Come Follow Me OT Podcast 31, “A Biblical Story with Enormous and Often Unseen Consequences,” -- Esther

Meridian Magazine--Come Follow Me Latter-day Saint Podcast

Scot Facer Proctor

Religion & Spirituality

4.7 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 22 July 2022

⏱️ 37 minutes

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Summary

July 25-31

As a scholar said, “Once it happened that the crafty was taken in his own trap, the falsely condemned were saved, and the worthy were rewarded. It is not always so.” Perhaps [the] story [in Esther which we study today] has endured because it has given the comfort of hope to other oppressed people” [and demonstrates God in the details of our lives.] Although God is not expressly mentioned in the book of Esther, there appears to be evidence in it of the God whom Job describes, who can "set up on high those that be low; that those which mourn may be exalted to safety. (Job 5:11-12).Ellis Rasmussen, Latter-day Saint Commentary on the Old Testament.

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0:00.0	As one scholar said, once it happened that the crafty was taken in his own trap, the
0:24.4	falsely condemned were saved, and the worthy were rewarded. It is not always so. Perhaps the story of
0:32.4	Esther, which we study today, has endured because it has given the comfort of hope to other
0:38.9	oppressed people, and demonstrates God in the details of our lives. Although God is not expressly
0:45.8	mentioned in the book of Esther, there appears to be evidence in it of the God whom Job describes,
0:52.0	who can set up on high those that be low, that those which mourn may be exalted to safety.
0:59.9	Hello and welcome to Meridian Magazine's Come Follow Me podcast. We're Scott and Maureen
1:05.6	Proctor, and today we look at a biblical book that may seem slightly out of place to the casual
1:11.2	reader. We have been studying the history of prophets and kings in Israel, and then suddenly,
1:18.1	we have this stunning story that seems to come out of nowhere. Who is this Ahasurus, and why
1:24.3	should we suddenly care about what is going on in Persia, when our interest has focused on Judah,
1:29.5	Jerusalem, and Israel? What consequence does this little Persian story have to do with anything that
1:36.3	matters in the Bible? It is easy to have the sense that you are reading a wonderful fairy tale about
1:42.1	a country far away, not so. As it turns out, it is not a little off-the-beaten-path story about
1:50.4	Persia, at all, but of great consequence to the Jews. We need some context to understand.
1:57.6	You remember, of course, that Babylon besieged Jerusalem, and it finally fell in 586 BC.
2:04.2	The prophets had been giving warnings to the people to repent, and they had met with the same
2:09.2	response that Lehigh did. And when the Jews heard these things, they were angry with him, yay,
2:15.5	even as with the prophets of old, whom they had cast out, and stoned, and slain, and they also sought
2:22.8	his life, that they might take it away. When Jerusalem fell, the Jews were led away into Babylon,
2:30.6	then Babylon itself fell in 539 BC to the Persian ruler Cyrus the Great, who after eight years was
2:39.2	followed by Darius the First. According to the biblical history, one of the first acts of Cyrus,
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