Reading: Esther 1-5, Psalm 53
Well, we’ve returned from exile. Now let’s go back to Persia.
Wait, what now? Isn’t the whole point of the Story to get the descendants of Jacob back to the promised land? Aren’t they supposed to go rebuild the temple and the city of Jerusalem so they can give another go at being the light to the nations that they were supposed to be? Perhaps. But we just saw how well that went in the days of Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Maybe there are other descendants of Jacob that will do better. Maybe there is hope from another quarter.
The book of Esther is a frustrating one for many who make the Hebrew Scriptures their subject of study. It has an awkward setting and timeline, concerning Jewish people who stayed in foreign lands rather than return to the promised land when they had the chance. Its major heroic figure is a young woman who is taken into the harem of the king of a conquering empire. It resolves threats against the Jewish people through violence. God does not speak in the book, and the story is hard to confirm from history.
All of this is great material for people getting advanced degrees, but it all misses the core of the book: this is a great story. It is high drama, an eastern romance of danger and courage. The truly wicked villain Haman opposed by the truly heroic Esther and Mordecai. There are ironic reversals of fortune and moments of hilarity. More than a narrative of events, this is a story you won’t soon forget.
The story opens with a massive party thrown by the king of Persia. He demands respect and obedience from his queen, Vashti, but his requests would dishonor her, so she refused. The details of what exactly is going on here are up for debate, but the results and the point are not: when the king’s advisors see Vashti’s disobedience, they fear their own wives will not respect their authority. The setup of the story is that the king of Persia and all his officials are worried that they cannot control their ladies. To prevent a widespread revolt of womankind in the Persian empire, Vashti is deposed.
A moment later we get a scene where the king is thinking about Vashti. He’s not angry anymore, but what is done is done. The court officials scurry to come up with a plan. Perhaps they are worried that in a moment of weakness the king will invite Vashti back to the palace, and in so doing ruin their plan to keep authority in their homes. Their plan is an ancient version of a nationwide beauty pageant, albeit one that goes a bit beyond even the most ornate pageants of the modern day. The king is quite taken with the idea, and a parade of young women are brought to the capital and given a year long spa treatment before being brought to the palace to spend the night with the king.
Let’s stop for a minute and look at what is happening here. Vashti, who rightly refused dishonorable action, has been removed in favor of a whole parade of women who are used and discarded unless the king gets a fancy to have one of them back. This is about as far from the design of marriage in Genesis 2 as we can get, but has powerful parallels to our present day post-sexual revolution world. Okay, lest I get sidetracked, let’s go back to the story.
Mordecai, a wise Jewish man who lives in the capital, has in his charge a young woman named Esther. She is taken into this parade of women, and the king takes a fancy to her. She is to be made Queen! Mordecai keeps checking in on her, and makes sure it is not known that she is Jewish. In the process of his checking up on Esther, Mordecai finds that some of the king’s servants are out to kill him, and he reports them. File that away for later.
Next we are introduced to our primary villain, Haman. This guy is bad news right from the get go. He is powerful, arrogant, intolerant of disrespect… and super whiny. He is presented as the most powerful man in the kingdom aside from the king… but it is his wife Zaresh who pulls all the strings in his house. When our heroic character Mordecai refuses, like a good Jew, to bow to Haman, he runs home and whines about it to his wife. This guy is the most powerful man in the kingdom, but he cannot deal with one guy who won’t bow to him. But his wife can. Interesting theme considering how the book started. Haman ends up radically overreacting to Mordecai’s actions, and manages to get a law passes that all Jews throughout the empire are to be killed and their possessions seized by anyone who wants them. Basically he legalizes the murder of Jews on a particular day. Certainly an equitable response to one dude not bowing to you.
This puts Esther and Haman on a collision course, but there is a twist. Esther cannot just go tell her husband what is going on, and he is to blind to see it. Once again, an interesting theme considering how the story started. Mordecai convinces her to go to the king anyway, though she could be killed for doing so, in order to save her people, and herself should the fact that she is a Jew come out.
So Esther disobeys the king. Sort of like Vashti at the start of the book. The plan to keep these women in line sure worked out well. The king is quite pleased to see her, and she invites him and Haman to dinner the next day. Haman is very happy with this, but on his way home he sees Mordecai and melts down. His solution is to once again run home and whine a great deal about how he is the greatest guy ever but Mordecai ruins his day. His wife advises building a fifty cubit tall gallows. Fifty. That’s something like 75 feet. It really tall. Comically tall. It is a ludicrous suggestion. But here it is. Haman is off to get permission for his hanging from the king before heading to the Queen’s dinner party. Tomorrow we will get the resolution of the story and perhaps see some of the purpose of this book in the Hebrew Scriptures.