The king’s scribes were summoned at that time, in the third month, which is the month of Sivan, on the twenty-third day. And an edict was written, according to all that Mordecai commanded concerning the Jews, to the satraps and the governors and the officials of the provinces from India to Ethiopia, 127 provinces, to each province in its own script and to each people in its own language, and also to the Jews in their script and their language. And he wrote in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed it with the king’s signet ring. Then he sent the letters by mounted couriers riding on swift horses that were used in the king’s service, bred from the royal stud, saying that the king allowed the Jews who were in every city to gather and defend their lives, to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate any armed force of any people or province that might attack them, children and women included, and to plunder their goods, on one day throughout all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar.
If you are not familiar with the story of Esther, you might not realize the importance of the above verses. The book of Esther is a great story to show God’s sovereign rule over the world and especially His chosen people, Israel. Israel is in captivity at this point. Assyria is their current captor. King Ahasuerus is the ruler. A man named Haman is the villain. He wants all the Jews destroyed. He tricks Ahasuerus to declare an edict that all the Jews were to be killed. Queen Esther, who is a Jew and Mordecai, who is her uncle, are able to foil Haman’s plans. Haman is hung on the very gallows he had hope to hang Mordecai. But his edict is still outstanding. The king then issues a second edict that will allow the Jews to defend themselves. This edict needs to be sent to the Jews living throughout 127 provinces from India to Ethiopia. That is almost 3,000 miles. God has so arranged the events at this time in history that Ahasuerus puts out a message for all 127 provinces to allow the Jewish people to not only defend themselves against those who would still want to follow Haman’s original plan, but also to preemptively strike down any of their enemies. Wouldn’t it have been nice if King Ahasuerus would have had email or text messaging for this task. He didn’t. Instead he had to use mounted couriers (i.e. the pony express) to spread the news. Wouldn’t it be great if they had a copy machine to print this new edict on the kings own stationary. They didn’t. Instead they had to hand write 127 copies in the language of all those in each providence. They also had to have a copy for all 127 providences in Hebrew, for the Jew’s living there (most likely as slaves). This is a massive undertaking. It all had to be accomplished before the day that Haman designated as, kill all the Jews in your midst day. This is a wonderful example of God using man’s ingenuity (a gift from God) to accomplish a major logistics task. God is in the business of logistics and uses man’s skills (gifts from God) to accomplish this. This would have taken scribes, curators of writing material, equestrians, stable crew, meal prep, etc to accomplish this task. God does it all to display to us His sovereignty, even over logistics. Praise Him!
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