Esther
Esther 10
Big idea: Three verses of imperial bookkeeping, in the style of the Kings chronicles — a tax, a reference to the official records, and the standing of a Jew who is now second in the empire and using it for his people.
The book closes on a record rather than a scene, which is fitting for a story whose turning point was an entry in a chronicle nobody had read.
10:1–3 — Mordecai the Jew was next to the king
The ending imitates the formula that closes a reign in Kings — the acts of his power, are they not written in the book of the chronicles — and applies it to a Persian monarch, with a Jew as the subject of the last sentence. After nine chapters in which nobody's name is safe, Mordecai's is written into the empire's own records.
1 King Ahasuerus laid a tribute on the land and on the islands of the sea. 2 Aren’t all the acts of his power and of his might, and the full account of the greatness of Mordecai, to which the king advanced him, written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia? 3 For Mordecai the Jew was next to King Ahasuerus, and great among the Jews and accepted by the multitude of his brothers, seeking the good of his people and speaking peace to all his descendants.
Scripture text: World English Bible (public domain).