Don Smith :: Est; Enmity Against the Seed

Portraits of Christ – Esther
“Enmity Against the Seed”

How does Esther fit into Biblical history?

1. The Book of Esther is another example of God’s providence at work in redemptive history, whereby He fulfills His promise to provide, protect, propagate and preserve His Seed, Christ and His Chosen People.
   • God promised to provide providential care for the seed of the woman. (Genesis 3:15)
   • God preserved and protected His chosen seed from Seth through Noah. (Genesis 1-11)
   • God preserved and protected Abraham’s through Jacob’s seed. (Genesis 12-50)
   • God preserved and protected Moses and the Israelites in Egypt and delivered them through the Red Sea. (Exodus)
   • God preserved and protected Israel during captivity through promoting Daniel, Nehemiah, Esther and Mordecai to strategic places of authority.
2. The Book of Esther also has important allegorical (type and shadow) significance.
   • Learning to discover God’s redemptive plan throughout the Scriptures and preparing us to see Christ is something no generation can afford to lose.
   • Christ is concealed in Old Testament types and shadows, while the New Testament reveals God veiled in human flesh.
   • Therefore, we need to understand the historicity of Biblical events, while attempting to understand the flow of Biblical history that finds fulfillment in Christ.
   • This becomes extremely relevant and practical even in the church age.
   • 1 Corinthians 10:11 directs us to look for these things. “These things happened to them [Old Testament and New Testament events and stories] as examples, and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.”
   • The lives of Esther, Ruth and Rahab illustrate God’s providential care for His Chosen Seed.
   • In each of these stories, the Woman is used to bring about the protection and propagation of Christ’s progeny.
   • The first “proto-evangel promise” was made in Genesis 3:15 by the Lord, foretelling the Serpent’s enmity against the seed of the woman and God’s deliverance through the woman’s seed, Christ.
   • Esther illustrates the Serpent’s continual enmity in history against the seed of the woman, Israel, in an attempt to stop the coming of the “Heel-Crusher.”
3. The Types and Shadows in Esther
   • “Ahasuerus” (high father) is a type, poorly representing God’s sovereign rule. He was anything but godly, yet he is a type representing God the Father.
   • Whatever he declared was incontrovertible law…the law of the Medes and Persians.
   • “Esther’s” Hebrew name Hadassah, meant “myrtle tree.” Her Persian name Esther meant “star.” She was the daughter of Abihail, the Uncle of Moredecai. (Esther 2:15)
   • She was the woman God had chosen to providentially work through to bring deliverance for God’s persecuted seed.
   • Esther’s parents were of the seed of Benjamin. (Esther 2:7)
   • Apparently, they were killed in Nebuchadnezzar’s second wave of destruction on Jerusalem in BC 597.
   • Mordecai, Esther’s older cousin and perhaps closest “kinsman redeemer,” adopted her as his daughter.
   • His role in adopting Esther as his child and being the object of Haman’s enmity is similar to that of Christ adopting and delivering the Church from the Serpent’s wrath.
   • Haman definitely fits the typology of the Serpent.
   • He is identified in Esther 3:1 as a “son of Hammedatha, the Agagite.”
   • This would make him an Amalekite, a historical enemy of God and His seed, Israel.
   • If his lineage is traced it looks like this: Abraham, Ishmael, Esau, Amalekite.
   • Ishmael hated Isaac; Esau hated Jacob; the Amalekites and Edomites (from the seed of Ishmael and Esau) hated Israel. (Exodus 17:16; Numbers 24:17-19; 1 Samuel 15:32-33; Malachi 1:4)
   • Herod, the Great (an Edomite) was used by the Serpent to destroy the Woman’s Seed, Christ, and sought to kill him.
   • Haman definitely fits the role as the Serpent and his seed attempting to exterminate the Woman and her Seed that would bring forth the Savior of the nations.
   • He is repeatedly described in Esther as “the enemy of the Jew.” (Esther 3:10; 8:1; 9:10, 24)
   • With this as a backdrop to the story, the Biblical student must remember the New Testament uses these things as types to help explain the life and death of Christ.
   • In John 8:43-45 Jesus said, “Because you are unable to hear what I say, You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”
   • Paul in Romans 15:3-4 and Romans 16:20 used similar language to encourage the Church facing the world’s enmity. “For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: ‘The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.’ For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope.” “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.”
   • The historical figures in Esther not only wonderfully illustrate God’s providence, but also anticipate God’s faithfulness to fulfill His ancient promise of providing, protecting and propagating His chosen seed until the Seed, Christ, was revealed the Seed of the Woman.
   • Ahasueras, though a very imperfect man, represents God, the Father’s sovereign rule in history to provide and protect the Woman and her Seed.
   • Esther represents the Bride (Israel/Church) chosen and accepted by the Father to draw near to His throne for fellowship and for making petitions.
   • She and her seed, like the church, were the objects of the enemy’s hatred because of their association with Jacob and his seed, Christ.
   • Mordecai is like Christ in that he adopted Esther, even as Christ adopted us.
   • Mordecai, like Christ, was wise, the object of scorn, the one who would not be tempted to bow to earthly authority, the one who was going to be publicly hanged, but instead rode triumphantly through the city after three days.
   • Haman is but one in a long line of those representing the Serpent’s seed.
   • He sought to exterminate the Jews out of envy and spite.
   • The death he planned for Mordecai, by the providence of God, became the means of his own defeat.
   • The king’s authority was given to Mordecai, even as God the Father gave Christ all authority.