Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Esther 5-10
- Secondary Reading: Psalms 113
Key Verse
Esther 8:8 — “Write ye also for the Jews, as it liketh you, in the king’s name, and seal it with the king’s ring: for the writing which is written in the king’s name, and sealed with the king’s ring, may no man reverse.”
Devotional Thought
The book of Esther reads like a drama of reversals, and in these chapters the reversals come thick and fast. Esther, having prepared herself with fasting and prayer, puts on her royal apparel and steps into the inner court. The golden sceptre is extended; the king offers her half his kingdom. Yet she does not blurt out her request. She waits, inviting the king and Haman to a banquet, then to a second banquet. Meanwhile, Haman walks home that first day “joyful and with a glad heart”—until he sees Mordecai at the gate and his joy curdles into rage. He boasts to his wife Zeresh of his riches and his invitations, then confesses, “Yet all this availeth me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate.” On that very night, the king cannot sleep. The chronicles are read, Mordecai’s unrewarded loyalty surfaces, and Haman—come early to request a hanging—is forced to parade his enemy through the streets in royal robes. By the next day, Haman hangs on his own fifty-cubit gallows, and Mordecai wears the king’s ring.
What strikes me here is the sheer hiddenness of God. His name never appears in this book, yet His hand is everywhere: in a king’s insomnia, in the timing of a banquet, in the pride that traps a wicked man in his own scheme. Haman built gallows for Mordecai and was hanged thereon. The decree written against the Jews was reversed by a new decree sealed with the same ring. “It was turned to the contrary,” the text says, “that the Jews had rule over them that hated them.” The enemies who hoped to overpower God’s people found the day turned upside down.
Psalm 113 sings the same theme: “He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill; that he may set him with princes.” That is Mordecai, lifted from the gate to the palace. That is Esther, an orphan exile become queen. That is Israel, plucked from destruction into “light, and gladness, and joy, and honour.” And it is the shape of the gospel: the proud brought low, the humble exalted, death swallowed up in victory.
As September closes and autumn begins, we feel the turning of seasons—the year itself reversing from growth toward rest. Perhaps you are in a season where wickedness seems entrenched and God seems silent, absent from the record. Esther teaches us that God is not absent; He is unseen. He works through sleepless nights and ordinary days, and He will not let His people be consumed. The feast of Purim was born from this deliverance, a yearly reminder to laugh at despair and to remember that the gallows built for God’s people became the enemy’s own end.
Reflection
- Where in your life does God seem silent or absent, and how might Esther’s story—where God’s name is never mentioned yet His hand is everywhere—reshape how you wait on Him?
- Haman had riches, honor, and invitations, yet “all this availeth me nothing” because of one man at the gate. What small grievance or envy is stealing your joy, and what would it look like to release it to God today?
Prayer
Lord God, who dwells on high yet humbles Yourself to behold the things in heaven and earth, we praise Your name from the rising of the sun to its going down. You are the God of reversals, who raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the dunghill. When we cannot see Your hand, teach us to trust Your heart. Turn to the contrary every scheme of the enemy against us. Guard us from the bitterness that consumed Haman, and give us the courage of Esther, who risked her life for her people. Set us with princes, O Lord, and let our deliverance become a feast of gladness and joy. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
Psalm Verse
Psalms 113:1 — “Praise ye the LORD. Praise, O ye servants of the LORD, praise the name of the LORD.”