Hank Smith: 00:02 Welcome to part two of this week’s podcast.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 00:07 I want to highlight how it is that Esther will know that she’s not in the end facing a death threat, but that she has been received by the king. And that’s because he will extend his golden scepter. So it’s his way of indicating, should someone come unannounced, unsummoned, uninvited, the king has a choice himself to make whether or not to extend that gold scepter. Whether to withhold his favor or whether to extend it. And in this case, and maybe it’s not a surprise given what we’ve already seen about how much it is that he seems to like Esther, he extends that golden scepter.

John Bytheway: 00:53 Ariel, can I ask you a question? There’s this moment in verse 16 I wanted to talk about, she says, “If I perish, I perish.” She comes to this moment, what would you call this? This is like an acceptance of the Lord’s will.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 01:05 That’s a good question.

John Bytheway: 01:06 It doesn’t sound like she’s saying if we’re faithful enough, I won’t die. She’s saying, “If I die, I die.”

Hank Smith: 01:12 It’s kind of like Daniel and his friends. God can save me, but if not, it’s kind of that kind of Daniel and his friends moment.

John Bytheway: 01:20 But if not, yeah.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 01:21 These are both what we call exilic stories, right? Both Daniel and Esther are stories of exile. As I mentioned at the beginning, they differ a little bit because with Daniel it’s mostly a survival story. Let’s get through this. With Esther, she uses it as an opportunity. It is an exile story for them both. And it is existential for them both. I think they already realize that they are a people that have been enslaved. They have been oppressed. They have been left to wander. They have been taken into exile. There have been threats of extermination before.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 02:00 It responds at one level to the condition in which they find themselves. If I perish, I perish. And Mordecai says to her, “Look, if you don’t do this, help will arise from another place and you’re going to die anyway.” So it’s sort of death or death, or maybe there is this slim chance that this is going to work out, that we can be preserved. It is going to require a tremendous amount of careful thought on Esther’s part.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 02:30 And this speaks to some of the things I mentioned earlier. This is a book about very creative, closely inspired solutions. And that’s why the fasting is so important. I’m going to go in search of the answer. I’m not going to presume it. I’m not going to act on my own genius alone. I don’t believe that that’s the path to salvation, right? According to the genius of my own creation, no, she’s looking for spiritual answer. She’s looking for spiritual solutions.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 03:02 And when we pick it up in chapter five, the king does receive Esther. So the immediate question is, well, okay, she’s made it past the very first test. She hasn’t been deposed. She isn’t being sent to the gallows. Is this the moment? Is she going to reveal her identity as a Jew? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know that this decree impacts her. He might be mortified if he did. He doesn’t know that. Is she going to reveal her Jewishness? Is she going to ask for their preservation?

Dr. Ariel Silver: 03:33 You know what she does? She invites the king to a dinner party. That’s what she does. And she says, “Will you invite Haman to come with you?” She’s taking this one very strategic piece at a time. She’s not pouring her whole heart out to her husband all at once. And maybe there are moments when such a solution is appropriate, but she realizes she has to tread very lightly. And she’s got to proceed with an immense amount of caution and insight and understanding. And so she says, “Will you come to a banquet? I’d like to make you some food. And I’d like you to invite your best friend, your advisor, Haman, to come with you.”

John Bytheway: 04:20 The King’s asking questions here. Why?

Dr. Ariel Silver: 04:22 The beautiful thing is that the very first thing he says to her before she even asks, “Will you come to this dinner party?” He says, “Esther, what would you like? I’m ready to give it to you-

John Bytheway: 04:35 Request whatever you want.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 04:35 … up to half of the kingdom. You’re my queen.” You would think that would be an invitation for her to lay it all out. Let’s take care of this quickly. He certainly gives her an opening to do that. And he certainly responds with, I would say for an ancient king, that’s a pretty generous offer. I’m prepared to give you whatever you ask for up to half of the kingdom. That’s not bad for a woman who hasn’t been his queen for very long and is coming to him unannounced. That’s a pretty generous response.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 05:04 He offers that. She simply says, “I’d like you to come to this banquet. I’d like to make some food for you. I’d like to have a meal with you, break bread together.” The other thing that’s happening in chapter five that’s really important is that Haman is just still bothered by Mordecai’s insubordination. And he’s not satisfied with his larger plan to have all of the Jews exterminated. Before that moment comes, he would like to see Mordecai himself hung. Let’s get him out of my line of sight. I really don’t want to have to deal with him on a daily basis anymore. I don’t want to be reminded that there’s one person in the kingdom who won’t bow to me. So why don’t I do this?

Dr. Ariel Silver: 05:45 And I guess before he decides that he’s going to develop this plot to hang Mordecai, he’s bothered by it. He goes to his wife Zeresh and says, “What should I do?” And she’s credited with coming up with the idea. Well, let’s have some gallows built and you can request to have him hung on those gallows. That’s probably the other really significant thing that happens in chapter five. We’ve got the stages set for a banquet. Esther, her life has been spared sort of at the first cut. And it looks like Mordecai might die a quick death.

John Bytheway: 06:22 It’s interesting. Haman thinks his luck has come in, look at him, he’s like, “I’ve been called to dinner with the king and queen. And all I got to do is have Mordecai die, yet all this avail with me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the King’s gate, I want him dead.” It’s fascinating in this story to see Haman kind of being set up for disaster yet he has no idea it’s coming.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 06:50 No, he has no idea it’s coming. And this is a tiny detail. But imagine how clever that was of Esther to invite Haman to this banquet. Did she realize that Haman would derive such pleasure from it, that this would puff him up, that this would make him feel even more special and important? I still marvel at Esther’s strategy. I think she was brilliant in the way that she goes about this. And so, the first banquet is held and what happens? What does Esther do? Does she then lay out her plan? Does she then reveal her identity? Does she tell her sad tale and request a stay or a reversal of the decree? No.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 07:34 She simply asked them to come again for a second banquet. And she also says, “I will let you know why I’ve called you, I’ll reveal my concern.” But even when she prepares the first banquet, they gather. And the first thing that the king says is, he repeats his offer, “Esther, what would you like? I’ll give you whatever you need. Here’s the credit card. Take half the kingdom.” And she restrains herself. She doesn’t take half the kingdom. She just says, “Could we have dinner again? Could we have another banquet?” That’s where we leave it at the end of chapter five.

John Bytheway: 08:13 And they’re making these Gallows for Mordecai, having no clue that he’s making his own.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 08:20 No idea. And what happens next is this kind of lovely turn of events that you couldn’t have predicted. And you wonder, did Esther know, was there any way for her to have figured this out, that at the beginning of the next chapter the king has insomnia. He cannot sleep. It’s not that he dreams a dream per se, he’s just thinking about things, thinking about past events. He’s remembering the book of records and all of the intrigues and exploits of the court that are recorded and go on. And he goes, “Wasn’t there a time in the past where someone helped foil a plan, a plot against me, I could have sworn that something like that happened.”

Dr. Ariel Silver: 08:59 And he has the record brought to him and he reads it, and he discovers that, “Oh yes, there was this guy named Mordecai who helped unveil this plan on my life by these two advisors.” And so, he becomes reminded. Let’s just talk again and again and again about the power of remembering. And usually in the context of the need to remember God, the need to remember all that God has done for us.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 09:30 Here we have another instance of remembering, so important. It’s not specifically tied to remembering God and the salvation that he provides. It’s an experience of the king remembering a way in which he was saved. The outgrowth of that remembering leads to the kind of remembering that is more essential and providential to delivering and to actual delivering. It’s another really interesting instance of the power of remembering and what that can bring to our minds. The things that we become more grateful about because we have remembered them, the things that we see more clearly, because we remember them.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 10:12 And the king is brought to a moment of truth. He remembers that his life was saved and he remembers because of the record that was written, the power of writing down the record, the reason why God’s people have always been implored to keep records and to teach the things that they write in those records to their children, so that they would know to what source to look for salvation. He remembers. And there is a record there that aids his memory, and that record leads him back to Mordecai. What does he do? Haman comes in the next day and without disclosing the name of Mordecai, the king says, “Haman, what should I do for someone I would want to honor grace?”

John Bytheway: 11:07 This is such a … Man, it’s almost there to make you laugh, right?

Dr. Ariel Silver: 11:07 This is a comic story. It’s on the edge of comedy and tragedy. It’s just I don’t know if I can even express to you the masterful quality of this text. For me it’s like the book of Hebrews in the New Testament. It masterfully encapsulates the sort of the whole story, the whole schemata of deliverance. It’s a different approach in the book of Hebrews. We really learn about the role of Christ as our high priest and the author of our salvation and all of these things. But the book of Esther is similarly well crafted and similarly plays on multiple, really interesting spiritual and emotional and intellectual levels and gives us a view of how it is that the divine works and how those spiritual realities can come to pass in our own lives. And the king says, Haman, what would you do? What would you do for someone who you really wanted to show favor to?

John Bytheway: 12:06 And he thinks it’s him.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 12:08 He thinks it’s him. He thinks that he is the guy, and he takes it to the nth degree, I would lay out all these carpets and I would dress him in this and I’d set him on a horse or a camel or whatever. And I would parade him throughout the streets.

John Bytheway: 12:23 Wonderful clothes.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 12:24 Wonderful clothes and I would have proclamations go out and bands and music and food and you name it. And he has no idea that it’s not him. He thinks that finally he has hit the jackpot to end all jackpots. He thought it was pretty good that he became his right-hand man, and pretty good that he got invited to this banquet with the king and Esther, and now he goes-

John Bytheway: 12:44 Now I’m going to be honored.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 12:46 I am the man, already envisioning his reign whenever the king kicks the can. And he has no idea that this is designed for Mordecai. The very person that he wants to hang is the person who is then honored according to the plan that Haman has set forth.

John Bytheway: 13:02 I would love to see his face at that moment. Chapter six verse 10, the king said to Haman, “Make haste, take everything that you’ve just talked about and do so to Mordecai the Jew.” Wait, what?

Hank Smith: 13:15 There’s a jaw drop.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 13:18 It’s a huge jaw drop.

Hank Smith: 13:19 And then it says he hasted to his house mourning, having his head covered.

John Bytheway: 13:23 Of all the people the king would choose, right? Oh.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 13:26 No. It’s really interesting, John, that you picked out that one verse because we’re going to see in the next chapter the very swift demise of Haman. And we know that he is on his way out because his head is covered. That is the sign that he’s being sent to the executioner. But in the chapter preceding it, he covers his own head in grief and in shame that this plot has gone awry, this is not what I planned for. This is not what I intended. This is not what I wanted to have happened. He doesn’t know just yet how bad it is, in both instances there’s a covering of the head. There’s a masking availing and a real erasure, if you will. He anticipates it himself, even though he doesn’t exactly know. So that’s chapter six.

John Bytheway: 14:19 Ariel, the timing of this really makes me think of a quote from Elder Bednar. I’ve quoted this talk many times on the podcast. I have to apologize, I quote it so often. It’s called the tender mercies of the Lord from Elder David A. Bednar.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 14:32 It was his first address as an apostle and it is beautiful.

John Bytheway: 14:38 The fact that the king has the memory of Mordecai saving his life. It was on a night he couldn’t sleep. And he said, “Let me read.” What are the odds that he’s going to remember Mordecai. Elder Bednar says in this talk, “The tender mercies of the Lord, some may count this experience as simply as a nice coincidence, but I testify that the tender mercies of the Lord are real. They do not occur randomly or merely by coincidence.” And then this statement, often the Lord’s timing of his tender mercies helps us both to discern and acknowledge them. God isn’t listed by name in chapter six, but he surely is there in this timing of having Mordecai be remembered, at the very same time Haman is building the gallows for him. I think that’s the hidden God that you talked about earlier, right?

Dr. Ariel Silver: 15:30 And one or both of you made some mention of this text as being a text full of what appear to be coincidences of things happening thus in such a way by coincidence. We can also read them as moments of real mercy. And that’s true too, even with miracles in our lives. We have to choose to see it as a miracle. It’s not a miracle defacto, it’s not a miracle-

John Bytheway: 16:06 Biblical, right?

Dr. Ariel Silver: 16:07 … without dispute. We’re choosing to see that experience as an experience that involved the hand of the Lord, not as something that just randomly occurred, but as something that involved his mercy for us, his great and profound love for us. The point is we choose to see it that way. To someone else it might be a coincidence.

John Bytheway: 16:34 I see almost in Haman a type of the adversary. I think I’m going to win. I’m going to get you. And then it’s all reversed in the end. Now let’s keep going because I want to hear what happens.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 16:48 Okay. In chapter seven, we come to the perhaps more consequential second banquet or dinner party. It’s interesting because at this point Haman already begins to see that there are problems in his paradise. He thought he was going to be honored in this grandiose way, his sworn enemy instead, the person he wants to get rid of is elevated. That’s a problem for Haman.

John Bytheway: 17:19 Things are about to get worse.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 17:22 It’s about to get much worse. It’s about to get much, much, much worse. I think chapter seven is really … we should know it almost as well as we know chapter four, it’s a consequential chapter. And she invites the king and Haman to this second banquet. And it is here that she does finally announce her identity, who she is. And she sort of as a corollary to that acknowledges that this plot, this decree of genocide is a decree against her and her people.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 18:01 This is really the moment where she moves from being an unknown Jew to being a known Jew, from being veiled to being unveiled. And at this moment I think Haman begins to realize, oh, this is really not good. The king loves Esther. I plotted this decree of extinction against her people, which also involve her. This is a problem. And the king sort of begins to put all the pieces together. He begins to sort of see it finally all at once. And he’s so upset and probably primarily upset with Haman that he has done this. And he has put himself, the king, in what I think the king would see as an exposed position where he has made a decree that involves his wife in a way that he would never had done if he had known that his wife was a Jew, Haman chose to keep many things from him.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 19:08 So he walks away for a minute, I think trying to collect himself, to compose himself. And while he’s gone, Haman basically begs Esther for his life, pleads with her, realizing that the tables have turned entirely now. And it’s not just a matter of who’s being honored with great clothing and a nice horse ride out in the courtyard or in the capital city. But I’m looking at a pretty grim prospect for myself. And so, he starts to plead for his life. Well, Esther is sort of reclining on a couch, it’s a banquet. And he bows before her, but it puts him in a position where he’s basically on the bed with her.

John Bytheway: 19:56 Just looks really bad.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 19:57 It looks absolutely terrible. And the king comes back into the room, and he realizes, this is not good. I was viciously upset with you when I left, when I come back, you’ve only added insult to injury.

John Bytheway: 20:12 You’re attacking the queen.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 20:14 That is really the moment when the king responds, has Haman’s head covered. And he is escorted out of the banquet.

John Bytheway: 20:27 Elder Bednar should give a talk on this called the bitter ironies of the Lord. Oh, everything just goes downhill for this guy. He was going to have an entire people annihilated, he built his own gallows.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 20:42 He did build his own gallows and that shouldn’t be lost on any reader. And it wasn’t just physically that he builds his own gallows, he was building his own gallows from the beginning of this story. It’s a cautionary tale about the limits to which revenge can be taken or the great cost of pursuing a program of revenge. That things will not work out if that is your focus. You cannot be elevated on the backs or the blood of others. It’s a very compensatory tale for the Jews. It’s very satisfying to see that such a malevolent character would have justice, real justice done to him and that his intricate plot to kill them all would come to not. It has a level of real-

John Bytheway: 21:32 Irony.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 21:33 Yeah. Irony and melodramatic satisfaction that he meets it in. Even if not, everyone looks like Haman, we’re far more multidimensional, but it’s a cautionary tale against pursuing, we’ll call it vigilant justice.

John Bytheway: 21:51 Yeah, revenge, pride.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 21:54 Yes. There really is no good that can come from trying to take the law or the power into one’s own hands. And it’s not returning, it’s far beyond eye for an eye or tooth for a tooth. This is not revenge on any kind of equal measure, it’s not even that. He was slighted in a small way. Mordecai would not bow to him. And before we know it, he’s going to personally preside over Mordecai’s demise and watch the killing of all of the Jews in the eventual hopes that he becomes the king. This is a real desire to stick it. And so, it functions as a warning against pursuing that kind of course in one’s life, either in large ways like here or in very small ways. I think Esther’s teaching us that it’s not the path of virtue.

John Bytheway: 22:49 Elder Uchtdorf gave a talk in October of 2010 called Pride and the Priesthood. He talked about pride is the great sin of self-elevation. Similar to what you just said, he said, “Pride turns to envy. Pride looks bitterly at those who have better possessions, more talents or greater possessions than they do. They seek to hurt, diminish and tear others down in a misguided and unworthy attempt at self-elevation.” That seems to be Haman’s downfall is his self-elevation and his pride completely blinded him to the fact that he was building his own destruction. I mean, there’s a level of irony there that’s scary.

Hank Smith: 23:32 There’s a verse in first Nephi 14. So, it’s Nephi seeing his own longer version of Lehi’s dream where he says the great pit of destruction, which was digged for the children shall be filled by those who digged it. It’s kind of like you made this gallow and you’re the one who’s going to get hung on it. You’re thinking to damage somebody else or to kill someone else, and that’s the irony you mentioned.

John Bytheway: 23:59 That’s such an ironic, sad, and also I can see what you would say, Ariel, did you see in this compensatory, you got what you deserved.

Hank Smith: 24:10 You got unto others what you were trying to do to them, where you got what you were doing unto others done to you.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 24:17 It’s a demonstration that that kind of approach to life won’t work, it doesn’t prevail. And in the process, whatever destruction you might visit on someone else, ultimately you destroy yourself. That’s the real punishment. It is self-destructive to seek one’s own self elevation.

John Bytheway: 24:36 You did this to yourself, Haman. Oh man, it’s such a dramatic story.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 24:43 It reminds me a little bit of a experience that I had as a missionary in France. I happened to have a companion who was from Taiwan who spoke Mandarin Chinese. She had come to France to work as a nanny and she herself had encountered the missionaries. And then she decided while she was living in France to serve a mission. And she was called to the Bordeaux, France Mission where I was serving and became my companion. And she loved to tell me about this Chinese folk tale or myth of sort of the enlightened man who is climbing the mountain, sort of with each level he can see more and more, and he becomes more enlightened.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 25:22 I mean, in some ways it’s maybe the reverse of the experience of Haman, but he is being elevated both geographically and spiritually. And he gets to the top of the mountain once to share with his family this great achievement that he has made. And he looks around him and he sees them nowhere to be found and he looks down and he sees them all at the base of the mountain, because in his pursuit of his own enlightenment, he never shared those insights or those experiences with others. And so he finds himself at the top of the mountain all alone.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 25:59 This is maybe a little different. In this case Haman is going into Dante’s Inferno, rather than climbing a mountain. But it’s a similarly lonely path that one seeks one’s own advancement. Whether for ostensibly good ends or less salutary ends, the experience ends really in isolation and in destruction and in failure.

John Bytheway: 26:24 Let’s do eight, nine and 10 real quick here. What ends up happening to Mordecai and Esther?

Dr. Ariel Silver: 26:30 Haman is killed and Mordecai is placed over the house of Haman. He basically takes his place and-

Hank Smith: 26:40 Takes his reign.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 26:41 Well, yeah. Esther is given the role of presiding over the house of Haman. And she gives the token of that authority to Mordecai. He sort of in every way replaces Haman. The king reaffirms that he cannot change. He’s the king, he’s made this decree. And so he issues another decree that the Jews can defend themself on the day when this extermination order is to take place.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 27:10 In fact, he says, “You are permitted to defend yourselves and you can take the spoils from your enemies, from those who attack you. And you may defend yourself, including killing them if necessary. And you may take the spoils of war, the spoils of this conflict.”

Dr. Ariel Silver: 27:25 In chapter nine, that’s really when we sort of get to the moment of the first decree, which is the day that was set aside for this genocide. And we have a small war, which ensues on this day, the record explains in chapter nine that the Jews slay their enemies and they gave numbers in Shushan the capital and throughout the provinces. Those deaths include the deaths of Haman’s 10 sons. It’s a generational curse that continues. Haman’s wickedness is visited upon his children as well.

John Bytheway: 28:02 His children.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 28:04 And they are not only killed in battle, but they are then also hung. I don’t know if it’s precisely the same gallows that Haman was hung on, but I think so. And the record was also very careful to indicate that the Jews did defend themselves and they did so vigorously, but they did not take any spoils.

John Bytheway: 28:25 That’s verse 10.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 28:27 They restrained themselves and they sort of did what they had to do, but no more, they deemed that their lives were valuable, that their lives were important to the God who made them, that it was a worthy request to be allowed to defend themselves.

John Bytheway: 28:46 And then they create a holiday, right?

Dr. Ariel Silver: 28:48 They create a holiday. This is so great and so important. And it comes about through two letters. The first one’s written by Mordecai. The second one’s written by Esther herself. And there’s to be a feast of Purim. What is Purim? It comes from the word poor, which meant to cast a lot. And basically what had happened earlier in the text is that the lots had been cast against the Jews. They drew the short stick and they were going to be exterminated. They were deemed a nuisance, his and a byword and problematic neighbors to live amongst.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 29:19 And so they decided that we’ll just take care of them and make short work of them. But that is really transformed in this text. Instead of being exterminated, they prevail in this conflict and in this threat, and the purpose of the feast of Purim is to remember that they were preserved and that they were saved and that they were redeemed from this existential threat. And that they’re to read this story every year in part because it is a story that in miniature tells the plan of salvation and also anticipates the reign of the Messiah in the millennium when all things are made just, and when all loss is compensated for. And when the proud are made low and the humble are finally elevated.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 30:13 It’s a very happy celebration. Like I say, they reenact the story every year. There are special desserts and foods, the hamantash and the little sort of little triangular cookies that they make and eat. They act out the story and they give gifts. They give to charity and they remember their own humility before God, by extending that charity and generosity to others. It’s an important celebration for them. It’s one that holds a lot of value and has cemented the place of the book of Esther as a essential part of their canon, essential text for them because of the things that it teaches.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 30:53 And the last chapter is really quite brief. It’s just that we learned already in chapter eight that Mordecai sort of takes the place of Haman. And now he is sort of fully invested as the right hand man to the king is sort of accorded all of the powers and privileges of that office. But I think it’s right at the very end of chapter 10 where it talks about Mordecai’s speaking peace to his seed and to his people that even though it is a tale that involves a threat of destruction and self-defense and some destruction, it’s also a story about beating swords into plowshares, moving away from violence and towards peace.

John Bytheway: 31:36 I knew the story somewhat, I think we have some great moments of wow, what a turnaround. And I liked what you said, that you can see her as a type of Christ for us personally to remember our redemption. I think as they have this feast, so do we every week to remember our redemption. I really liked what you said, that we have moments in our lives where we turn to God. And like you said, God turns to us. How did you make it through that moment in your life? Just in the mission field for six days up in Idaho and he’s in his assignment.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 32:13 It’s impossible to describe everything that I learned. It feels like I learned a thousand things in the period of just a few days and many more in the weeks and months and years after that. You talked about finding me on the Maxwell Institute website, because I am writing a memoir about that very experience. It was a tremendous touchstone for me spiritually.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 32:41 And as I had mentioned that one night to the nurse who’d been watching me, unbeknownst to me, I don’t know that I can explain entirely. I mean, I know where the strength came from, but I might not be able to describe entirely just how profound it was, just how sustaining it was, how much I learned about the power of sustaining others who are called being sustained in a moment of kind of exquisite trial, feels like there were numerous blessings. He was blessed at the site. He was blessed by his mission president when he got to the hospital. His grandfather gave him a blessing when we arrived.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 33:26 We got home from the hospital that night and I said, “I think I’m going to need a blessing to get through this.” And in that blessing, I was blessed that I would be instrument of his healing, that I would be given strength to give to him. I mean, I think I just really do have a profound sense of the very significant role that women play in the salvation of others. I have experienced it in personal terms, but we see it in the Old Testament as well. It’s not just Esther, there aren’t too many other figures like her who play a really salvific role on behalf of others. But Jael certainly does that, Judith certainly does that.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 34:07 And in every instance, it takes tremendous courage. It takes a real stepping outside of one’s self and one’s own needs of the moment to be a source of strength for others. While he was in that coma, I had the chance to go and visit the site where he had been injured, which coincidentally is not too far from where they are building the temple in Burley, Idaho.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 34:32 It was interesting because I had several thoughts when I visited the site and saw the blood from his brain smeared across the road still there several days later. It wasn’t just that I was going to have to tell him the story because he wasn’t going to remember it. He doesn’t know what happened. He doesn’t have any memory. I had to be the remembrance, tell the story to him. But even more than that was the experience of meeting incredible member who had arranged for this service project.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 34:57 And his own son had suffered a traumatic brain injury. He felt just terrible about what had happened. But he was the source of so much wisdom and insight. And I felt like I was just drawing that from him to bring to Stuart, our son, and sort of transfer that wisdom and insight, that knowledge that things would eventually, however, they worked out, they would work out, bringing that power and understanding.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 35:24 But for me he was a source of tremendous understanding and really bore me up in all kinds of ways. And then I think I too just had to be on my knees and I had to be very carefully asking, “What do I do now? What do I do? What do I ask for tomorrow? What do I need tomorrow to make it to the next day and what do I need? What does my family need? What does my son need? What do the others who’ve been impacted by this need?”

Dr. Ariel Silver: 35:54 And I just feel like careful solutions were provided all along the way. I had already written the sort of basic manuscript for this book. I felt like I had already crossed the planes. I mean, writing that dissertation with six children, doing a doctorate program with six children was something else. I felt like I had already walked through the great plains with rags on my feet. I couldn’t imagine anything more difficult than what I had already experienced.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 36:25 And here two years later was another tremendous experience for which the other experience had prepared me. I mean, it’s almost really only now that I’m making a lot of connections between that experience that I passed through and the book of Esther. But I think I just knew intuitively that this is something we don’t talk about enough, we don’t hear about enough, we don’t see enough of in the scriptures. The spiritual lives of women, the role that they play in the sort of spiritual growth and redemption of others.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 36:58 There are so many other things I want to tell you about the book of Esther. One that is really, really crucial. And it may seem odd for me to mention this right now after just talking about my experience as a mother, with my son in the midst of this injury, it’s really significant to me that in the book of Esther we have the experience of a woman who does something at a redemptive level on behalf of others that is not tied to motherhood and is not tied to the bearing of children. Just about every other example in scripture is an elevation of the female as a mother and as a teacher, as a nurturer, someone who provides continuity, strength, wisdom, and insight from generation to generation to generation.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 37:49 And those things are all tremendously important. But it is also important to recognize that that is not the only role that women fill in life and that they have great gifts to give in other realms as well. And Esther provides us a very powerful example of a woman apart from motherhood who does tremendous work and carefully seeks out guided inspired solutions that are going to bless and benefit her people.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 38:24 It’s not a pretty thing that she’s really being asked to do, but she does it and she transforms her predicament and her situation into a scenario where she brings tremendous blessing and tremendous benefit to her people. It wasn’t what she set out to do, but she herself evolves over time. She comes into an understanding of her capacity and of her strength and of her perception, her ability to perceive what needs to be done, what needs to be said. It’s really important.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 39:06 There is another side to the story, God being hidden in this text, he is present. And I hope that our discussion has demonstrated the ways in which God was present in Esther’s life, was present in Mordecai’s life, was present in this text and in this story. But many people have suggested that the hiddenness of God, that figure is obscured slightly so that we can see what we might call the female divine.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 39:41 And I think our most comfortable corollary is a heavenly mother. I think it’s worth mentioning that she really functions in much the way that Esther does. She’s both hidden and she’s revealed. There’s not a lot that is said about her, her role remains a bit obscured, and yet we also affirm and reaffirm her presence. And we recognize that divinity is incomplete without her.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 40:17 We haven’t really talked yet about the ways in which Esther is a book of multiplicity. We’ve talked about the ways which there’s a hiddenness there. So from the period of judges to the period of exile which is where we find the book of Esther, Asherah, who is recognized as a female, Canaanite, mostly fertility deity was worshiped. And it’s interesting because the prophets were really opposed to the worship of Baal. And they realized that the trouble that the Israelites and the children of Israel had gotten into because they worshiped Baal, but there was a greater tolerance for worship of Asherah.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 40:58 And we see it more explicitly in Jeremiah chapter 44, verse 17, where it explains that people worship the queen of heaven in the streets of Jerusalem and in the cities of Judah. But there comes a moment when prophets feel as though that worship of a female deity is a threat to prophetic Judaism. And so that worship goes underground and more specifically, it goes abroad. It goes into exile. And that’s really an important piece of the book of Esther, because the Babylonian variant of Asherah is Ishtar, which is the Babylonian equivalent of the name Esther.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 41:41 When you see the book of Esther, it is the book of Ishtar. It is the book of Asherah. It is the book of Hadassah. It is the book of Esther who has these two names, her Jewish name, and her Babylonian or Persian name. By functioning in this role of redemption, she is in some ways fulfilling her divine counterpart. Esther is just another powerful example how God works that deliverance. And it means something that he works it through a woman. Talk about a good marriage, it’s really a situation where working together.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 42:25 And I think that’s another power of the book of Esther, God is a little hidden. They’ve got to find their own solution. He will inspire them. He will lead them. He will direct them, but they’re going to have to do some things too. They’re going to have to lay their life on the line. They’re going to have to proceed carefully, strategically, cautiously, with thoughtfulness. They’re not going to be able to do this just on a whim, knowing that God is going to come in from-

John Bytheway: 42:55 Right. Save the day.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 42:56 They have to build themselves into the kind of people in concert with their God can work that, that salvation.

John Bytheway: 43:06 Ariel, Dr. Silver, this has been just a fantastic day. I think our listeners would be interested in your story of your faith and your scholarship and how those have influenced each other. What’s that story been like for you?

Dr. Ariel Silver: 43:19 The first thing that comes to mind is the moment when I return from my mission. I was still an undergraduate. I served a mission between my junior and senior years in college. I came back to Smith College and I was studying religion and biblical literature. And I was taking a course, I think it was on the book of Romans.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 43:40 I just remember taking notes for the class, beginning to develop what I fondly refer to as my marginalia, sort of the notes on the side of the paper. And I do this all the time. I do this in books that I read. There’s a kind of a main line of notes and then there’s side notes. I just remember, we’re looking at a specific text in the New Testament and the marginalia is filled with references to the book of Mormon, which I had recently been spending a lot of time with as a missionary, references to the Pearl of Great Price, references to the Old Testament, references to other pieces of literature that I had read or thought about. Sometimes stories or personal experiences that I remembered that somehow connected for me to the things I was learning in the book of Romans.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 44:28 And they maybe had nothing to do per se with the book of Romans, Romans or the narrative there. I mean, I still remember of course the beautiful passage in Romans, nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing can separate us from the love of God, nothing, nothing. That love is constant and unconditional, however much we feel in exile, at any point in our lives, we are never separated from the love of God.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 44:53 What it demonstrated for me was that a life lived in belief, even if I didn’t have all the answers. And there are many things that I have on the back burners wanting responses for many things, even if I didn’t have the answer to every question, that a life lived in hope, a life lived in belief, a life lived in the scriptures was a life that would be a constant spark and a constant inspiration for me. And that it would feed me intellectually and spiritually. The things that I was doing spiritually would also feed me intellectually and emotionally.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 45:33 I have always seen them as a marriage, to walk away from either of them would leave me less fulfilled, a much less self examined individual. And I tell my students this all the time, reading the scriptures will teach you how to think critically. Close reading of text is a wonderful spiritual exercise. It’s a wonderful intellectual exercise. And sometimes you do have to read between the words and between the spaces, you have to look for the things that are not said there at all.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 46:06 My mission president Elder Anderson was a tremendous teacher for me in this regard. He said, “When you listen to general conference talks, listen to what you’re hearing, but listen above all else to the spirit that’s teaching you and keep a record of the things that you are being taught. They may have nothing to do with what is being said, but the experience of being there listening to someone who is set apart to be an Oracle will be a spiritual catalyst for you.”

Dr. Ariel Silver: 46:43 And when we place ourselves in those kinds of waters. And I love the image in Ezekiel 37 of the waters of the temple flowing out. And at first they touch just your toes, your heels, and your ankles. And the further that chapter goes, the more we are swimming in the waters that come out of the temples and they are healing waters. They are waters that restore us. They are waters that edify us. They are waters that refine us and ennoble us. We become filled with the spirit of the temple, which is a spirit of Christ, which is a spirit of God. We are changed by that. We are baptized by that.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 47:21 I am a swimmer and I love to swim, just about every day. It’s not quite the waters of the temple, but it’s a daily reminder of being immersed in the things that matter most. And so I have just seen them as being invaluable to each other, a spiritual life and an intellectual life. I have seen them as being much poor without the other. And I have the confidence that God will lead me along, that I will be given the understanding that I need when I need it.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 47:51 I also believe firmly and have seen evidence of the promise that if you ask, you will receive. If you knock, it will be opened on to you. If you seek, you will find. You may be like the woman in Luke 15, you may be sweeping that house every corner until you find the lost coin. It may take many years for the lost son to return. You may not find the lost sheep at first perusal, but if you keep at it, you will learn in the process, you’ll be changed in the process. You might be more ready to receive the lost son when he or she chooses to return. You may know what to do with the coin when you eventually find it. You may know how to care for the sheep if it comes back to you, we are changed in the process.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 48:37 And it’s God being hidden, not having answers sometimes is an invitation to exercise greater faith. And it’s an invitation to lean more heavily on the purposes and the will of the Lord. We don’t know how things will end, and we have to depend on that spirit for guidance. What else is going to guide us? Where else will we find truth? I wouldn’t want to separate myself from that power or source of revelation for anything, it is everything.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 49:12 I remember often feeling like I was running around my mission like a chicken whose head had been cut off, just wanting to tell people about the power of the gift of the holy ghost, if only you could have that. And I remember we had an elderly gentleman who was a veteran of any number of French wars and who smoked multiple packs a day. And he was a hard sell, but he kept inviting us back. And every time we came back, something about him had changed and he started coming to church and months passed and he said, “I don’t think I can give it up. I’m not eligible for baptism. Is there any way I could just get the gift of the holy ghost?”

Dr. Ariel Silver: 49:52 Something in those teachings had impressed him enough to know that that was a gift worth having, it’s a gift worth keeping and pursuing and seeking after, because it is the thing that will lead us to the solutions that we need in life. We can’t arrive at them on our own. And the Israelites were wise enough when they were at their best to know that, that they could not arrive at those solutions on their own, they had to have a higher strength and a higher source of insight.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 50:27 I had a chance to mention a little earlier my experience with our missionary son, and I thought you might enjoy hearing how that experience was resolved. And it is an experience among other things of fasting, which is where the book of Esther really takes off. There were so many loving friends and people concerned about him. And we explained that we would be holding a fast on his behalf six days after he was injured and first put in this medically induced coma, because they were going to try to take him off of the ventilator in the midst of that fasting process, where many people who had never fasted before were fasting and on our son’s behalf like the Persian handmaidens who were fasting for Esther, in the midst of that process took the tubes out and he was immediately able to breathe on his own.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 51:18 We didn’t really look back. They ran a battery of tests the next day for cognitive function and he was just remarkably intact. He didn’t have half his skull, so that was a process. There’s a protocol normally when there’s an injury of this nature, that missionaries need to wait a year before returning to the mission field. He got that clearance from his doctor about four months after the injury and ended up returning to the mission field about eight months after the initial accident. He returned to the same mission, what ended up being really a three year mission from start to finish. And I went to college and done very well. He studied biology and he’s working at a research lab in Boston now and is applying to medical school.

John Bytheway: 52:03 That is beautiful resolution for a beautiful family. It’s kind of like the book of Esther.

Dr. Ariel Silver: 52:11 It’s a dramatic tale of redemption, it is.

John Bytheway: 52:14 We want to thank Dr. Ariel Silver for being with us today. What a great day from studying this book and hearing your stories. It was just a moving time to be together. Thank you. We want to thank our executive producers, Steve and Shannon Sorensen, as well as our sponsors, David and Verla Sorensen. And we hope all of you will join us next week. Come back for another episode of followHIM.

John Bytheway: 52:41 We have an amazing production crew we want you to know about, David Perry, Lisa Spice, Jamie Nelson, Will Stoughton, Krystal Roberts and Ariel Cuadra. Thank you to our amazing production team.