BIBLE WOMEN ESTER PART II-GOODMORNING

Vashti may have thought she was being treated as a concubine, rather than as a wife and queen. She behaved with haughty dignity when she refused the king’s command, but unfortunately her answer was given in front of the officers of the empire, and she paid the price for humiliating the king.

Ahasuerus, still half-drunk, acted hastily. On the advice of cowed and inept councilors, he made the situation worse by issuing a public decree that Vashti was to be banished. This drew even more attention to the fact that Vashti had flouted his command, and made him look a fool to all his subjects.

At this stage in the story, it becomes obvious that this is not a traditional story about a good king. Ahasuerus was a despot who was also a fool. So a theme begins to emerge: unlimited power, exercised without wisdom, is a dangerous thing.

After a while Ahasuerus found that without Vashti, ‘the beloved one’, he was lonely. He could not call her back because his word, once spoken, was law. So his courtiers suggested a solution: to find another queen, a young and beautiful woman who would take Vashti’s place.

Then the King’s servants who attended him said ‘Let beautiful young virgins be sought out for the King. Let the King appoint commissioners in all the province 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. Let the girl who pleases the King be Queen instead of Vashti.’ This pleased the King, and he did so.

‘The Grooming of Esther’ by Theodore Chasseriau

Read Esther 2:1-23.

A nation-wide search for a new queen began – the first recorded beauty contest in the world.

A young Jewess was among the candidates. Her beauty was so extraordinary that she ‘pleased’ even the chief eunuch Hegai, who had been castrated while still a young boy – there is a note of irony here.

One wonders too at the background story to all this, whether Hegai played some part in deposing Vashti.

Esther with all the other young virgins was taken into the harem, and twelve months of careful preparation began. She was shrewd enough to seek the advice of Hegai, who knew the king’s tastes. Eventually she went to the king, and pleased him so much that he set the royal crown on her head. She became queen in Vashti’s place – with all the wealth and power of an Eastern queen now suddenly at her disposal.

To get an idea of the magnificent surroundings in which she lived, see the ruins of ancient Persepolis at Bible Archaeology: Palaces

See more fabulous ancient jewelry

Esther was a symbol of Jews who lived successfully in an alien culture. As a woman, she was not in a position of power, just as Diaspora Jews were not members of the power elite. As an orphan, she was separated from her parents, as Diaspora Jews are separated from their mother-country. With both these handicaps, she had to use every skill and advantage she had, as Diaspora Jews did. They, like Esther, had to adapt themselves to the situation.

From the start, Esther had been helped by her uncle Mordecai, but nobody knew that they were related, or that Esther was a Jewess. Esther did not keep the dietary laws of Judaism, or retain the practices of an orthodox Jewess. God is never mentioned directly in the story. So the story is not a ‘religious’ story as such, but a secular one, about pragmatism in the face of adversity.

Not long after her installation as queen, Esther’s uncle Mordecai found out about a plot to assassinate the king. He told Esther, who in turn warned the king. The plotters were hanged, and Mordecai’s warning was recorded in the court annals.