Gender relations (The Book of Esther, chapters 1-7)

The book of Esther seems to be a favorite among Christian women.  In fact, it still is a common name today.  The book of Esther is one of few Biblical books centered around a heroine.  She is smart, beautiful, follows God, and saves her people.  

But is it more than that?  The language seems nuanced, coded, and maybe even straddling the line of sexual innuendo.  What is Esther doing?  She's part of a harem...but still a "virgin"?  She needs twelve months of beauty treatment before being presentable to the king?  What is going on?  The book lends itself to a lot of speculation.  

The book also has a few facts that should not be glossed over either.  Rather, they make her story more real.  In particular, her beauty seems to be a key part in how she gets any power to begin with.  Likewise, she initially hides her Jewish identity.  

By way of background, Xerxes is king of Persia.  Xerxes is maybe the most famous of the Persian kings and was depicted in such films as 300.

Xerxes has a big banquet in which all his guests can get drink as much wine as they want.  He orders his wife, Queen Vashti, to stand in front of all his friends because she is beautiful to look at.  She refuses.  Why?  The text does not state exactly, but perhaps he wanted her to stand naked in front of his friends.  Perhaps it was because he was drunk.  Perhaps he said something else that went unrecorded.  Perhaps it was simply because she thought the whole idea was stupid.  We do not fully know.  But the stated reason for displaying was her physical beauty so we can at least presume it was that which appalled her.

The king is mad and makes a decree throughout the land that all the women must obey their husbands.  He also dismisses her as queen.  He goes on a search for a replacement queen although he already has a harem.  

Meanwhile, Esther has a tragic past.  Both her parents died and she now lives with her uncle Mordecai.  Mordecai is one of exiles who survived the war and were brought from Judah by Nebuchadnezzar.  This suggests that Esther's parents may have been killed in the war.  Despite all this, Esther is discovered for her beauty, enters the king's harem, and then becomes queen.  She does not reveal her identity as Jewish.

Mordecai is an interesting guy of his own right.  He uncovers a plot against the king.  He tells Esther, who relays it to the king, and the plotters are arrested.

Mordecai garners enemies who devise a plot to kill the entire Jewish nation.  In particular, he will not bow down to high-ranking people in the kingdom.  The conspirators convince king Xerxes that  killing the lawbreakers is necessary and he agrees.  An order goes throughout the land to kill all the Jewish people.

Uh oh.  This has a lot of similarities to the first part of Daniel.

Esther hears of this and she knows she must plead with the king.  However, the king has a law that whoever approaches the king without being summoned may lose his or her life.  To make matters worse, she has not been summoned to the king for thirty days.

So, why did the king not summon Queen Esther for over 30 days?  I think that there are two possibilities, both within the world of speculation.  On one hand, the king may have grown sexually tired of Esther.  He is king and we know he has a harem, so what is up with the 30 day wait?  

The other option is the king may have thought she was pregnant.  If you are king of Persia and you have a harem, but you need legitimate and healthy male heirs.  Childbirth killed women in those days.  You have a young queen who replaced a prior queen - so maybe he wanted to see if she was pregnant.  Meanwhile, he has a harem that he can attend to.

We can only speculate from the text what was in king Xerxes' mind.  We do know that Esther feared for the result of going before her husband for she wanted the entire Jewish nation in Persia, including herself, to fast and pray about it beforehand.

In the dialogue with Mordecai, Mordecai makes the interesting observation that perhaps God put Esther in this position for this specific purpose.  She tells Mordecai to get all the Jewish people praying and fasting for three days and then she will approach the king.

She approaches the king, who shows his scepter to her, and she may approach.  He even asks for her request, up to half the kingdom.  Her request is to have a banquet for Haman, the main conspirator.  At that banquet, she asks the king to let her prepare a banquet the next day just for the king and Haman.

Haman brags and taunts Mordecai.  He has a large pole built in preparation to execute Mordecai by implement.

That night, the king cannot sleep so he reads the chronicles and remembers that Mordecai was never homered for saving the king.  He is pondering what should be done with Mordecai when Haman walks in.  Haman is going to request the execution of Mordecai, but the king asks him what should be done with someone the king honors.  Haman thinks the king is referring to himself and gives some elaborate plan involving a royal display on a horse throughout the city.

The king approves of this and orders that Haman do the exact same for Mordecai.  Haman must do this and returns home in grief because his plan is falling apart.

However, he must now go to the banquet with Esther and the queen.  At the banquet, the king asks Esther what she wants.  Here, she finally acts.  I suspect it was the king's spontaneous praise of Mordecai that gave her encouragement to really speak up.  She does.  She begs for her life and tells the king about Haman's plot against Mordecai.  The king is angry and has Haman executed on the pole that Haman built to execute Mordecai.