Not a good day
Did you know that in the creation story of Genesis 1, though we say God created all things good; and this is true in the summary after it was finished, there is one day that was not good.
Each day except the second day was said to be good. Do you know why? This is an exercise to help you think like an ancient Hebrew.
How do you interpret the Esther passage there, saying she "died" that day?
In the 2ndbook we are reading prophetic riddles hidden in the literal text of the Bible, so in the passage we are not speaking the historical Esther at all. God is using the history of Israel as his pen and ink to tell the story of Christ with the purpose of revealing himself.
The kingdom of heaven is teaching. The keys to teaching are the pictures of the cross. We look for the keys first.
Keys take many forms: Things that are split, like the water. Death and resurrection, like Cain, Able and Seth, Abram and Abraham (renaming), crossing water, a threat of death and then lives.
The latter is the case with Esther. When she approached the king, her life was forfeit:
Es 4:16 Go, gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan, and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day: I also and my maidens will fast likewise; and so will I go in unto the king, which [is] not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish.
Yet she lived. This is one of the many keys in Esther. As it moves into riddle, we poke around a bit and find other clues. The third day is the day of her resurrection.
Es 5:1 ¶ Now it came to pass on the third day, that Esther put on [her] royal [apparel], and stood in the inner court of the king’s house, over against the king’s house: and the king sat upon his royal throne in the royal house, over against the gate of the house.
The story of the cross is told again in the actual banquet. Here the two-fold death threat that was on Esther was passed to Haman. We see this exchange of actors in other scenes. Abel was replaced by Seth in the picture of resurrection. Isaac was replaced by the ram in the picture of death. Now death transfers from Ester and Mordecai to Haman. These substitutions are like the stunt double taking over in the play. We understand the story line even though the actors are changed out.
Some did not wish to include Esther in the Canon because God is not mentioned. But it is a detailed picture of Christ and the church as we unpack the prophetic riddle.
We may get distracted by thinking that the day of the death of Christ was a great day because through it we are saved. But it was a "Great and terrible day".
Bob Jones In the 2ndbook we are reading prophetic riddles hidden in the literal text of the Bible, so in the passage we are not speaking the historical Esther at all. God is using the history of Israel as his pen and ink to tell the story of Christ with the purpose of revealing himself.
The kingdom of heaven is teaching. The keys to teaching are the pictures of the cross. We look for the keys first. Keys take many forms: Things that are split, like the water. Death and resurrection, like Cain, Able and Seth, Abram and Abraham (renaming), crossing water, a threat of death and then lives.
The latter is the case with Esther. When she approached the king, her life was forfeit: Es 4:16 Go, gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan, and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day: I also and my maidens will fast likewise; and so will I go in unto the king, which [is] not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish.
Yet she lived. This is one of the many keys in Esther. As it moves into riddle, we poke around a bit and find other clues. The third day is the day of her resurrection.
Es 5:1 ¶ Now it came to pass on the third day, that Esther put on [her] royal [apparel], and stood in the inner court of the king’s house, over against the king’s house: and the king sat upon his royal throne in the royal house, over against the gate of the house. The story of the cross is told again in the actual banquet. Here the two-fold death threat that was on Esther was passed to Haman. We see this exchange of actors in other scenes. Abel was replaced by Seth in the picture of resurrection. Isaac was replaced by the ram in the picture of death. Now death transfers from Ester and Mordecai to Haman. These substitutions are like the stunt double taking over in the play. We understand the story line even though the actors are changed out. Some did not wish to include Esther in the Canon because God is not mentioned. But it is a detailed picture of Christ and the church as we unpack the prophetic riddle.
We may get distracted by thinking that the day of the death of Christ was a great day because through it we are saved. But it was a "Great and terrible day".
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- 38w
Bob Jones We are currently looking at the passage because it helps establish a pattern of the second day. There is much more to learn about God here.
In a quick, off-the-cuff recounting of symbols: The king represents God. Vashti and Esther together are the bride: Vashti the rebellious prostitute, and Ester the pure virgin. We learn that the church has two natures. In the flesh we are rebellious, usurping God's position in declaring good and evil. and we are the pure bride, whom he loves more than anything. The banquet is the revelation of the secret. The marriage banquet of the Lamb was the explosion of doctrine after the resurrection. The bride may ask God anything up to half the kingdom. Why only half? The kingdom is teaching and it has two parts: literal and spiritual. We may ask for the spiritual half. We must obtain the literal half ourselves. God uses what is in our head and correlates it so that we understand. The Holy Spirit is given to remind us of what we have been taught. He uses the first half to give us the second half, if we ask: Jas 1:5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all [men] liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. Haman set up the gallows just as Jesus prepared his own way to the cross; planning for it from before the foundations of the earth. Before God spoke the universe into existence, he created an alphabet so he could form words. The alphabet pre-exists the rest of creation. It tells of the death of Christ in order to exchange our sin for his righteousness. But this is just a comment. We'll have to do a study on it someday.
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Mark Ostroth Thanks Bob, I never noticed the threat of death in Esther 4. Nobody thinks about the second day but it's the day of "rest", the Sabbath day when God was finished from his work. The second day in the creation story is a day of separation, which points to God being separated from his Son, in order to condemn sin and bring peace. Not a good day but God's greatest work.
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Mark Ostroth Did you have an interpretation of why God had to separate the water from the water? On earth we see water in liquid and vapor forms so I suppose that points to spiritual and physical aspects of the separation.
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Bob Jones Mark Ostroth Second or seventh?
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Bob Jones Mark Ostroth In the symbols it is the separation of Holiness and Love in his revelation to us. We don't understand them if we mix them. If a criminal goes free, we don't say "What wonderful mercy" we say, "There is no justice". If we are the criminal, and don't get turned loose, we don't say "What wonderful justice". He separated the revaluation until the cross where he joined them in perfection. With Water being the Word, it has Law (strong drink/Holiness) and Love (Wine/Mercy). You turn water into wine by removing the judgement from the Word. As Elisha had removed the axe from the stream.
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Bob Jones Mark Ostroth Yes. Concerning the physical, you can say it is separation of physical and spiritual realms. Waters is mayeem מים . 'Mi' מי is water above. It is 'the father מplanning creation י' So a spiritual activity. 'eem' (there is no standard way to anglicize Hebrew, so I choose a way for me to remember, knowing I will never speak Hebrew) is the water below as 'creation י finished by the son ם. We get a hint of direction from the word 'heavens' שמים 'shamayim' where the spirit ש hovers over the face of the waters מים. Typically when expressing any notion of two, we can say two things are one: flesh and spirit are one OR Holiness and Love are one. 'Two' expresses two sides of one thing.
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Mark Ostroth Bob Jones I say the Sabbath is the 2nd day because in Jesus' three days of tribulation and resurrection, he "rested" (died) on Saturday the 2nd. Unless you have a different chronology? (edit: He died on the first day but he remained dead for the entire 2nd day. No work was done on that day.) It is also the 7th day because His work was complete on Good Friday, so the 7th day is a day of remembrance, and then the 8th day (the third day of God's work) is a day of new creation ("Behold I make all things new"). Thus we can say God was, is, and is to come.
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Bob Jones Mark Ostroth Gotcha. Different context but correct. The second day of the three days was the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week. The same kind of context change occurs when referring to "three days and nights in the heart of the earth" and references to being dead three days. Dead three days refers to Fri, Sat, Sun, having been dead on part of all three. 'In the heart of the earth' refers to Jer 17:9 The heart [is] deceitful above all [things], and desperately wicked: who can know it? Counting backwards... Sat night Sat Fri night Fri Thur night Thurs, when Judas entered into an agreement to betray Jesus. Jesus entered into the heart; the deceitfulness and wickedness of the earth.
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Bob Jones On the second day... When we have three things, they relate to the Trinity in some way. The first day, Jesus was obedient to the Father. The third day, He rose from the dead with the life-giving Spirit. We don't hear anything about the second day. There is a pattern identifying the title of Jesus as the "forsaken son". He died alone on the cross. Not hearing from or of him on the second day folds into that pattern. God rested while the Son was foresaken. It was a Great and Terrible day.
