Sermon: Mordecai (Esther 2:1-7)

The Local Christendom Podcast with Aaron Ventura

Mordecai
Sunday, December 15th, 2024
Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA

Esther 2:1-7
After these things, when the wrath of king Ahasuerus was appeased, he remembered Vashti, and what she had done, and what was decreed against her. Then said the king’s servants that ministered unto him, Let there be fair young virgins sought for the king: And let the king appoint officers in all the provinces of his kingdom, that they may gather together all the fair young virgins unto Shushan the palace, to the house of the women, unto the custody of Hege the king’s chamberlain, keeper of the women; and let their things for purification be given them: And let the maiden which pleaseth the king be queen instead of Vashti. And the thing pleased the king; and he did so. Now in Shushan the palace there was a certain Jew, whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, a Benjamite; Who had been carried away from Jerusalem with the captivity which had been carried away with Jeconiah king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away. And he brought up Hadassah, that is, Esther, his uncle’s daughter: for she had neither father nor mother, and the maid was fair and beautiful; whom Mordecai, when her father and mother were dead, took for his own daughter.

Prayer

O Father, we thank You for the Lord Jesus, who is the eternally begotten Word, and from whose mouth proceeds a perfect word, a sharp two-edged sword that distinguishes between right and wrong, truth and falsehood, temporal and eternal. Make us to live by every word that proceeds from his mouth, for we ask this in Christ’s name, Amen.

Introduction

I begin with a question this morning. Who would you say has been the most influential person (or persons) in your life?Who has most formed you and shaped you and taught you, (for good or ill) so that you are who you are today? I think all of us would have to include on our list of most influential people, our parents.

• Who gave us our last name? Our father.
• Whose likeness and image do we bear? Our parents and grandparents.
• Where did we get our mannerisms, our ways of walking and talking, our bearing, our micro-expressions, our temperament, our looks? In some mysterious way, we got those in large part from the people who begot us, the people who raised us, and the people who taught us. From both nature and from nurture, we become who we are.
• Jesus puts it this way in Luke 6:40, “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher.”
  • The Apostle Paul says, “Imitate me as I imitate Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1, Phil. 3:17).
• God has so arranged the world that we become like our parents, like our teachers, like our friends, like our heroes, for good or ill.
• It says in Proverbs 17:6, “Children’s children are the crown of old men, And the glory of children is their father.”
  • Solomon says there is a kind of shared glory, or shame, that is transmitted across the generations.
  • He says a few verses later in Proverbs 17:25, “A foolish son is a grief to his father, And bitterness to his mother.”
  • And earlier in Proverbs 10:1, “A wise son maketh a glad father: But a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.”
• And so because wisdom is justified/vindicated by her children (as Jesus says in Luke 7:35), our wisdom, or lack thereof, our virtues, or our vices, either give glory to God and our fathers, or brings shame to the family name.
• So what kind of reputation are you giving to your fathers, both heavenly and earthly? It says in Proverbs 22:1, “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches.” And so are you winning a good name for those who bore you, begot you, taught you, and trained you? Or are you by your folly bringing shame to yourself and to them?

This morning, we are introduced to the man Mordecai. And the way that God introduces Mordecai is by giving us some names from his family history, specifically tribal names and the names of his fathers. And Mordecai, like most of us in this room, has a complicated family background.

• The very etymology of Mordecai’s name (מָרְדֳּכַ֛י) is suggestive of this complicated identity.
  • In Persian, the name Mordecai means something like “man/servant of Marduk.” And Marduk is the name for the highest of the Babylonian gods, so this could refer to YHWH, or it could be refer to an idol, just like our English words “God/Lord” can refer to the true God or false gods.
  • However, in Hebrew, Mordecai’s name has at least two possible derivations.
    • 1. If Mordecai comes from the two Hebrew words mar and dach, it would mean something like “bitter oppression.”
    • 2. However, if it comes from the Hebrew word marad/mered, together with the possessive form, it would mean something like “my rebellion.”
  • So the very makeup of this name Mordecai is a puzzle in itself, and yet given Mordecai’s ancestry, and the actions of this book, this name if very fitting.

Mordecai has some good fathers and some bad fathers. Mordecai has some fathers who really shouldn’t be imitated and some who should. Mordecai, like all of us has imperfect and sinful earthly fathers. And the question that hangs over Mordecai in the story of Esther is, What kind of man and father is he going to be? Will he follow in the footsteps of his sinful fathers, or will he cover their shame and win glory for God?

That is the question before Mordecai and the question before all of us. Whose example are you going to follow? Christ or the devil? God, or the world? The righteous or the wicked?

And so as we consider Mordecai’s lineage, his complicated past, I want you to also consider your own. And ask the Lord, what parallels, what contrasts, might be made, and are you repeating the sins of the past? Or are you walking the paths of the righteous?

Division of the Text

Our text divides into two sections.

• In verses 1-4, we have The King’s Search For A New Queen.
• In verses 5-7, we have An Introduction to Mordecai and Esther.
• Next week we’ll consider the King’s Search and Esther’s lineage, but this morning we will just focus on verses 5-6 which describe Mordecai’s background.

Verses 5-6

5Now in Shushan the palace there was a certain Jew, whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, a Benjamite; 6Who had been carried away from Jerusalem with the captivity which had been carried away with Jeconiah king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away.

• Many names, places, and relations are listed here. So let us make us an orderly list and then consider the importance and meaning of each.

Geographic Locations

We’ll start with locations. Where is Mordecai from, where has he been, where is he now? For those of you have done much traveling, you know that living or just being in a foreign place has the power to change your perspective. And Mordecai is a man who has indeed traveled the ancient world.

• 1. First, we are told in verse 5 that Mordecai is presently living in Shushan the palace. And we saw in chapter 1 of Esther that Shushan is the capital of the Persian empire, a great city and center of political influence from which laws and decrees are made.
  • Shushan is kind of like if we combined New York City and Washington D.C. together, but without any modern technology. That is where Mordecai is now.
• 2. Second, we are told in verse 6 that when Mordecai was younger, perhaps a baby or a young man, he was “carried away from Jerusalem with the captivity which had been carried away with Jeconiah king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away.”
  • This event is recorded in at least 4 other places in Scripture: 2 Kings 24, 2 Chr. 36:9-10, Jeremiah 24, and Jeremiah 52. And so let me read you just a sample of what God says about this event, because it has direct relevance and application for Mordecai’s life.
• The year is 597 BC, about 10 years before Jerusalem and the temple are destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. And about 5 years after Daniel interpreted Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and was elevated to be prime minister of Babylon (Dan. 2:48-49).
• So at this moment in history, if you are a faithful man of God, the place you want to be is Babylon, not Jerusalem. And God communicates this message to His people in Jeremiah 24.
  • Jeremiah 24:1-7 says, “The Lord showed me, and there were two baskets of figs set before the temple of the Lord, after Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon had carried away captive Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and the princes of Judah with the craftsmen and smiths, from Jerusalem, and had brought them to Babylon. One basket had very good figs, like the figs that are first ripe; and the other basket had very bad figs which could not be eaten, they were so bad. Then the Lord said to me, “What do you see, Jeremiah?” And I said, “Figs, the good figs, very good; and the bad, very bad, which cannot be eaten, they are so bad.” Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: ‘Like these good figs, so will I acknowledge those who are carried away captive from Judah, whom I have sent out of this place for their own good, into the land of the Chaldeans. For I will set My eyes on them for good, and I will bring them back to this land; I will build them and not pull them down, and I will plant them and not pluck them up. Then I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the Lord; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, for they shall return to Me with their whole heart.”
    • So notice that when Jeconiah is taken into Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar also takes “the princes of Judah with the craftsmen and smiths.” In 2 Kings 24:15-16 we are given more details when it says, “And he carried Jehoiachin captive to Babylon. The king’s mother, the king’s wives, his officers, and the mighty of the land he carried into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon. All the valiant men, seven thousand, and craftsmen and smiths, one thousand, all who were strong and fit for war, these the king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon.”
    • And so Mordecai was amongst the Jewish nobility, and in the words of Jeremiah, he is either a good fig that is very good, or a bad fig that is very bad. And since Mordecai is someone who lives to return to Jerusalem (as Ezra-Nehemiah record), we can conclude that God has shown favor to him. God has given Mordecai a heart to know the Lord, even while living in exile in Babylon.
    • So for 60 years of Mordecai’s life (from 597-537 BC), he is amongst the exiles in Babylon.His job for that portion of his life is to obey Jeremiah 29, seek the peace of Babylon, get married, settle down, have children, build a house. And then when Cyrus of Persia comes to power, and decrees that the Jews may return to Jerusalem and rebuild God’s House, Mordecai is amongst those Jews who return.
  • It says in Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7 that Mordecai amongst “the people of the province who came back from the captivity, of those who had been carried away, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away to Babylon, and who returned to Jerusalem and Judah, everyone to his own city. Those who came with Zerubbabel were Jeshua, Nehemiah, Seraiah, Reelaiah, Mordecai.”
• So to summarize Mordecai’s life and locations:
  • His life begins in Jerusalem as the son of the nobility, but he is taken to Babylon by God’s merciful providence.
  • For 60 years he lives in Babylon, and during those years he watches Jerusalem fall, then Babylon fall, and then Persia rise to power.
  • During those 60 years in Babylon, he has Ezekiel as his pastor (priest of the exiles), Jeremiah is the senior prophet writing letters to them from Jerusalem, Daniel is the prime minister in the province of Babylon. He knows of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego being thrown into the fire. And he is rubbing shoulders with Zerubbabel the future prince of the Jews, Ezra the scribe, and Nehemiah the future cupbearer to Ahasuerus.
  • Mordecai is amongst all the movers and shakers of this period in Israel’s history.
  • So he is at least 60 years old when he returns to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple, but when the work stalls out due to opposition, he chooses for some reason (we are not told) to relocate to Shushan the capital of Persia, and that brings us to the year 519 BC, when the book of Esther begins.
  • Mordecai is at least 78 years old (perhaps older); we are never told whether he got married, or has a wife, or other children, all we are told that somewhere along the way (in all his travels), he adopted Esther and raised her as his own daughter.
  • So that’s the times and places of Mordecai. What about his people? His fathers? His lineage?

There are Five Fathers listed in relation to Mordecai.

• They are Judah, Benjamin, Jair, Shimei, and Kish.
• In verse 5 it says, “Now in Shushan the palace there was a certain Jew, whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, a Benjamite.”
• So Mordecai is from the tribe of Benjamin, that is his tribal identity. But because he was a citizen of the kingdom of Judah, after the exile, regardless of what tribal identity you had, all Israelites were called Judahites/Jews. That is the spiritual-political identify of God’s people as they await the Messiah, who would come from the line of Judah.
• So Mordecai is a Benjamite by blood, but a Judahite by covenantal allegiance. And then within the Benjamite bloodline, Mordecai is explicitly called a son of three men, Jair, Shimei, and Kish. Who are these fathers of Mordecai?
  • While it is possible that these are just the previous three generations of Mordecai, so Kish is his father, Shimei his grandfather, and Jair his great grandfather, what is far more likely is that the author has selected these three names because he wants us to remember these three important figures from Israel’s history and then compare and contrast them with Mordecai.
    • For example, God says to Moses, “I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,” even though those men were Moses distant ancestors. That is probably what is going on here. Jair, Kish, and Shimei are Mordecai’s distant ancestors who have some relevance to the story of Esther. In either case, God as the ultimate author of this book thought it was important to include them to introduce Mordecai.
• So who were these men, and what shadow or glory do they cast over Mordecai?

#1 – Jair

The name Jair means “he enlightens” or “one giving light.” And so Mordecai is introduced more literally as “the son of one who gives light.” When we survey the Old Testament, we find at least 3 men named Jair.

• In Number 32 and Deuteronomy 3 we read of a Jair the son of Manasseh who conquered land on this side of the Jordan before Israel crossed over.
• In Judges 10, we read of Jair, a Gileadite, who judged Israel for 22 years.
• But I think the Jair we are intended to call to mind is the Jair of 1 Chronicles 20:5, where the context is war with the Philistines under David the Judahite. It says, “Again there was war with the Philistines, and Elhanan the son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam.”
• So here in 1 Chronicles 20, we have a son of Jair who kills Goliath’s brother. And so if you are called a “Son of Jair,” you are not only the son of one who enlightens, you are also a giant killer.
• Will Mordecai live up to this name? Will he be a Jair to Esther? Will he enlighten her? Will he (or she) kill any giants in this book? We shall see.

#2 – Shimei

The name Shimei means, “one who harkens/listens.” And there are many Shimei’s in the Bible from various tribes, some good and some bad. But the most famous Shimei is the one who like Mordecai was from the tribe of Benjamin, and from the House of Saul, who came out and cursed David when David was exiled from Jerusalem during Absolom’s coup. However, when David is brough back to Jerusalem, Shimei goes out to David and pleads for mercy.

• We read in 2 Samuel 19:15-23, “Then the king returned and came to the Jordan. And Judah came to Gilgal, to go to meet the king, to escort the king across the Jordan. And Shimei the son of Gera, a Benjamite, who was from Bahurim, hurried and came down with the men of Judah to meet King David. There were a thousand men of Benjamin with him, and Ziba the servant of the house of Saul, and his fifteen sons and his twenty servants with him; and they went over the Jordan before the king. Then a ferryboat went across to carry over the king’s household, and to do what he thought good. Now Shimei the son of Gera fell down before the king when he had crossed the Jordan. Then he said to the king, “Do not let my lord impute iniquity to me, or remember what wrong your servant did on the day that my lord the king left Jerusalem, that the king should take it to heart. For I, your servant, know that I have sinned. Therefore here I am, the first to come today of all the house of Joseph to go down to meet my lord the king.” But Abishai the son of Zeruiah answered and said, “Shall not Shimei be put to death for this, because he cursed the Lord’s anointed?” And David said, “What have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah, that you should be adversaries to me today? Shall any man be put to death today in Israel? For do I not know that today I am king over Israel?” Therefore the king said to Shimei, “You shall not die.” And the king swore to him.”
• So this Shimei is one of Mordecai’s actual tribal relatives, and he sins and curses King David, but then he repents and his life is spared.
• However, when King Solomon comes to power, Solomon calls for Shimei and says to him in 1 Kings 3:37-38, “Build yourself a house in Jerusalem and dwell there, and do not go out from there anywhere. For it shall be, on the day you go out and cross the Brook Kidron, know for certain you shall surely die; your blood shall be on your own head.” And Shimei said to the king, “The saying is good. As my lord the king has said, so your servant will do.” So Shimei dwelt in Jerusalem many days.”
  • Now three years go by, and two of Shimei’s servants run away. And Shimei breaks the King’s law, he leaves Jerusalem, and as result, Solomon puts him to death when he returns.
• So the life of Shimei has many parallels to the life of Mordecai.
  • Both are from the royal tribe of Benjamin and connected to King Saul.
  • Both live in Jerusalem for a time, but both eventually leave.
  • Both transgress the king’s commandment and suffer the consequences. Shimei is executed, Mordecai escapes execution.
  • Both men struggle to submit to civil authorities that they don’t like. For Shimei it is David. For Mordecai it is Haman.
• So the question for Mordecai is, will his end by the same sad and rebellious end as Shimei. Or will he hearken and listen to God, will he succeed where Shimei faltered?

#3 – Kish

The name Kish has an uncertain etymology, and so some say his name means “gift,” while others derive it from the verb, “to ensnare.” So whichever

is correct, the most important thing about Kish is that he was the father of King Saul.

• We read in 1 Samuel 9:1-2, “Now there was a man of Benjamin, whose name was Kish, the son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Bechorath, the son of Aphiah, a Benjamite, a mighty man of power (hayil). And he had a son, whose name was Saul, a choice young man, and handsome/goodly: and there was not among the children of Israel a goodlier person than he: from his shoulders and upward he was higher than any of the people.”
• And so to call Mordecai a “son of Kish,” is to place him in the position of Saul. It is to cast the long shadow of King Saul’s life, his rebellion, and his failures over the life of Mordecai.
  • This will become even more explicit later in the book when we are told that Haman is a descendant of Agag. Agag, the king of the Amalekites was the occasion for King Saul’s rebellion and fall from grace. King Saul had obeyed God and executed Agag and destroyed all the Amalekites, there would not ever be a Haman in the first place.
  • So the book of Esther is calling us back to an ancient war between Israel and Amalek.
    • Amalek was the nation that attacked Israel right after God brought them out of Egypt. And because of this attack, God says in Deuteronomy 25:17-19, ““Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you were coming out of Egypt, how he met you on the way and attacked your rear ranks, all the stragglers at your rear, when you were tired and weary; and he did not fear God. Therefore it shall be, when the Lord your God has given you rest from your enemies all around, in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance, that you will blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. You shall not forget.”
• Now because Israel failed to remember Amalek and blot him out, especially King Saul, it is left to Mordecai, son of Kish, to finish the job.
• So will Mordecai win a good name for his fathers? What kind of Benjamite will he be? A giant slayer or a rebel? A faithless Saul or a loyal Jonathan?

Conclusion

This same question before all of us. Who are your fathers? Your natural fathers, your spiritual fathers, your civil fathers? For all of us it is probably a mixed bag. Some good figs, some very bad figs. Many we don’t know. So I want to leave you with an exhortation as you ponder who you are and where you are in the great story that God is telling. And that is:

• Remember the 5th commandment, “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.”
  • None of us got to choose who are father and mother would be. God chose for us. And so whether you had or have a great father and mother, or a terrible father and mother, the promise of the gospel is that God will adopt you as His child, and will be a perfect and everlasting Father to you.
  • And what your Father in Heaven commands of you in this life, if you want to live and prosper, is to honor His choice in giving you the parents He gave you. Put another way, don’t tell God that you can do a better job than He can at running the world. Honor God, by honoring the father and mother he gave you. In the words of the Apostle Paul, “Who are you O man to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why has thou made me thus?” Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?” (Rom. 9:20-21).
    • If God permitted you to be born into a house of shame, a house of slavery, a house of unbelief, well welcome to the human race where all of us are born children of Adam and Eve. All of us are born sinners deserving God’s wrath and the punishment of death.
    • And so if you find it hard to forgive your fathers, to honor the authorities God has placed over you, then consider the example of Jesus, the perfect son.
• Jesus is the one person who chose to be born into this world. The Eternal Son of God could have chosen to just stay in heaven, never suffer, never die, never experience the pain and mortality we all feel. But for love, he chose to come down, and to make our fathers, his fathers, our sins, his sins, so that His Father, could become our Father, and His perfection, our perfection.
• That is what God freely chose to do because He loves you.
• It says of Christ in Philippians 2:6-8, “Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”
• Remember the two genealogies we are given for Jesus in Matthew 1 and Luke 3? Who does Jesus choose to make himself a son of?
  • He has Mary as his natural mother, Joseph as his adopted father.
  • And through them he makes himself a son of many unruly, sinful, and wicked men. In the line of the Messiah men who committed idolatry, polygamy, incest, child sacrifice, adultery, and murder. Jesus makes himself a descendent of many shameful men and women whose lives are not worthy of imitation.
  • Ultimately, he makes himself together with all of us, a son of Adam. As Paul says in Galatians 4:4-5, “But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.”
• So imitate the perfect Son, who honored His Father in heaven by covering your sins, your shame, and winning for you who do not deserve it, a good name, even a name written in heaven, that shall never be blotted out.
• In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.