisting he took flesh and blood and was made like his brethren in all things — so that this verse could be true. Tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin — he did not stand above the testing but went through the whole of it in our nature, felt every pull of it, and did not yield; and so let us come boldly unto the throne of grace, for the one who pleads there has been where we are.
And his fitness was learned in suffering, in the days of his flesh. Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears… though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered. Though a Son, he learned obedience by suffering — not a Son who skipped the cost, but one perfected through it, called of God an high priest after the order of Melchisedec; the priest who wept and cried and obeyed is the priest who can bring us, weeping and weak, to the throne of grace and into the rest.
A rest remains for the people of God, and the high priest who was tempted in all points yet without sin — who learned obedience by suffering — can bring the weak and weeping boldly to the throne of grace.
Synthesis and Exhortation
November closes on the enemy undone by his own device, the kingdom become Yahweh’s, and the high priest who brings the weak into the rest. Haman hangs on his own gallows and the condemned pass into light and gladness; Edom’s gloating returns upon his own head and the kingdom shall be Yahweh’s; and Hebrews holds out a rest that remaineth for the people of God, opened by a high priest tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin. The reversal of the proud, the securing of the kingdom, and the rest entered through the sympathetic priest are one movement toward the end.
The law of the reversal binds Esther and Obadiah. Haman’s gallows takes its builder; Edom’s deed returns upon his head — as thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee. The seed of the serpent, whether Agagite or Edomite, is undone by its own malice, and past its destruction lies deliverance on Zion and the kingdom of Yahweh. This is the pattern Hebrews 2 set in the deepest key — the power of death destroyed by the death it dealt — and now its end is named: a kingdom that is Yahweh’s and a rest that remains for his people.
And the rest is entered not by the strong but by the weak through their priest. The wilderness generation forfeited it by unbelief and hard hearts; the saint is warned by them — To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. But the door is held open by a high priest who is no stranger to weakness: tempted in all points as we are, who learned obedience by the things which he suffered, who wept and cried in the days of his flesh. He went through the whole of our testing without yielding, and so he can bring the weeping and the weak boldly unto the throne of grace, and on into the rest that remains.
So as the month closes, take the whole arc to heart. The hidden hand that worked unnamed through Esther works still; the proud who build gallows for the faithful will be hanged on them; the kingdom shall be Yahweh’s. Do not harden your heart as the wilderness generation did and forfeit the rest; labor to enter it, holding fast your confidence firm unto the end. And when you come weak and weeping, come boldly — for your high priest was tempted in all points as you are, learned obedience by suffering, and lives to bring you through to the rest that remains for the people of God.
The enemy is undone by his own device and the kingdom shall be Yahweh’s — so harden not your heart, but come boldly through the high priest who was tempted as you are, into the rest that remains for the people of God.