Queen Gambit

4 min read

4 The king said to me, “What is it you want?”

Then I prayed to the God of heaven, 5 and I answered the king, “If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my ancestors are buried so that I can rebuild it.”

6 Then the king, with the queen sitting beside him, asked me, “How long will your journey take, and when will you get back?” It pleased the king to send me; so I set a time.
— Nehemiah 2:4-6

For some time now, I have wondered about the rather arbitrary mention of the queen sitting next to the king. And it got me to thinking about whether the queen sitting next to Artaxerxes, the son of Xerxes, was not his wife, but actually the queen-mother. Having the mother of the king sitting next to her son in court and being referred to as “queen” was not uncommon, especially if the king were single.

If that were the case, then it is quite possible that this queen was none other than Esther. And if that were the case, a whole new dimension to the story of Nehemiah opens. up.

In particular, it would have been pretty cunning of Nehemiah to display a “sad face” before the king while he was serving the king wine on a day when he knew that Queen Esther was sitting in court with her son.

Of course, even though it would have been a cunning move on his part, it still would have been quite risky and taken some considerable courage. Furthermore, such a move seems to be consistent with the character of Nehemiah we see throughout this book.

But if it were true, what spiritual significance does it reveal for us today? Honestly, maybe not that much. Even so, it does highlight how important relationships are in the kingdom of God. And we should leverage whatever relationships that we have to advance the kingdom of God.

To advance the kingdom of God by rebuilding Jerusalem was Nehemiah’s singular purpose. May it be ours too. In Jesus’s name. Amen.