Those who would attack God’s people might like to know beforehand that God is for us (Rom 8:31).
It was all well and good to give Esther and Mordecai the house of Haman and the royal signet, but destruction was still approaching. Why? Any official decrees “cannot be changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which does not alter” (Dan 6:8). Like a runaway freight train, there seemed no way to stop it. Esther once again approached the king, “fell down at his feet, and implored him with tears to counteract the evil of Haman the Agagite, and the scheme which he had devised against the Jews” (Est 8:3). What could be done? The letter sent by Haman with the king’s seal could not be countermanded, but perhaps there was a way. Said the king, “You yourselves write a decree concerning the Jews, as you please, in the king’s name, and seal it with the king’s signet ring; for whatever is written in the king’s name and sealed with the king’s signet ring no one can revoke” (v 8). So Mordecai had the royal scribes explain, “By these letters the king permitted the Jews who were in every city to gather together and protect their lives—to destroy, kill, and annihilate all the forces of any people or province that would assault them” (v 11). That’s it! Send another freight train in the opposite direction, but this one would inform the populace that, while killing the Jews was still an option, they might like to know that the king was on the side of the Jews and wanted them to wipe out anyone who dared touch them. This time they used express mail—“royal horses bred from swift steeds” (v 10). When Mordecai stepped from the palace in his royal regalia, the news raced throughout Susa. And wherever the Jews heard, they “had joy and gladness, a feast and a holiday. Then many of the people of the land became Jews” (v 17). Imagine that!