Episode 4: The Whispers of Zeresh

Staci Rudolph: Erin Davis writes books, hosts podcasts, and speaks in front of audiences, but some of her most powerful words take place in her home with her husband and sons.

Erin Davis: Those things I say to the five men the Lord has given me to live with have tremendous power, but I don’t always use that power well. What kind of whisperer are you? What kinds of words do you say into the ears of the men in your life?

Judy Dunagan: This is The Deep Well with Erin Davis. I’m Judy Dunagan, cohosting along with Staci Rudolph. We’re in a six-part season called “Whispers.” You might be whispering to others around you more than you realize.

Staci: Yes! Your words can have a big effect, pointing to the Lord, encouraging them to do His will, or you could be pointing them away.

Judy: Here’s Erin, helping us use our whispers to build God’s kingdom.

Erin: I’ve heard for a long time, and I bet you have too, that women have more words to say on any given day than men do, and I believed it. As a woman who likes to talk (that’s me), married to a man of few words, this seemed like a fact to me! Except, it isn’t. Scientists have studied this anecdote many times, and they’ve busted the myth. The reality is that men and women speak roughly the same amount of words every day. What matters most is not how many words you say, but which words you say and how you say them.

Welcome back to The Deep Well! This series is called “Whispers: The Power of a Word Softly Spoken.” We’ve been migrating very slowly through the Old Testament. In this episode, we are going to park in the book of Esther. Go ahead and grab your Bible and find your way to that book. 

Man, what a beautiful book Esther is! It’s just literary genius. We don’t know who the author of the book is, and the book is named for one woman. I’d like to tell you her Jewish name, Hadassah. That is her given name, but her name was changed to Esther, for reasons you’ll read about in the book.

Now, because of Esther’s beauty, she was chosen to be queen for the king of Persia. His name was Ahasuerus, also known as Xerxes. Xerxes is a little bit easier to say, so that’s usually the one I pick.

Esther used her words to stop a genocide planned against God’s people, and because she was beautiful and wise and brave and because the book’s named after her, we tend to put our focus on Esther when we read this Old Testament book. I’m not saying we shouldn’t. But Esther is not our whisperer. 

We’re going to focus on Zaresh. She was the wife of Haman, and I have been fascinated by Zaresh for a really long time. In fact, she’s the whole reason I wanted to teach through this series. I built the whole series around the story we’re going to look at today.

Zaresh’s story is a cautionary tale that I think is really worth paying attention to. We meet Zaresh in Esther 5. Before we get to her, I want to fly over the first four chapters of the book before I make that introduction.

In chapter 1, Ahasuerus was king. Verse 1 tells us he reigned from India to Ethiopia, over 127 provinces. Now, if you’re geographically impaired (like I myself am), all you need to know is, this guy had power. He ruled over a large territory. In his third year as the king he threw a really big party, and the Bible tells us what the goal of that party was in verse 4. He wanted to show off his riches and his royal glory to the other people who had power in the region. He wanted to “show off his splendor and the pomp of his greatness,” the Bible says. 

He also wanted to show off his wife. Her name was Queen Vashti. When she refused to parade in front of him and his drunken guests, she lost her royal title.

That all set the stage for Esther to become queen, after an elaborate beauty pageant that was held to find Vashti’s replacement. All of that matters, because the backdrop of the book of Esther is a culture full of people obsessed with getting what they want at any cost.

Enter Haman. We get his bio in Esther 3:1. “After these things, King Ahasuerus promoted Haman the Agagite, the son of Hamadatha, and advanced him to set his throne above all the officials who were with him.”

What do we know about Haman? Well, we know he was an Agagite, which means he was a descendant of Agag. Agag is a whole different story for a whole different day—maybe I’ll do a whole podcast series on the kings in the Old Testament. But you need to know that he was king of the Amalekites, which were longtime enemies of God’s people, and you need to know that because Haman continued that tradition.

But we’re not really here to talk about Haman, either. Let’s read from Esther 5. I’m going to read you verses 9–14.

And Haman went out that day joyful and glad of heart. 

So picture him—he’s happy, he has a little pep in his step, maybe he’s whistling. I want you to picture him that way, because he changes moods quickly. Still in verse 9: 

But when Haman saw Mordecai in the king's gate, that he neither rose nor trembled before him, he was filled with wrath against Mordecai. Nevertheless, Haman restrained himself and went home, and he sent and brought his friends and his wife Zeresh. And Haman recounted to them the splendor of his riches, the number of his sons, all the promotions with which the king had honored him, and how he had advanced him above the officials and the servants of the king.

We’re talking about a guy with a huge ego here. First, he gets totally deflated because Mordecai doesn’t bow down and worship him. Then he calls his wife and his friends in so he can talk about how great he is. We’re about to meet his wife. Verse 12: 

Then Haman said, "Even Queen Esther let no one but me come with the king to the feast she prepared. And tomorrow also I am invited by her together with the king. Yet all this is worth nothing to me, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king's gate."

We’re sort of trained to identify the villain in the story, and it’s typically only one. There could be a whole pack of good guys, like the Avengers, but if they’re fighting too many enemies at once the plotline gets confusing. So, often when we read the book of Esther, Haman is the obvious villain. He’s really easy to dislike. But he is not our whisperer.

Listen to verse 12. “Then his wife Zeresh and all his friends said to him, ‘Let a gallows fifty cubits high be made, and in the morning tell the king to have Mordecai hanged upon it. Then go joyfully with the king to the feast.’ This idea pleased Haman, and he had the gallows made.”

Full stop here for a minute. Let’s absorb what just happened. Haman is happy—until he’s not. He encounters somebody who refuses to tremble at his feet, and he comes home and he tells his wife and their close friends about how great he is and all that he has, but he says it’s meaningless to him because Mordecai won’t bow. Zaresh and all his friends say, “Build a gallows—and not just any gallows—fifty cubits high!” A cubit is about the length from your fingertip to your elbow, so this is going to be a tall hanging tree. They’re saying, “Build it, and hang Mordecai, and then you can be happy again.”

Zaresh’s husband came home out of sorts and petty because one man wouldn’t bow in his presence. He was all worked up in a tizzy, but he didn’t have a plan to do anything about it. He was venting.

We learned in the last episode how dangerous that can be, but up until this point it wasn’t deadly for Haman or Mordecai or anyone else. But his wife, Zaresh, used her power over her husband to fuel his pride, not to encourage him to embrace the humble, righteous life that God calls each of us to.

I guess this is why I’ve always been so fascinated with Zaresh all these years, because I see in her story the unique and mysterious power of women. There are plenty of women who seek to gain control over other people by being loud, by being demanding, by parading, by yelling. But the women who had the most influence in my life have all taken a much softer approach. They aren’t voiceless, but they are, as 1 Peter 3:4, had gentle and quiet spirits.

I think, in a world where everyone’s volume seems to be at max and the noise of life is deafening and we’re bombarded with the message that if you want something, take it. We read bumper stickers that say, “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” I think we can buy into the fact that being a woman of influence requires us to make a lot of noise to a lot of people. But what we will see is that Zaresh was a woman of influence—not the kind you and I want to be, but she had tremendous influence with what she whispered toward the ear of her already angry husband and his friends.

Before we see how that turned out, let’s see what the book of Proverbs says about whisperers. 

Proverbs 16:28 says, “A dishonest man spreads strife, and a whisperer separates close friends.” 

Proverbs 18:8 says, “The words of a whisperer are like delicious morsels; they go down into the inner parts of the body.” We’re going to come back to that one.

Proverbs 26:20 says, “For lack of wood the fire goes out, and where there is no whisperer quarreling ceases.”

There’s this pattern in Proverbs, the wisdom book. It’s saying that our whispers have an impact on our relationships. In the case of these three proverbs, it’s always a negative influence.

There are ways that we can use our influence—our whispers—as women that can create absolute disaster zones. How many marriages have been fractured by women who constantly complain into the ear of their husbands? How many adult children are walking around wounded because what they heard most often from their mom was words of criticism? How many churches have split because one woman went from person to person, tearing down and demanding action? I said it in the last episode, and I’ll say it again: you are wise to watch what you whisper.

And yet, not all hushed conversations are disastrous. Proverbs 15:1 says, “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” We have this sense that speaking softly can diffuse a situation . . . or create a bad situation.

I talk about my mom a lot on this podcast. What a wonderful woman she is! She’s always been so good with children. She was a kindergarten teacher for thirty years. She taught me that one way to lovingly correct children is that the louder they get, the quieter you get.

I saw her do this one time with one of my sons. I can’t even remember why he was upset, but he was screaming and flailing his arms and doing the things that kids do when they get upset. I think I just probably barked at him. But she dropped on her knees, looked him in the eyes, and started talking to him in a whisper. And he immediately stopped. He stopped crying; he stopped screaming. His arms fell back down his sides. It works!

But, “be careful little mouth what you whisper.” Here’s something that’s true about nuclear power: it can be used for tremendous good. That’s why it’s used in agriculture and medicine, space exploration and generating electricity. But it can also be disastrous. Such is our influence, women, over the people that God has put into our lives.

Well, Haman built those gallows his wife encouraged him to build. Just one chapter later, the king honored Mordecai, the man Haman was so desperate to have bow to him, and Zaresh changed her story. Listen to Esther 6:12–13.

Then Mordecai returned to the king’s gate, but Haman hurried to his house mourning, and with his head covered. And Haman told his wife Zaresh and all his friends everything that had happened to him. Then his wise men and his wife Zaresh said to him, "If Mordecai, before whom you have begun to fall, is of the Jewish people, you will not overcome him, but will surely fall before him."

First, Zaresh used her power to convince her husband to build a gallows to hang his enemy on. She fed his pride and his anger and his pettiness with her words. And then, not very long later, she used her words to tear him down, to make him feel like even more of a failure, and to tell him, essentially, “You’re not going to amount to anything.”

Proverbs 18 is right: “The words of a whisperer are like delicious morsels; they go down into the inner parts of the body.” Now, they might be delicious if the words of a whisperer are sweet and true, but if the words of a whisperer are bitter and evil and intent on harm, they still go down into our innermost parts, but they’re sour. A woman’s words can cut so, so deeply.

Now, there are lots and lots of ways to apply these two little mini stories we read about Zaresh, and I trust the Holy Spirit to do that work in your life. But I can’t help but think about my own husband and sons and the words that I say to and about that man I’ve chosen to devote my life to and those four little men-in-training. I’ve seen that my words have a lot of power in their lives.

I like to whisper in my boys’ ears, “You’re my favorite,” and I hope they will never figure out that I say it to all of them. But what do I say when they’re sinning or defeated, when they feel like the whole world is against them, when they feel like (like we all do at times) nobody loves them? What do I whisper when they feel like a failure? What do I whisper when they have been a failure? Those things I say to the five men the Lord has given me to live with have tremendous power, and I don’t always use that power well.

I once heard a military expert say that, consistently, who soldiers want as they lie dying in the battlefield is their mothers. It stuck with me. The words of comfort and assurance we whisper into their lives, that’s what comes back to them.

My question for you is, what kind of whisperer are you? What kinds of words do you say into the ears of the men in your lives?

I know there’s probably something that wants to rise up in you and say, “You don’t know him! You don’t know what he’s like!” And Zaresh was not married to the kind of guy we want to elevate. Still, she used her words to do so much damage.

I want you to listen to what became of Zaresh’s husband. It’s in Esther 7; I’ll start in verse 7.

And the king arose in his wrath from the wine-drinking and went into the palace garden. But Haman stayed to beg for his life from Queen Esther, for he saw that harm was determined against him by the king. And the king returned from the palace garden to the place where they were drinking wine as Haman was falling on the couch where Esther was. And the king said, "Will he even assault the queen in my presence, in my own house?" As the word left the mouth of the king, they covered Haman’s face. Then Harbona, one of the eunuchs in attendance on the king, said, "Moreover, the gallows that Haman has prepared for Mordecai, whose word saved the king, is standing at Haman’s house, fifty cubits high." And the king said, "Hang him on that." So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the wrath of the king abated. (vv. 7–10)

It got worse for Zaresh. Esther 9 describes an uprising on the very day that Haman’s plan to annihilate the Jews was scheduled to occur. The Bible tells us the reverse happened. And Esther 9:10 tells us that the ten sons of Haman were killed.

I said it in the last episode: our words can bring life, our words can bring death, with just a sentence, just a whisper, really. Zaresh encouraged her husband’s sin, and the impact on her family was catastrophic. She lost her husband and all ten of her sons.

Here’s your assignment. It’s really simple to say and hard to execute day after day. Whisper words of hope and love to those around you. Pull them in close, tell them they’re your favorite. And when they sin, you don’t have to know what to say. God’s Word has already said it! That’s really what The Deep Well is all about.

As we open our Bibles together, may we become women of the Word, and may more and more of His words fill our mouths and flow from us to others.

Judy: Erin Davis has been reminding us of the big influence we have on those around us. That message is part of a series called “Whispers.”

Staci: We’ve dropped all six episodes of the series at once, so you can listen to all of them. When you’re done, check out Erin’s previous seasons by visiting ReviveOurHearts.com/TheDeepWell, or subscribe on your favorite podcast app.

Alright, it’s time for Erin Unscripted!

Erin Unscripted

Okay, Erin, I have a question for you. I’m getting a little deep; hopefully you’ll be cool with answering it. I want to know, have you said something to your sons or your husband that pushed them in the wrong direction?

Erin: Absolutely, more times than probably even I realize. What comes to mind immediately was when my husband and I were first married—not that I’ve mastered this problem at all, but I definitely struggled with it more when we were first married. He was a youth pastor, so he would teach every week at youth group. I just thought it was my personal mission to roll my eyes as much as possible when he taught and really express with my face when I thought he taught too long. I don’t know why I thought I was his Bible teaching coach; he had way more experience than I did.

Over time, and it didn’t take long, he became more and more insecure every time he stepped up to teach, because I was providing this feedback loop of negativity, and I wasn’t even saying anything!

That’s one of my deepest regrets, really. I wish that I had just been his greatest champion, and like I said in the previous episode, been an expert in his strengths. If I had to say anything, it would have been saying, “This went well, and I was really impacted by this.” But I just didn’t have that approach at all.

He ended up getting out of student ministry several years later, and I’ve often wondered in my heart of hearts how much of that was because of my discouragement. If I had been encouraging, would he have stayed on that path? I don’t know; I trust the Lord’s plan. But I definitely regret that season where I just communicated so much negativity.

Staci: That’s really good that you said that. I’ve actually noticed that. I’m not married or anything, but I look at it in my relationship with my dad, and in the different ways I have been able to affirm his leadership in our household growing up. I wasn’t the best at doing it when I was younger, because I didn’t really notice it. But now I look at ways that I can encourage him, because he’s still my father. He’s still a leader in my life, and I want to build him up and let him know I appreciate his leadership and his authority in my life.

Erin: That’s good.

You probably are too young, Staci, but Judy will remember. You remember that song “Wind Beneath My Wings”? That was a big Bette Midler hit, I think, a long time ago.

Judy: Yes.

Staci: I remember that!

Erin: You remember that, youngling? That’s what came to mind when you said that. Being the air that lifts people up through our encouragement is so helpful.

Also, while you were talking, my own dad—I can’t really express who he really is or what our relationship has been like and be true to what I’ve just taught here. But he was a dad who caused more harm than good. So it would be a stretch for me to really lay it on all the wonderful things that he has done as a leader of my family—it wouldn’t be true. But I sure can recognize some of the things he’s done. I can speak positively about him whenever possible, and I can just be quiet a lot about him, too. I don’t have to continue to articulate all of the ways he’s caused disappointment and failure. So sometimes there’s as much power in what we don’t say, I think, when it comes to the men in our lives.

Judy: I would agree with that. 

You also said something along the lines of sometimes whispers create disaster zones, as we see in this story from Esther. Looking back at our lives as a family of four, I remember creating a disaster zone, in some ways. We moved so much with my husband’s job—about every two years, including moving to two different countries, and with babies and toddlers. I even had a baby in Brazil, and then we lived in Beijing, China. 

I was pretty angry about the move to China, and I thought I was hiding that anger. We had only been back in the States after Brazil for eighteen months, and I let my heart become bitter and angry towards Rick just because of the promotion he got and that we had to move there. God redeemed that by really changing my heart in China, and that’s another whole story of being content there.

But even though I thought I was hiding my anger, I’m sure there were times (I know there were times) under my breath I’d say something sarcastic that I didn’t think the children heard, but they picked up on it. I had to ask forgiveness when I realized what I’d been doing. They were so little (they were about three and five years old), but it created a zone. I don’t know if it was a disaster zone, but it was definitely a tone in our home of being very negative. Thankfully, God did rescue me from that, but it is amazing how much power we can have.

It was really disrespectful of Rick, because he was trying to provide for his family, and he got this opportunity with this company for a promotion to be able to provide more, but we had to move literally on the other side of the sea to do that. But God had a ministry waiting for me there with some of the other women who had moved with their husbands’ jobs. I finally saw that my calling over my life was in China. It was to have eyes for them. But before I finally came to that “aha” moment, I do think I created that disaster zone of it not being the most pleasant home to be in for a while for my family.

Erin: You said a word in there that I should have said in my teaching of this session, which was “sarcastic.”

Let’s reframe Zaresh’s story for a minute. Let’s say that Haman comes in all puffed up, all worked up, and she’s tired of it, and she says, “Well, why don’t you just go build a gallows?” What if she was being sarcastic? We don’t know; we have to read tone into it. But sarcasm is so socially accepted and so destructive. I don’t even know if we know how to define sarcasm. Staci, do you want to take a stab at it? What do you think sarcasm is?

Staci: Well, you know, you’re talking to the right person, because sarcasm is something I hate, and I think it’s partially because so many times I miss it. People are taking shots at me, or they’ll say something, and it just goes right over my head. I think it’s because I’m so “la-di-da-di-da, everything’s fine.” So when I realize what they were saying, I’m like, “How dare you?”

It was actually a friend of mine who described it well. She said, “Sarcasm tends to be the opposite of sensitivity.” I don’t know if that resonates with you guys, but I was like, “Oh!” Because I have always seen myself as a really sensitive person, so when people are sarcastic to me it feels so deep.

So I would say, yes, I don’t even know if I have a legit definition for it, but I’ve noticed that. If someone’s being sarcastic, they’re being a total opposite of what a sensitive and kind human being should be, you know?

Erin: Yes. Guilty.

Staci: It’s a bit passive-aggressive, too. I think that’s what gets me, too, because it allows people to not have real conversations. Maybe there is an issue going on or something that needs to be discussed, and instead of sitting down and doing that hard thing of talking through it and building the relationship up, we just take little shots, and try to get our point across. It’s just dangerous.

Erin: We cushion it with humor. But anytime you have to get a laugh at somebody else’s expense, that’s a cheap laugh, right? It’s not the way that we want to get people to laugh.

I think that sarcasm is an area where probably many of us who are listening just need to do a gut check. Talk to the Lord; say, “Holy Spirit, am I using sarcasm to cut men down in my life?” It would be a yes for me, so thanks for pointing that out, Judy, I hadn’t thought about it that way before.

Staci: That was really good.

Erin: Judy, I know it’s Erin Unscripted, but I’m going to cause it to be Judy Unscripted for a minute, because I feel like you are such a wealth of wisdom.

I see in this story a woman who poured kerosene on her husband’s sin. Haman has a pride problem for sure. He wants people to bow at his feet, but that didn’t mean Zaresh had to suggest that he build a gallows. So, what about the woman listening whose husband or father or pastor (insert male leader there) does have a sin problem? How does she not pour kerosene on that? What was Zaresh’s alternative, do you think?

Judy: Well, I think a key is to remember that we’re all sinners. I think it’s easy for us as women and wives to be quite judgy at times, especially with our husbands’ struggles and sin areas.

I remember when I had a burden for my sweet man just because of all the hours he was pouring into work, and he traveled so much for his job, that I started to resent that. Someone gave me a book on prayer, The Power of a Praying Wife, by Stormie Omartian. I decided I was going to do that quietly. I was going to read the book, and then she has prayers at the end of each chapter. I started writing those as personal prayers for my husband. I didn’t tell Rick I was doing that, and that softened my heart. I’m so grateful for that. 

I’m not saying I’ve done this all perfectly. I’ve spent many years resenting more than respecting, probably, my dear man.

I think, also, burdens you have for your spouse (or even your children), turn those into prayers on their behalf. Instead of using our words to try to confront or be the Holy Spirit in our husbands’ lives, what if we just pray for them and just see what God does?

I found it interesting, I think at the beginning, you shared how we all think that women speak a lot more words than men. I’ve heard that, and I’ve always believed that, because I have five grandchildren, four boys and a girl. Our little Quinn made up her own language before she could talk, and she would just babble. She had a cousin the same age; we were worried he was never going to talk! He said maybe two words. (Now he talks quite a bit.) So I never knew that was a myth. 

If you grew up in my home, with two sisters, my poor dad had three daughters. We were all talkers, and my mom out-talked us all. Rick grew up in a family of four boys, and I think I blew him away when we first got married, like, “How many words can this woman speak?” So I think I am being more quiet and contemplative and careful with my words, and it’s been a sweet season in our marriage as empty-nesters. It took me decades to figure this out, but I’m so grateful for Rick and his grace in our lives, and being able to both be forgiving and know that we’re both sinners saved by grace.

Staci: We’d have to use our imaginations—it would be conjecture at this point. But when you talked about praying for your husband, let’s freeze-frame this story. Haman comes home. He’s all worked up, and Zaresh responds by praying for him. Maybe, like you did. She says, “For ten days I’m going to really pray for my husband.” 

Like we talked about in the last episode, that reflects more about what she believes about God than what she believes about her husband, and it was costly. Those few little sentences that we have in Scripture that Zaresh said, ultimately her husband and sons would all die related to those words. If she had just responded in prayer and in trusting the Lord to handle the situation, it might have been a very different outcome. 

So I would add to what you said: Remember the gospel, certainly pray for that man you know who is caught in sin or has a sinful tendency. And then really, what do you believe about God? Really dwell on that instead of dwelling on his sin pattern. We’ve all seen that; we’ve all lived it. It might feel like we’re throwing cotton balls at something, but really, trusting the Lord and praying are really profound weapons.

Staci: On our next episode, we’ll continue looking at whispers in the Bible. We’ll take a look at the wife of a government leader and find out what she whispered at the most crucial time in history.

Judy: Join us next time on The Deep Well.

Staci: The Deep Well with Erin Davis is a production of Revive Our Hearts, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

All Scripture is taken from the ESV.

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