That’s the story of Esther—how one woman through the providence of God saved the Jews from genocide. The book has her name not because she wrote it. Whoever the author is, the real author of the story is God. 

—John MacArthur 

Source: Copyright 2023, Grace to You. All rights reserved. Used by permission. This Grace to You article originally appeared here at gty.org.

As you study God’s Word, you will find that through the ages, Satan has tried to destroy, first God’s people, the Jews; next Christ himself; then the Church. But God has thwarted his plans. Even “the gates of Hades will not overcome” his Church (Matthew 16:18). God will triumph! Christ has won the victory! 

—Henrietta Mears

Source: This content is from What the Bible Is All About, written by Henrietta Mears. Copyright © 1953, 2011 by Gospel Light. Copyright assigned to Tyndale House Publishers, 2015. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, a division of Tyndale House Ministries., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

The invisible hand of God is evident everywhere. The absence of God here is, I think, intentional. It is an ingenious strategy by the writer to draw the reader to think deeply about how life’s circumstances are ordered to the divine purpose. These are not coincidences—[there’s] too many. This is not random. There is a designer, there is a coordinator, there is a power behind all of this. God literally thunders through the book of Esther. There are no miracles through the book of Esther, but the whole thing is a miracle of divine providence. People, places, time, action—Its more than miraculous. 

The message for you is this. While you are going through life and trying to make sure to fix all the little pieces of your life, understand this: that there is … the divine architect ordering every detail and if you belong to him and are in the covenant of his love, he is accomplishing his perfect will. And you can rest in that.  

—John MacArthur 

Source: Copyright 2023, Grace to You. All rights reserved. Used by permission. This Grace to You article originally appeared here at gty.org.

Perhaps, like Esther, you have been brought to this moment in your life by circumstances over which you had no control, combined with flawed decisions you made along the way. Perhaps instead of living for God, you have so concealed your Christian faith that no one would even identify you as a Christian. Then suddenly you find yourself facing calamity. . .Regardless of the straights you find yourself in, turn to the Lord … his purposes are greater than yours.  

—Karen Jobes 

Source: Karen Jobes. The NIV Application Commentary: Esther. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1999. Quote retrieved here at The Gospel Coalition.

Now, what did Esther do? She knew the law that anyone who approached the king without being called would be put to death unless he lifted his golden scepter. She also knew that her people’s lives were at stake. In Esther 4:13–14 Mordecai asked her to take the risk and approach the king on behalf of her people and the cause of her God. Verses 15–16 give Esther’s answer. 

Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai, “Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.” 

If I perish, I perish. What does that mean? It means that Esther did not know what the outcome of her act would be. She had no special revelation from God on this issue. She had to make a decision on the basis of sanctified wisdom and love for her people. She had to risk or run. She did not know how it would turn out. So she made her decision and handed the results over to God. “If I perish, I perish.” And this was right. 

It is right to risk for the cause of God. 

—John Piper 

Source: By John Piper. © Desiring God Foundation. Source: desiringGod.org.

First, it is clear that the divine will is accomplished, and yet men are perfectly free agents.  

Haman acted according to his own will, Ahasuerus did whatever he pleased, Mordecai behaved as his heart moved him, and so did Esther. We see no interference with them, no force or coercion; hence the entire sin and responsibility rest with each guilty one, yet, acting with perfect freedom, none of them acts otherwise than divine providence had foreseen.   

“I cannot understand it,” says one. My dear friend, I am competed to say the same—I do not understand it either. I have known many who think they comprehend all things, but I fancy they had a higher opinion of themselves than truth would endorse. Certain of my brothers deny free agency, and so get out of the difficulty; others assert that there is no predestination, and so cut the knot.  

As I do not wish to get out of the difficulty, and have no wish to shut my eyes to any part of the truth, I believe both free agency and predestination to be facts. How they can be made to agree I do not know, or care to know; I am satisfied to know anything which God chooses to reveal to me, and equally content not to know what he does not reveal.  

There it is; man is a free agent in what he does, responsible for his actions, and verily guilty when he does wrong, and he will be justly punished too, and if he be lost the blame will rest with himself alone: but yet there is One who rules over all, who, without complicity in their sin, makes even the actions of wicked men to subserve his holy and righteous purposes.  

Believe these two truths and you will see them in practical agreement in daily life, though you will not be able to devise a theory for harmonizing them on paper. 

—Charles Spurgeon 

Source: Spurgeon, Charles Haddon. “Providence—As Seen in the Book of Esther.” The Spurgeon Center (November 2, 1874).

We learn what wonders can be wrought without miracles. When God does a wonderful thing by suspending the laws of nature men are greatly astonished and say, “This is the finger of God,” but now-a-days they say to us, “Where is your God? He never suspends his laws now!”  

Now, I see God in the history Pharaoh, but I must confess I see him quite as clearly in the history of Haman, and I think I see him in even a grander light; for (I say it with reverence to his holy name) it is a somewhat rough method of accomplishing a purpose to stop the wheel of nature and reverse wise and admirable laws; certainly it reveals his power, but it does not so clearly display his immutability.  

When, however, the Lord allows everything to go on in the usual way, and gives mind and thought, ambition, and passion their full liberty, and yet achieves his purpose, it is doubly wonderful.  

In the miracles of Pharaoh we see the finger of God, but in the wonders of providence, without miracle, we see the hand of God.   

Today, whatever the event may be…the attentive eye will as clearly see the Lord as if by miraculous power the hills had leaped from their places, or the floods had stood upright as a heap. 

I am sure that God is in the world, ay, and is at my own fireside, and in my chamber, and manages my affairs, and orders all things for me, and for each one of his children. We want no miracles to convince us of his working, the wonders of his providence are as great marvels as miracles themselves. 

—Charles Spurgeon

Source: Spurgeon, Charles Haddon. “Providence—As Seen in the Book of Esther.” The Spurgeon Center (November 2, 1874).