Category Archives: Biblical Reflections

The Weight of the World on Her Shoulders: Esther 4: 9-17

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Altas Sculpture on a building on Collins Street, Melbourne

Altas Sculpture on a building on Collins Street, Melbourne

Esther 4: 9-17

 9 Hathach went and told Esther what Mordecai had said. 10 Then Esther spoke to Hathach and gave him a message for Mordecai, saying, 11 “All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law– all alike are to be put to death. Only if the king holds out the golden scepter to someone, may that person live. I myself have not been called to come in to the king for thirty days.”

 12 When they told Mordecai what Esther had said, 13 Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. 14 For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.” 15 Then Esther said in reply to Mordecai, 16 “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. After that I will go to the king, though it is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.” 17 Mordecai then went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him.

A young person is thrust into a life or death situation, and while I may disagree with Mordecai (and perhaps Esther might too) that she personally might have been able to avoid the ordered purge, the personal and emotional consequences of not speaking, of not acting would be high indeed. The risks are great and now the young person in a life or death situation has to muster their courage to act. Esther apparently is trying to let Mordecai know the reasons she shouldn’t go: she hasn’t been summoned for 30 days (her influence is small), the boundaries between even the king and the queen are great, and the consequences could involve death. The story revolves on the irony that one queen refuses to come when summoned and then for her act of rebellion is exiled and now the new queen must come when not summoned and risk death. Mordecai pushes her, through Hathach the messenger, that she must act but we see a transformation taking place: the once pliant Esther now gives orders, she will go but all the Jews are to fast for three days first. Mordecai goes and obeys, the one who raised her now must rely on her for action.

In contrast to the King and Hamath who feast while the city is confused around them, Mordecai and Esther fast. The King may end up being the one who provides a way for the salvation of the people, but ultimately it will depend upon who the king will listen to. Even though God is not mentioned there is an element of providence or fate in the story, and most readers know how the story will end, but one of Jesus’ proverbs plays itself out in this story: “For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted” (in Luke’s gospel this occurs in Luke 14: 11 and 18:14, it also has a Matthean parallel)

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Waiting on the World to Change: Esther 4:1-8

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Job by Leon Bonnat (1880)

Job by Leon Bonnat (1880)

Esther 4: 1-8

When Mordecai learned all that had been done, Mordecai tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes, and went through the city, wailing with a loud and bitter cry; 2 he went up to the entrance of the king’s gate, for no one might enter the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth. 3 In every province, wherever the king’s command and his decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting and weeping and lamenting, and most of them lay in sackcloth and ashes.

 4 When Esther’s maids and her eunuchs came and told her, the queen was deeply distressed; she sent garments to clothe Mordecai, so that he might take off his sackcloth; but he would not accept them. 5 Then Esther called for Hathach, one of the king’s eunuchs, who had been appointed to attend her, and ordered him to go to Mordecai to learn what was happening and why. 6 Hathach went out to Mordecai in the open square of the city in front of the king’s gate, 7 and Mordecai told him all that had happened to him, and the exact sum of money that Haman had promised to pay into the king’s treasuries for the destruction of the Jews. 8 Mordecai also gave him a copy of the written decree issued in Susa for their destruction, that he might show it to Esther, explain it to her, and charge her to go to the king to make supplication to him and entreat him for her people.

 

John Mayer’s song ‘Waiting on the World to Change’ tells the story of a person who may see what is going on but feels powerless to change it (Mayer’s song is set in the context of post 9-11 America and a critique of American foreign policy that the artist feels powerless to change). Here is a part of the lyrics:

Now if we had the power to bring our neighbors home from war
They would have never missed a Christmas, no more ribbons on their door
And when you trust your television what you get is what you got
Cause when they own the information,oh, they can bend it all they want
That’s why we’re waiting, waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting, waiting on the world to change
It’s not that we don’t care, we just know that the fight ain’t fair
So we keep on waiting, waiting on the world to change.

Mordecai is powerless to change what Haman has done, he finds himself with few options other than mourning and waiting on the world to change. God’s action is never mentioned in the book of Esther, nor is the word God or prayer ever mentioned, but to the Hebrew mind God is at work behind and through the nations as well as the Jewish people and God can be swayed by mourning and repentance, for example the people of Ninevah in the book of Jonah who put on sackcloth and ashes and God changes God’s mind about the disaster God planned to bring on them. Here God is not the instigator of the coming disaster, and yet perhaps in the wailing, rending of clothes and wearing sack cloth and ashes God might hear the distress of his people and respond (although the action is focused on Mordecai, we also learn that many of the Jews are also mourning publicly).

We also get a window into boundaries that are set around people in society, no one can enter the king’s gate in sack cloth. Esther, though she is literally writhing inside (the word translated deeply distressed) can not or will not risk going out to Mordecai who was like a father to her, but rather tries to alleviate his pain and bring him (properly clothed and cleaned up) inside the palace. The entire conversation is strained because it is not direct, messages are relayed back and forth by Hathach. One of the interesting notes is that both Esther and Mordecai are apparently literate (which would not be the norm ) because Mordecai is able to pass on the written decree for her to read (or perhaps some scribe would read it for her-but she has been a queen for five years, perhaps she has been taught).
Esther has been the obedient one throughout the story, obedient to Mordecai, obedient to Hegai the king’s eunuch, obedient to the king and now she as a young woman is at a point where she will have to make choices that will impact both her and potentially her entire people.

Since the book of Esther is the book that is read during the book of Purim, it is helpful to know what Purim is all about. It began at sundown yesterday and so there have been a number of helpful articles in the past week.  I have linked to Eitan Press’ helpful article in the Huffington Post ‘Purim: How to Get Drunk on God’. Here is another from Deborah Rosenbloom also in the Huffington Post ‘Purim: A Tale of Women’s Empowerment’

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Bureaucracy and Collusion: Esther 3:12-15

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Ring stone bearing the Aramaic name mirror-imaged Yishak bar Hanina, excavated from Zafar/al-Asabi/Yemen

Ring stone bearing the Aramaic name mirror-imaged Yishak bar Hanina, excavated from Zafar/al-Asabi/Yemen

Esther 3: 12-15

 12 Then the king’s secretaries were summoned on the thirteenth day of the first month, and an edict, according to all that Haman commanded, was written to the king’s satraps and to the governors over all the provinces and to the officials of all the peoples, to every province in its own script and every people in its own language; it was written in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed with the king’s ring. 13 Letters were sent by couriers to all the king’s provinces, giving orders to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all Jews, young and old, women and children, in one day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, and to plunder their goods. 14 A copy of the document was to be issued as a decree in every province by proclamation, calling on all the peoples to be ready for that day. 15 The couriers went quickly by order of the king, and the decree was issued in the citadel of Susa. The king and Haman sat down to drink; but the city of Susa was thrown into confusion.

                 Genocide does not happen without collusion. The letters and orders can be given, but if nobody carries them out they are merely words on paper. The danger is that oftentimes people are all too willing to participate in the elimination of another people. A people may be scapegoated as the cause of every problem and demonized to be something less than human. People may hide behind the desire to ‘follow orders’ and yet without people following the order to kill and plunder, it does not happen. Haman and the king sit down to drink while the city that surrounds them is confused, “what’s going on, why the Jewish people?” The advisors may know, but most people appear to be caught off guard. Certainly some will pounce on the opportunity to destroy, kill and annihilate men, women and children and plunder their goods, others will merely stand aside, others may attempt to stand with the Jewish people, but the die is cast, the plan is set in motion, the danger is real. Genocide is set in motion by the hatred of one man, but will need the collusion (both of those who actively participate and who passively do not oppose)of many others to actually occur.

Somebody will need to do something to deliver the Jewish people, the exiles and wanderers in the midst of the empire of the day. Even in the midst of their assimilation they are singled out for extermination. The story is at its turning point, and the lives of the people will rely on the actions of a young queen and her uncle Mordecai.

This reminds me of Martin Niemőller’s quote from World War II Germany:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out–
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out– 
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out– 
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me–and there was no one left to speak for me.

  This from a man who was an outspoken critic of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, who would spend seven years in a concentration camps but would still feel years later in 1964:

“Thus, whenever I chance to meet a Jew known to me before, then, as a Christian, I cannot but tell him: ‘Dear Friend, I stand in front of you, but we can not get together, for there is guilt between us. I have sinned and my people has sinned against thy people and against thyself

The quotes come from the website of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum:

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Rolling the Dice: Esther 3: 7-11

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Achilles and Ajax Playing Dice, 6th Century BCE Greecian Pottery

Achilles and Ajax Playing Dice, 6th Century BCE Greecian Pottery

Esther 3: 7-11

 7 In the first month, which is the month of Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus, they cast Pur– which means “the lot”– before Haman for the day and for the month, and the lot fell on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar. 8 Then Haman said to King Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people scattered and separated among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom; their laws are different from those of every other people, and they do not keep the king’s laws, so that it is not appropriate for the king to tolerate them. 9 If it pleases the king, let a decree be issued for their destruction, and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver into the hands of those who have charge of the king’s business, so that they may put it into the king’s treasuries.” 10 So the king took his signet ring from his hand and gave it to Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the enemy of the Jews. 11 The king said to Haman, “The money is given to you, and the people as well, to do with them as it seems good to you.”

The dice are rolled, the lot is cast for the date that will come to be Purim. It will be a day of reversals, but at this point in the story it is foreshadowed as a date that will bring disaster to the Jewish people. The king once again receives bad advice from an advisor, advice that will have long lasting consequences and the king never once asks a question or attempts to probe Haman’s motives. The king trusts Haman and is willing for an enormous pile of money (a ridiculous sum, 375 tons of silver, this is roughly 2/3 of the annual Persian kings’ income) to put his authority behind it. Perhaps in both the ancient world and the modern world enough money seems to make something evil more appealing.

This last thought reminds me, in a way, of the plot of the movie the Box where a man and a woman are given a box with a button where if they push it they will receive one million dollars, but someone they don’t know will die and so they are entered into the ethical dilemma of whether their own very real monetary needs outweigh the life of a stranger. Now it is not the greatest movie, but the ethical question of the power of money to cause a horrible decision, especially when you don’t have to carry it out, more appealing. The king never carries out his decision, he is always insulated and while his ring may mark the life or death of many, he allows others to be the executioners.

The king not only takes the advice of Haman, he seems to compel it along even more so. The king’s authority is placed behind the plot of Haman. One man’s revenge now becomes imperial policy and the story’s crisis is set in motion. This is a strange story since the Persian empire was actually pretty benevolent as far as ancient empires go toward their subject people maintaining their own laws, religions and traditions so long as the empire is served (remember Cyrus, also a Persian emperor is lifted up as a ‘messiah’ in Isaiah 45 and the Jewish story is in general very favorable towards Persia). But this story turns on the conflict between Mordecai and Haman, and the plot is moving.

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From Insult to Genocide: Esther 3:1-6

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Persian and Median Soldier, Apadana Palace,Persopolis (Iran)

Persian and Median Soldier, Apadana Palace,Persopolis (Iran)

Esther 3: 1-6

After these things King Ahasuerus promoted Haman son of Hammedatha the Agagite, and advanced him and set his seat above all the officials who were with him. 2 And all the king’s servants who were at the king’s gate bowed down and did obeisance to Haman; for the king had so commanded concerning him. But Mordecai did not bow down or do obeisance. 3 Then the king’s servants who were at the king’s gate said to Mordecai, “Why do you disobey the king’s command?” 4 When they spoke to him day after day and he would not listen to them, they told Haman, in order to see whether Mordecai’s words would avail; for he had told them that he was a Jew. 5 When Haman saw that Mordecai did not bow down or do obeisance to him, Haman was infuriated. 6 But he thought it beneath him to lay hands on Mordecai alone. So, having been told who Mordecai’s people were, Haman plotted to destroy all the Jews, the people of Mordecai, throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus.

Our villain is introduced in the story, Haman the Agagite and in the reading that would occur on Purim I understand that his introduction and place throughout the story is accompanied by boos and hisses. What comes to mind for me is if you go to see the Rocky Horror Picture Show at midnight in a theater and people jeer and throw popcorn and the audience becomes a part of what makes the story go, in fact the audience becomes a part of the telling and enacting of the story. But Haman is the villain, and his actions will drive the story from this point forward.  We don’t have a reason why Haman is promoted to the position of second only to the king, he is not lifted up as doing anything great like Mordecai has, but ultimately why and how he got in his position is not important. What drives the story is that he does have the king’s ear and is able to act with the king’s authority on his desires.

The next perplexing part of the story is why doesn’t Mordecai bow-is he just stubborn? Is there some other reason? Is it an interpersonal conflict-or does it reflect a blood feud a long standing ethnic hatred. Haman’s identity as an Agagite points this direction going back to King Saul and King Agag of the Amelikites in 1 Samuel 15: 8-33, but how would a person tell a descendent of Benjamin from Agag apart. Apparently, unlike Esther, Mordecai’s Jewishness becomes known, but why offend in this way when you are an exiled people in a foreign land.

It reminds me of an incident in the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer which takes place on June 17, 1940. Dietrich, a Lutheran pastor who would later be executed for his part in an unsuccessful plot to assassinate Adolph Hitler, was sitting with his friend Eberhard Bethge in the garden café in Memel. While they were in the café the announcement came that France had surrendered, and the people in the café stood on their chairs and began singing ‘Deutchland, Deutschland über alles.’ Bonhoeffer stood and extended his arm in the Hitler salute, while Eberhard stood there in shock. Bonhoeffer whispered, ‘Raise your arm! Are you crazy?’ saying later ‘we shall have to run risks for very different things now, but not for that salute.’  (Bethge 1970, 2000, 681)  (Wind 1991, 139)

The reaction does not fit the offense, to take on Mordecai is beneath Haman and so his thought is like the Emperor in the Star Wars series, “wipe them out, all of them.” A personal offense is met by genocide. Perhaps, like so many other genocides some long simmering hatred comes to the surface when it is favorable for one party, like in Bosnia. Perhaps this may also point to the danger that can come even in the most assimilated populations, as the German Jews were prior to World War II and the Holocaust. Genocide is a very distasteful topic, but it rears its head here, as in many times in both ancient and modern history. There perhaps is some drive to set up insiders and outsiders, to protect the insiders and to destroy the outsider and you could make an argument that this is payback for the Jewish wiping out of the Amalekite people but at some point we need to understand that the oppression of another people based on race or ethnic group is evil.

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A Young Girl in an Unfair World: A Sermon on Esther

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Esther Edwin Long

This is the written text, I kept hoping I would have time to bring in some of the spoken dialogue last week, and when I get the chance I will upload an audio version and attach it. Unfortunately the written text is not near as entertaining as what was spoken.

Martin Luther didn’t like the book of Esther, he wished it hadn’t been included in the Bible, which I find perplexing because even though the book of Esther never mentions God, or any specifically religious practice (even fasting when it is mentioned is a common practice across cultures of the ancient world) and yet for Luther it is the times where God seems most absent that God can indeed be most present. Now last week we heard about the remnant who returned home to Jerusalem, and even though they were a small people in a tiny province of the Persian empire, God desired to work through them and their gifts. God desired for them to build a temple and through the prophets Haggai and Zechariah encouraged the people to get on with that work and the people and leader listened and responded and through their work God was glorified. But if you remember last week only a small portion of the faithful people returned, and the rest remained behind, scattered throughout the nations. And yet even scattered among the nations, they found that God was active and working through them. This is one of the stories of how God worked through unexpected people to sway the events of the nations to ensure that God’s story and the story of God’s people would continue.

We all know life isn’t fair, we all know that sometimes we get put into situations we never asked for or we have to pick up the responsibility while others seem to be still going out and living it up, but hopefully the fate of an entire people never rests on our shoulders, especially when we are young-but that is what happens to Esther. Her story starts out simply enough, she is a young woman, an orphan and a foreigner living in a foreign land-thankfully she has her uncle to care for her like his own child, but she starts out life with three strikes against her of being someone who God can use to change the world. She has but one thing going in her favor, she’s easy on the eyes, but just because she’s hit the jackpot in the genetic lottery for looks doesn’t mean she has any chance to really change things and yet the world around her spins out of control and puts her into a position she never dreamed she would be in. You see the queen refused to come and appear before the king one day during a party while the king was drunk and all his friends were drunk too, so the king and his officials throw the ancient world’s equivalent of the Bachelor, except none of these women have a choice to participate, they are brought together, trained and then they get their one night to make the king happy, and then from this he’s going to choose a new queen. Esther excels, pleasing first those preparing and training her and then the king, and so she goes from little orphan Esther to Queen Esther.

Now her uncle happened to overhear a plot to assassinate the king, and passes it on to Esther who passes it on to the king, and once it is investigated the plot is foiled and nothing more is thought of it, but it will be important to the story later.

Now the king’s new number two man was a guy named Haman, and Haman is a bad dude who thought everyone should bow down before him, and apparently everyone did-everyone except Mordecai-why? We don’t really know, and I can’t go back and ask him, but Mordecai decides to take out his rage not just on Mordecai, not just on his family, but on the whole Jewish people and so Haman goes to the king and offers him a huge sum of money to wipe out this people who don’t abide by the same laws and are a danger to the kingdom, and the king gives him his signet ring and the plan and date are set in motion so that on one day at the end of February or the beginning of March of the coming year anyone who wants to can kill any Jewish person and take over any wealth and property that it theirs. Mordecai and the Jews throughout the empire and the city of Susa itself are thrown into turmoil by the proclamation, but Esther, apparently shielded in the palace is unaware. Mordecai mourns publicly, he rips his clothes, puts on ashes and sackcloth and sits outside the king’s gate. Esther sends a messenger with new clothes but he won’t put them on and sends her a copy of the decree and charges her to do something to save their people. The fate of the people rests on the small shoulders of this young woman who was thrust into being the queen, to go and risk her life and intercede before the king.

Esther 4: 9-16

9 So Hathach returned to Esther with Mordecai’s message.

10 Then Esther told Hathach to go back and relay this message to Mordecai:

11 “All the king’s officials and even the people in the provinces know that anyone who appears before the king in his inner court without being invited is doomed to die unless the king holds out his gold scepter. And the king has not called for me to come to him for thirty days.”

12 So Hathach gave Esther’s message to Mordecai.

13 Mordecai sent this reply to Esther: “Don’t think for a moment that because you’re in the palace you will escape when all other Jews are killed.

14 If you keep quiet at a time like this, deliverance and relief for the Jews will arise from some other place, but you and your relatives will die. Who knows if perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this?”

15 Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai:

16 “Go and gather together all the Jews of Susa and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will do the same. And then, though it is against the law, I will go in to see the king. If I must die, I must die.”

After three days of fasting, and of the people fasting she risk the possibility of death by breaking the law and going to the king when she hasn’t been summoned, but the king is happy to see her, extends his scepter and asks her, “what is it Esther, name your appeal even up to half of the empire and it’s yours” and so she invites the king and Haman to dinner. Once again at dinner the king asks her for her appeal and once again she say, “if you will hear my request come once again to dinner tomorrow, you and Haman, and you will know my request.”

Haman starts home on top of the world, he was invited to not one but two dinners with the king and queen, and yet when he passes Mordecai and Mordecai doesn’t bow down he is furious, and after some advice from his wife and friend he builds a 75 foot tall gallows. But when he goes in to try to get the king’s approval to hang Mordecai, the king had a sleepless night so he went to the records and found out that Mordecai was never repaid for uncovering the assassination plot, and so instead of getting Mordecai’s head, instead he finds himself covering Mordecai in a royal robe and escorting him through the town square on the king’s horse while he has to shout, “thus will it be done to the one who the king is pleased with” then to make matters worse he can’t go home and mope because he is shortly summoned to the banquet with the queen.

At the banquet Esther pleads to the king for her life and the life of her people, the king, oblivious to what he allowed Haman to talk him into is now furious and storms out. Haman realizes his ship is sinking fast so he throws himself at Esther and when the king walks back in he has Haman hanged on the gallows he built, gives his position and property to Mordecai, and they all lived happily ever after (well except for Haman and his family, but they didn’t live beyond this point). With the king’s assistance what was to be a day of disaster for God’s people became a day of triumph. God had worked through a young woman, an orphan, an alien who thought she had nothing to offer and God can work through us. We may not be able to save an entire people, but maybe God has been preparing us for a moment such as this.

Over the last several weeks we’ve heard stories of people who had the courage to be faithful in the midst of challenges, whether is was Daniel, Shadrach,Mesach, and Abendigo or whether it was the remnant returning home and building the temple, or Esther going to the king to save her people…God was able to work through them to be a part of God’s story coming down to be a part of our story. We may not know what to say or do, we may feel like we have nothing to give, but can we learn to trust God in the midst of the things that may terrify us? When Jesus is talking to his disciples he tells them:

Matthew 10: 16-20

16 “Look, I am sending you out as sheep among wolves. So be as shrewd as snakes and harmless as doves.

17 But beware! For you will be handed over to the courts and will be flogged with whips in the synagogues.

18 You will stand trial before governors and kings because you are my followers. But this will be your opportunity to tell the rulers and other unbelievers about me.

19 When you are arrested, don’t worry about how to respond or what to say. God will give you the right words at the right time.

20 For it is not you who will be speaking– it will be the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

As we learn to trust God and let God work through us we can have the courage to be in the places God places us. We don’t get to run away from the rest of the world, and one of the gifts of the story of Esther is that she is a young person trying to make her way completely surrounded not by a Jewish but the Persian culture. She had to figure out how she could be faithful in the midst of a world that was probably much different than the household she grew up in, and yet remain who she was in the midst of it. And even though God is not mentioned throughout the book, God is at work behind the scenes and works not just in temples or churches, but even in the harem of the king’s palace or the throne room of the king. And God is there in both the big moments, but also the smaller ones as well.

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Rumors of Assassination: Esther 2: 19-23

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Two Persian Soldiers on the Persepolis

Two Persian Soldiers on the Persepolis

Esther 2: 19-23

 19 When the virgins were being gathered together, Mordecai was sitting at the king’s gate. 20 Now Esther had not revealed her kindred or her people, as Mordecai had charged her; for Esther obeyed Mordecai just as when she was brought up by him. 21 In those days, while Mordecai was sitting at the king’s gate, Bigthan and Teresh, two of the king’s eunuchs, who guarded the threshold, became angry and conspired to assassinate King Ahasuerus. 22 But the matter came to the knowledge of Mordecai, and he told it to Queen Esther, and Esther told the king in the name of Mordecai. 23 When the affair was investigated and found to be so, both the men were hanged on the gallows. It was recorded in the book of the annals in the presence of the king.

There are a lot of things that are unclear in this little passage: Esther is already queen, why are they gathering the virgins together. Does the competition go on? It doesn’t seem so, but there is no indication they are being sent home either. As confusing as it is we have our two protagonists, Esther and Mordecai, who have assimilated to the Persian culture and who are in the court of the king working together to expose a coup attempt. Mordecai comes into knowledge of the plots of Bigthan and Teresh and he informs Esther, and Ester tells the king. Mordecai doesn’t expect or receive any reward at this point and the two conspirators after an investigation are executed. This gets recorded, and it is critical to the story moving forward, but ultimately it is recorded and forgotten for now.

Plots were not uncommon in the Persian courts, nor were coup attempts. The act of saving the king at this point will prove important for Esther, Mordecai and the Jewish people going forward.

If you are going to plot an assassination, probably best not to do it at the king’s gate where many ears are listening. Eunuchs did have a fair amount of power but they would never lead themselves, and we will never know what they are upset about. Perhaps they believe the king is a fool, perhaps they think he parties too much, perhaps some policy worked against their people. We will never know the reasons, and ultimately they are a necessary side plot that will be important later, but once the investigation commences it is not a good day to be named Bigthan or Teresh.

Long Live the Queen: Esther 2:12-18

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Esther Edwin Long

Esther 2: 12-18

12 The turn came for each girl to go in to King Ahasuerus, after being twelve months under the regulations for the women, since this was the regular period of their cosmetic treatment, six months with oil of myrrh and six months with perfumes and cosmetics for women. 13 When the girl went in to the king she was given whatever she asked for to take with her from the harem to the king’s palace. 14 In the evening she went in; then in the morning she came back to the second harem in custody of Shaashgaz, the king’s eunuch, who was in charge of the concubines; she did not go in to the king again, unless the king delighted in her and she was summoned by name.

 15 When the turn came for Esther daughter of Abihail the uncle of Mordecai, who had adopted her as his own daughter, to go in to the king, she asked for nothing except what Hegai the king’s eunuch, who had charge of the women, advised. Now Esther was admired by all who saw her. 16 When Esther was taken to King Ahasuerus in his royal palace in the tenth month, which is the month of Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign, 17 the king loved Esther more than all the other women; of all the virgins she won his favor and devotion, so that he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti. 18 Then the king gave a great banquet to all his officials and ministers– “Esther’s banquet.” He also granted a holiday to the provinces, and gave gifts with royal liberality.

 

So we come to the ‘rose ceremony’ after the date where the king gets to choose the person who he has fallen for, what the woman thinks about the matter doesn’t matter. After a year of treatments, and we really don’t know exactly what all these treatments would entail and whether they would also include training to be more sexually proficient, but this is a story of excess and after a year of preparation, at least in Esther’s case, the girl is brought to the palace to spend the night with the king and then shipped off to be with the rest of the concubines to be summoned at the king’s will. The young girl is to try to win the heart of the king or be consigned to the house of the concubines never to be summoned again. Unlike the Bachelor, these girls are not sent home that they may find someone else who will love them, nope they are the kings women, and they have no say in this.

Esther plays the game well and the king loves her. She is his new queen and the throws a banquet, proclaims a holiday and there was much rejoicing. Again this is a story of excess and this is the celebration of the completion of the search for the new queen. Esther the powerless orphan and the Jew is now Queen Esther, bride of King Ahasuerus the ruler of the world (or at least the biggest empire of the day).

One final note, Esther apparently isn’t a devoutly practicing Jew. There is no mention of her requiring a special diet, like Daniel. Nobody realized that she is Jewish, it never seems to be a consideration. She assimilates to the culture of the people who she is in exile with. As the prophet Jeremiah states:

4 Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. Jeremiah 29: 4-7

There is no condemnation of this assimilation, Esther does what she has to do (just as Mordecai does) to survive. Yet, somehow through these two powerless ones God will work to make a place for his people in the midst of Babylon.

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Reality TV in the Ancient World: Esther 2: 1-11

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Esther 2:1-11

After these things, when the anger of King Ahasuerus had abated, he remembered Vashti and what she had done and what had been decreed against her. 2 Then the king’s servants who attended him said, “Let beautiful young virgins be sought out for the king. 3 And let the king appoint commissioners in all the provinces of his kingdom to gather all the beautiful young virgins to the harem in the citadel of Susa under custody of Hegai, the king’s eunuch, who is in charge of the women; let their cosmetic treatments be given them. 4 And let the girl who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti.” This pleased the king, and he did so.

                5 Now there was a Jew in the citadel of Susa whose name was Mordecai son of Jair son of Shimei son of Kish, a Benjaminite. 6 Kish had been carried away from Jerusalem among the captives carried away with King Jeconiah of Judah, whom King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had carried away. 7 Mordecai had brought up Hadassah, that is Esther, his cousin, for she had neither father nor mother; the girl was fair and beautiful, and when her father and her mother died, Mordecai adopted her as his own daughter. 8 So when the king’s order and his edict were proclaimed, and when many young women were gathered in the citadel of Susa in custody of Hegai, Esther also was taken into the king’s palace and put in custody of Hegai, who had charge of the women. 9 The girl pleased him and won his favor, and he quickly provided her with her cosmetic treatments and her portion of food, and with seven chosen maids from the king’s palace, and advanced her and her maids to the best place in the harem. 10 Esther did not reveal her people or kindred, for Mordecai had charged her not to tell. 11 Every day Mordecai would walk around in front of the court of the harem, to learn how Esther was and how she fared.

Here we have the Old Testament’s version of the Bachelor where many young women are gathered up to try to impress a single man. Now the Old Testament version would not be fit to show on network television, even though the book of Esther does not go into any details like modern literature would do, it is quite clear that how these young girls please the king determines whether they are to be the queen or not. There is no rose ceremony, nor have these young girls chosen this path…it is the way of the time: a powerful man has the authority to take the best and brightest to himself. The King has the power, and as Mel Brooks would say, “It’s good to be the king!” If you make a complete fool of yourself and allow your words to become law, law which cannot be revoked and you put your queen, who it seems like King Ahasuerus is missing, aside and prevent her from being in your present-why not get a new and replacement queen.

Power and powerlessness are put side by side in the book of Esther, the king has all the power, but then enters Mordecai, the exile, and Esther (or her Jewish name Hadassah used only here), the orphan, who have no power. Esther is taken into the custody of Hegai, the king’s eunuch, and her life is in another’s hands. From this point forward her life depends upon how she can please others. As much as we may want to rebel against this, in the world of Esther her life is not in her own hands. Because she pleases Hegai she gets cosmetic treatments, food, maids and the best place in the house. On the one hand this is probably like the young teenager who suddenly finds stardom and realizes quickly that their life is no longer their own, but rather many others want a piece of her life. Esther’s life is now contained in the bubble of the king’s harem and she will have her audition night with the king, but she and Mordecai are ultimately powerless in the midst of the powerful king seeking one who pleases him.

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If You Make a Decision While Drunk, Make Sure You Have Good Advisers: Esther 1: 13-21

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Vashti Refuses the King's Summons, painting by Edward Long (1879)

Vashti Refuses the King’s Summons, painting by Edward Long (1879)

Esther 1: 13-21

                13 Then the king consulted the sages who knew the laws (for this was the king’s procedure toward all who were versed in law and custom, 14 and those next to him were Carshena, Shethar, Admatha, Tarshish, Meres, Marsena, and Memucan, the seven officials of Persia and Media, who had access to the king, and sat first in the kingdom): 15 “According to the law, what is to be done to Queen Vashti because she has not performed the command of King Ahasuerus conveyed by the eunuchs?” 16 Then Memucan said in the presence of the king and the officials, “Not only has Queen Vashti done wrong to the king, but also to all the officials and all the peoples who are in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus. 17 For this deed of the queen will be made known to all women, causing them to look with contempt on their husbands, since they will say, ‘King Ahasuerus commanded Queen Vashti to be brought before him, and she did not come.’ 18 This very day the noble ladies of Persia and Media who have heard of the queen’s behavior will rebel against the king’s officials, and there will be no end of contempt and wrath! 19 If it pleases the king, let a royal order go out from him, and let it be written among the laws of the Persians and the Medes so that it may not be altered, that Vashti is never again to come before King Ahasuerus; and let the king give her royal position to another who is better than she. 20 So when the decree made by the king is proclaimed throughout all his kingdom, vast as it is, all women will give honor to their husbands, high and low alike.”

 21 This advice pleased the king and the officials, and the king did as Memucan proposed;22 he sent letters to all the royal provinces, to every province in its own script and to every people in its own language, declaring that every man should be master in his own house.
In George R.R. Martin’s book (and by extension the television series) The Game of Thrones begins with Robert Baratheon  as king, and King Robert likes his drink and he likes his women (well every woman except the one he is married to, but that is a long story) and he makes a number of brash decisions. In both stories a king’s inebriation leads him to make decisions he will later regret and allows him to  be manipulated by his counselors. What began as an interpersonal refusal, Vashti refuses to appear, becomes an event of national consequence. One adviser leads the king on a drastic course of action that seems to be completely disproportionate to the slight for fear that Vashti’s actions will embolden all women to be rebels against their own husbands, and well anarchy is only one tipping domino away, at least as Memucan fears it.

We can speculate all we want about why Vashti refuses: was it because she knew the kings would make a spectacle of her, some seem to think that she was to appear naked although this is not a part of what is recorded, her reasons in the story are her own and as much as we might want to applaud her, she is but a foil in the story. She has unsuccessfully negotiated the realities of the situation she found herself in. In challenging the king’s authority she lost. In a perfect world with equal power, with no patriarchal systems or favoritism based on authority, position or wealth someone would never have to worry about how they negotiate the realities of the political situations they find themselves in, but Vashti and we do not live in a perfect world. Vashti will open the door for Esther, our protagonist to enter the scene and we will see her enter the story next.

A decision made in anger makes the story turn. The excess of the decision should make us laugh at the king. The story is told by people who are without power at a festival where they have some free space to poke fun, indirectly, at the ruling powers. We should be able to enjoy the sarcastic picture of this ruler of the largest empire of his day as well: the king is a buffoon whose heart is made glad with wine and he is no wiser or more powerful than the rest of us for his own decision will bind him, and bad advice will cost him something he cherishes. Perhaps before we allow our own fears of what might happen if the dominos begin to fall and we find ourselves on the treacherous slippery slope of moral depravity unleashed by one person’s refusal to conform to expectations, we should take a deep breath and perhaps a reality check. Yet the king in this respect is no different than us, for words harshly uttered cannot be taken back, and although we may not find ourselves in the ridiculous position of being unable to unmake a law or ruling many times our words can leave a legacy that we must live with.

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