Only I can tell you the future before it even happens. Everything I plan will come to pass, for I do whatever I wish. [Isaiah 46:10 (NLT)]
Sunset Wednesday begins the 14th day of Adar in the year 5782 of the Hebrew calendar. Instead of anticipating St. Patrick’s Day and corned beef and cabbage, our Jewish brothers and sisters will begin celebrating Purim. One of the most joyful days of the Jewish calendar, its reason for being is found in the Book of Esther—an account filled with suspense, conspiracy, reversals, twists of fate, and an abundance of what some might call coincidence.
Although the Book of Esther is the only one in the entire Bible in which God’s name is never mentioned, His fingerprints are all over the story. Was it just luck that, out of all the beautiful young virgins in the entire kingdom of Persia, it was the Jewess Esther who pleased King Xerxes so much that she became his queen? Did she just catch a good break when Hegai, the eunuch in charge of the harem, took a special liking to her and helped her, not once, but twice? Was it by chance that Esther’s uncle Mordecai happened to be at the city gate precisely when two guards plotted the king’s assassination? Was it mere coincidence that, when Mordecai foiled the plot, Esther made sure his name got written in the account of the event?
When the king’s chief administrator, Haman, plotted the extermination of the Jews, was it just a stroke of luck that, when casting lots to determine the date of their extermination, the fateful day was nearly a year distant, giving Esther and Mordecai time to respond to the threat? Was it just an accident that Xerxes, unable to sleep one night, had an attendant read him the history of his reign or that the selected passage just happened to be the account of Mordecai saving the king’s life? Realizing Mordecai was never honored for his good deed, the King decided to reward him. Was it just fortuitous that, at that very moment, the evil Haman appeared at the king’s door? Haman came seeking permission to execute Mordecai but was sidetracked when the king asked how to honor a man who pleased him. Thinking Xerxes was speaking of him, Haman forget about Mordecai as he described a lavish and public reward. What a delightful twist of fate when it was Haman who led his nemesis Mordecai about on horseback while proclaiming the Jew’s honor. Coincidence or God’s perfect timing?
When Esther exposed the evil plot, the enraged king went into the garden. Haman remained and pled for his life from Esther. Just as the panicked man fell on her couch, Xerxes re-entered the room. Since it looked like Haman was assaulting Esther, the evil man’s fate was sealed. Did Haman trip because of bad luck or had divine intervention caused him to fall?
The providential reversals continued as Haman ended up impaled on the pole once intended for Mordecai’s execution. Although the edict directing the slaughter of the Jews could not be rescinded, Xerxes signed another one allowing the Jews to defend themselves and kill anyone who attacked them. When the new edict arrived, many of the people of the land became Jews themselves and, when the day of massacre arrived, the Jews defended themselves and 75,000 Persians died. God’s kingdom was expanded without one mention of Him in the entire narrative. Nevertheless, we can’t help but ask if all of those events were mere coincidences or God-ordained events.
The Book of Esther illustrates that seemingly random and insignificant events are actually controlled by our sovereign God. With His wisdom and foresight, God puts people in places at specific moments to accomplish His purpose. What may seem coincidence to us is managed by a supreme God who knows the past, present and future. What seems inconsequential or random eventually may be of major importance to us or someone else. Unexplained events, unplanned meetings, unexpected calls are all part of God’s plan. God was present in Esther’s story and He is present in ours.
Is there something He want us to do “at just such a time as this?”
When talking with my husband about the story of Jonah, he said that the fish story was a “little too hard to swallow”— too incredible to believe. Miracles! The Bible is full of them and, since they are supernatural events, they’re all hard to accept as true. Improbability is the nature of miracles. Along with the fish saving Jonah, the story is filled with other miracles: the immediate calming of the storm once Jonah was thrown in the sea, the deliverance of the prophet from the fish safely onto the beach, Nineveh’s immediate repentance, the appointment of the plant, worm and scorching east wind as teaching tools, and even God’s revelation of Himself directly to Jonah! Yet, if we believe the Bible is God-breathed and without error, we don’t have the privilege of picking and choosing which miracles we will believe and which ones we won’t. We have only one choice to make—all or none!
When God sent Jonah to the Assyrian capital of Nineveh, it was to warn the people that they would be destroyed for their sins. While we tend to focus on the miracle of Jonah and the sea creature, the real miracle in the Book of Jonah is the city’s response to the prophet’s message—Nineveh immediately repented of its sinful ways. Some forty years later, however, the Assyrians were once again back to their old behavior: rejecting God’s authority and worshipping idols. Around 740 BC, they attacked northern Israel and, in 722, they invaded the remaining kingdom and took Samaria, just as both Hosea and Amos had prophesized they would. The northern kingdom’s population was resettled elsewhere in the Assyrian Empire and Samaria became the center of a new Assyrian province.
Since Nineveh was famous as the religious center for the worship of Ishtar (Astarte), the goddess of fertility, we might wonder why this pagan city repented after hearing Jonah’s prophecy? Jonah was an Israelite not an Assyrian—he believed in Jehovah and the people of Nineveh were pagans. Some speculate that the Ninevites had learned of Jonah’s miraculous delivery from the fish but Nineveh was about 500 miles from the sea and, since the fish delivered Jonah onto the beach, that seems highly unlikely! Was Jonah such an eloquent speaker that the heathen people of Nineveh would respond to him when, more often than not, the people of Judah and Israel ignored the words of warning they heard from the prophets who were their own countrymen? What caused the king and 120,000 of his subjects to make such an immediate turnaround?
The first thing to clear up when writing about the Book of Jonah is whether it was a fish or a whale. Both the Hebrew word (dahg) and the Greek word (ketos) in later translations were used to describe this sea creature. In 785 BC, at the time of this story’s writing, neither language had a word that could identify the exact species so it could have been a fish, shark, whale or some other now extinct large sea creature. For those who choose to use this discrepancy to attack the Bible’s veracity, it’s probably wise to remember that Linnaeus’ classification of living things occurred in the 18th century and not 2,800 years ago when Jonah was swallowed by something huge in the sea. When learning the story in Sunday school, most of us were told it was a whale. Having seen Disney’s Pinocchio with Geppetto living in a whale’s belly, it was easy to picture Jonah doing the same.
Walking along the shoreline, I was surprised to see a baby opossum on the beach. A man with a large bucket was trying to scoop him up to return him to the safety of the mangroves but the little guy would have none of it. Lost and in danger of dying of thirst or becoming dinner for an osprey or eagle, I’m sure he thought he was on a wonderful adventure. Meanwhile, his mother was probably frantically searching the mangroves for her wayward child.
Devotions of the Heart 