Chapter Fifteen/She Stood Up for God's People -"Beautiful in Appearance"

 One day Shushan was buzzing with gossip about the turmoil in the household of the king. At a grand feast, where Ahasuerus was entertaining his noblemen with sumptuous food and wine, the king decided to summon his beautiful queen, Vashti, who was feasting separately with the woman. But Vashti, refused to come. Humiliated and enraged, the king asked his advisers how Vashti should be punished. The result? She was deposed as queen. The king's servants began searching throughout the land for beautiful young virgins; from among them the king would select a new queen. -ESTHER 1:1-2;4.

We may imagine Mordecai gazing fondly at Esther from time to time and noting with a mixture of pride and concern that his little cousin was grown-up and had turned out to be a remarkable beauty in appearance," we read: (Esther 2:7) The Bible presents a balanced view of physical beauty-it is delightful, but it needs to be coupled with wisdom and humility. Otherwise, it may breed vanity, pride, and other ugly traits of the heart. (Read Proverbs 11:22) Have you ever seen that to be true? In Esther's case what would beauty turn out to be-an asset or a liability? Time would tell.

The king's servants noticed Esther. They gathered her up in their search, taking her away from Mordecai and off to the grand palace across the river.  (Esther 2:8) It must have been a difficult parting, for the two were like father and daughter. Mordecai would not have wanted his adopted daughter to marry and unbeliever, even a king, but events were out of his control. How eagerly Esther must have listened to Mordecai's words of advice before she was taken away! As she was led to Shushan the castle, her mind was filled with questions. What kind of life lay ahead of her? 

Next time: Chapter Fifteen/She Stood Up for God's People - She Won Favor "in the Eyes of Everyone Seeing Her" 

From the jw.org publications