I remember a Sunday School lesson about Queen Esther when I was a little girl. The message I got from it was that Esther got to be Queen because she was good and did what she was told. Reading the story of Esther as an adult I see that this is not really a story suitable for children. It is a story about women who are victimized by the men in their life and a story of racism putting at risk the lives of an entire people.
The story of Esther starts out by telling us that the king held a party where the men of the kingdom drank heavily for seven days. When he was drunk, the king started bragging about how beautiful Vashti, his wife was. “Is she really that beautiful?” the men asked. “I’ll prove it to you,” says King Ahasuerus.
Vashti is commanded to come before the party-goers wearing her crown and nothing but her crown. Other passages in this short book of the bible talk about the robes people wore, but robes are conspicuously absent here. How else was the King to prove her beauty other than by demanding that she wear nothing when she appeared?
Vashti refuses to come before the men. What else can she do? Refusing to attend could mean her death. You risked your life if you went to the King without being invited. Imagine how much more dangerous it was to not appear when the King commands it. Not going might lead to Vashti’s death, but so might appearing naked before the men of the kingdom. Once the King sobers up, he won’t be happy and like a lot of tyrants into of blaming himself, he will blame Vashti. The Queen chooses the option that allows her to keep her dignity.
The King’s advisers tell him he must put Vashti aside for refusing the King’s command. Otherwise this deed of the Queen will be known by all women, causing them to look with contempt on their husbands and rebel against their demands. Perhaps, while he is still half drunk King Ahasuerus renounces Vashti as his wife. We are not told if she survives this renunciation, but just that the King begins to regret losing her. Meanwhile he has sent a letter throughout the Kingdom declaring that every man should be master in his own house.
His advisors come up with a new plan to help the King get over his loss. They will gather the most beautiful virgins in the kingdom into the haram, woman who will undergo months of beauty treatments before being brought to the King’s bed. The King is to choose one of these virgins as his new wife.
Now, lets be clear this book tells the story of vying for political power. One way to have influence was to get a family member into the royal household. Young women often understood this and were willing to offer themselves for the sake of their family, others were used as tools without regard for their happiness or their need to love and be loved.
The virgins, after being taken to the King’s bed are taken to a after taken to a second haram where they stay for the rest of their lives. They never again go to the King again unless he remembered them and asks for them by name. Gone is the chance to have a home and family of her own.
The orphaned Esther is taken into the haram and finds favor with the King. She becomes Queen, but her married life is nothing like we imagine. After a while the King loses interest. When Mordicai asks for her help to save the Jews she tells him that the King has not called for her in over a month. The King was willing to perpetuate injustice on an entire ethnic group for financial gain. The Jews in the Kingdom were to be killed.
The rest of the story is about how Esther finds the courage to go to the King and convince him to change his mind. It was not without risk, and we see her reluctance to go. She is afraid that it might end in her death. She asks her uncle Mordecai to get the people to fast and pray for her.
The key message in this book is spoken by Mordecai. “Do not think that in the King’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. 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 know? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.”
As I thought of this story this past week I could see in it echoes of what is happening right now. It is a story of how heavy drinking leads to actions that one regrets. It is a story of young women being used and abused. It is a story of how a young woman finds the courage to act and stand against the power of those who have no principles. Esther did not have any real power of her own, but she did what was in her power to do. She did what she could and saved a whole people because of her courage.
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