“When he saw Queen Esther standing in the court, he was pleased with her and held out to her the gold scepter that was in his hand. So Esther approached and touched the tip of the scepter.”
After fasting for three days with zero food and zero water, Esther puts on her royal robes in preparation to go before the king. I can’t imagine how heavy those robes must have felt to her weak and shaky body, but I can also imagine God granting her an inner peace to help her focus on the task at hand. She had to intercede on behalf of her people, and she would use her position as Queen of Persia (that is if she lived to do so). She entered the inner court and stepped directly in the line of sight of King Xerxes.
Source: Livius.org
Persian court protocol was very strict. We’ve already read about how once an edict is given it cannot be reversed, and now we read of how those who drop in on the king uninvited will face the punishment of death unless the king extends his scepter to them. Thankfully, Esther had won the heart of Xerxes, and presumably he saw past her audacity to enter uninvited and noticed that something was wrong.
Xerxes seems smitten with Esther, asking her repeatedly ‘what is it?’ or ‘what is your request?’ and offering her up to half the kingdom. When the defining moment comes, Esther chickens out and instead of telling him her people’s plight she invites the king and Haman to dinner. What? I know she had been fasting for three days and was famished, but this was her chance! This reminded me of A Christmas Story when Ralphie gets on Santa’s lap and forgets what he wants for Christmas and says “a football…yeah, a football.” The king and Haman go that day to a feast that Esther had prepared. Again Xerxes asks Esther for her request and she stalls a second time! She invites them to a banquet the next day and says that then she will answer his question.
It seems to me that Esther is stalling so that she can wait for the perfect moment to break the news. She knows full well that Haman is the person behind the edict to destroy the Jews and yet invites him to dinner with her and the king…twice. Why would she not just have dinner with the king alone and tell him? Esther is savvy and no doubt has a plan of how to break the news to have the biggest impact possible.
