Through what seemed like a painful chain of events, the young woman who had been forced into marriage with a divorced pagan king became a mighty instrument in the hands of God.

Hadassah was a young woman who lived in the ancient, bustling city of Susa—located in modern-day southwestern Iran—around 480 BC. Her mother and father had died, so her older cousin, Mordecai, took her in and raised her. Susa was an important city, serving as a capital of the Persian Empire after the Persians defeated the Babylonians in 539 BC, bringing the Neo-Babylonian Empire to an end. Shortly after this conquest, Cyrus issued his decree allowing the Jews to return to Israel and rebuild the temple (see Isa. 44:28; Ezra 1–2). While many Jews returned to do just that, others remained in the lands where they had settled during the exile. Mordecai and his adopted daughter were among them. She went by her Persian name, Esther. In God’s providence, this young woman would play a vital role in preserving God’s ancient people and in securing the fulfillment of His ancient promises.

Esther is said to have been a beautiful woman (Est. 2:7). At that moment in the Persian kingdom, beauty was a dangerous thing, for it was precisely what the Persian king was seeking. King Ahasuerus’ wife, Vashti, had humiliated him before his guests at his own feast. In response, the king decided to replace her. He ordered the most beautiful women in the empire to be gathered to his chambers for what was essentially a degrading “tryout.” Each woman would spend one night with the king in order for him to choose the next queen. Esther was swept up into this lewd beauty pageant. During the year-long period of preparation, Esther concealed her Hebrew identity at Mordecai’s urging.

When the time came for Esther to enter the king’s chambers, she continued her pattern of winning favor with those in the palace: “The king loved Esther more than all the women, and she won grace and favor in his sight more than all the virgins” (Est. 2:17). Within a year, Esther had gone from an orphan girl to queen of the most powerful empire in the world. But this was hardly the end of her story.

Shortly after Esther was crowned, Mordecai discovered an assassination plot against the king. The crisis was averted and the deed recorded in the king’s annals. Mordecai had saved the king’s life. Yet instead of reward or recognition, there was nothing. No honor. No celebration. Just ink on a page. Until one sleepless night.

Before that sleepless night, however, Mordecai had a fateful run-in with the king’s chief official, Haman. Haman was an Amalekite, which means he should not even have existed, but Saul’s disobedience had allowed that wicked line to continue (see 1 Sam. 15). Enraged, Haman manipulated the king into issuing a decree ordering a day of slaughter: the annihilation of all Jews—“young and old, women and children” (Est. 3:13)—throughout the empire.

Esther, the secretly Jewish queen of Persia, was now in a dreadful position. Mordecai pressed her to use her influence to stop the massacre. But there was a problem. Though Esther was indeed the king’s wife, she could not simply walk into his presence whenever she pleased. She told Mordecai:

All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law—to be put to death, except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter so that he may live. But as for me, I have not been called to come in to the king these thirty days. (Est. 4:11)

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