Welcome to part two of this week's podcast.

I want to highlight how it is that Esther will know that she's not in the end facing a death threat,

but that she has been received by the king.

And that's because he will extend his golden scepter.

So it's his way of indicating should someone come unannounced, unsummoned, uninvited,

the king has a choice himself to make, whether or not to extend that golden scepter,

whether to withhold his favor or whether to extend it.

And in this case, and maybe it's not a surprise given what we've already seen about how much it is that he seems to like Esther,

he extends that golden scepter.

Ariel, can I ask you a question? There's this moment in verse 16, I wanted to talk about.

She says, if I perish, I perish. She comes to this moment, what would you call this? This is like an acceptance of the Lord's will.

That's a good question. It doesn't sound like she's saying it's faithful enough. I won't die. She's saying, if I die, I die.

Yeah. It's kind of like Daniel and his friends. God can save me, but if not, it's kind of that kind of Daniel and his friends moment.

But if not, yeah. These are both what we call exilic stories, right? Both Daniel and Esther are stories of exile.

As I mentioned at the beginning, they differ a little bit because with Daniel, it's just it's mostly a survival story.

Let's get through this with Esther. She uses it as an opportunity. It is an exile story for them both,

and it is existential for them both. I think they already realize that they are a people that have been

enslaved. They have been oppressed. They have been left to wander. They have been taken into exile.

There have been threats of extermination before. It responds at one level to the condition in which they find themselves.

If I perish, I perish. And Mordekyde says this to her. Look, if you don't do this,

help will arise from another place and you're going to die anyway.

So it's sort of death or death or maybe there is this slim chance that this is going to work out that we can be preserved.

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