“Seek Yahweh while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return to Yahweh, and He will have compassion on him. Turn to our Elohim, for He will abundantly pardon.”

Isaiah 55: 6-7

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With Purim 2021 Behind Us: History and a Lesson

Purim commemorates Yahweh saving the Jewish people after the 70-year-long Babylonian Captivity ended.

A Brief Timeline

The Babylonian Captivity began in 608 BC.
Friction between Babylon and Judah persisted after the Babylonian Captivity started. In 586 BC, Babylon destroyed Jerusalem and Yahweh’s Temple.
Cyrus the Great defeated Babylon in 539 BC and signed a decree that allowed the Jews in Babylon of return to their homeland.
The Babylonian Captivity formally ended in 538 BC.
Cyrus died on December 4, 530 BC.
Xerxes I ruled the Persian Achaemenid Empire from 486 BC to 465 BC.

A Brief History of Persia to Illuminate the Timeline

See Ancient Persia:

The Median Empire (678-550 BCE) was followed by one of the greatest political and social entities of the ancient world, the Persian Achaemenid Empire (550-330 BCE) which was conquered by Alexander the Great and later replaced by the Seleucid Empire (312-63 BCE), Parthia (247 BCE-224 CE), and the Sassanian Empire (224 – 651 CE) in succession. The Sassanian Empire was the last of the Persian governments to hold the region before the Muslim Arab conquest of the 7th century CE.

Queen Esther in the Timeline

Persian King Cyrus the Great defeated Babylon, and it became part of the Persian Empire. The story of Esther told in the Bible takes place while Ahasuerus (a.k.a. Xerxes I) was King of the Persian Achaemenid Empire. Haman, a Persian Achaemenid Empire official, was planning to kill all the Jews in the empire. He was the royal vizier to King Ahasuerus. For complete details, read the book of Esther in the Bible. It’s a short book.

This is key:

The events discussed in the book of Esther took place more than 50 years after the Babylonian Captivity ended. The Jews in the Persian Achaemenid Empire at that time chose to stay rather than returning to their homeland. Yahweh acted mightily to save them, even though they were not where He wanted them to be.

It is not possible for me to overemphasize that point. Going where Yahweh wants us to go and doing what Yahweh wants us to do is of paramount importance, and precision matters. We must go where Yahweh wants us to go and do what He wants us to do when He tells or shows us, not before and not after.

Short Articles that Illuminate the Timeline Even More

Xerxes the Great: The God King of Persia

Archaeological Remains, and Ancient Texts Explain Darius the Great and Xerxes of Persia

Tomb of Mordechai and Esther in Hamedan, Iran

Xerxes and the Bible

Tomb of Cyrus the Great

What Can We Learn from This?

When Yahweh opens a door, walking through it is the best course of action. I would even say that it is the only safe course of action.

Yahweh opens and shuts doors for reasons. We may not understand why Yahweh is doing what He is doing, but we must have faith in Him, faith that He knows what He is doing and why He is doing it.

As I tell my friends in Israel, you never want to get out in front of Yahweh, and you shouldn’t get behind Him, either. The safest place to be is right next to Him, the closer the better.

To put all of this into a broader perspective, read the book of Daniel. That book remains a key to interpreting Scripture.

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“I am the good shepherd. I know My sheep and My sheep know Me — just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father — and I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also. They too will listen to My voice, and there shall be one flock and one Shepherd. The reason My Father loves Me is that I lay down My life — only to take it up again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from My Father.”

John 10: 14-18