Welcome to the Persian Winter Palace where the party is lavish. Before the blood begins to drip. The first queen is the first to go.
Everybody knows Esther. But this fifth and final of the five scroll, is about much more than the familiar fable chanted annually during the drunkard holiday of Purim.
Loosely based on historical data, Esther is a layered literary work of fiction, recognized by rabbinic readers and academic scholars alike as a text disguised as farce but really about persecution, power and reversal of fates and fortunes. God is not mentioned in it once.
Jacob Wright suggests that:
“The book of Esther has a fairytale quality, similar to that of One Thousand and One Nights. But for all its lightness and many farcical features, the story it tells is gravely serious. It depicts a twisted world, one in which an imperial power abuses women and its subjects for its own pleasure. Its protagonist cleverly orchestrates a dramatic reversal of misfortune, and in doing so, she models survival strategies for the book’s readers.”
The original readers were, presumably, Jewish people living under Greek rule in the 3rd or 2nd centuries BCE, when this was likely written. By then they were seasoned in how to handle diasporic existence, generations after the Persians were no longer in charge.
Yet one of the important features of this literary gem is that it brings us into the domain of the civilization that has a massive impact on the Jewish story for a few crucial centuries - and on some levels - leading to today’s global political tensions. The Persian empire would evolve to become modern-day Iran, just as the ancient Judeans would eventually become today’s Jews - and Israel. On some level the horrific violence we are experiencing now between these centers of global power begins in this book and its clash of civilizations.
The Persians, taking over Babylon, ruled much of the world by the time this story happens. Scholars suggest that the king, identified as Ahasuerus is either alluding to Xerxes I or his third son Artaxerxes I. Either way, the vast empire at those times was busy dealing with attempt to conquer Greece and to establish diplomatic ties with the rest of the world.
This may match the way the story begins --a six-month long set of banquets held at the winter palace of Shushan of Susa, maybe to secure alliances and show off the empire’s enormous power and wealth. The political background matters as this book is simultaneously about a single human’s ability to impact and influence the world but also about a single nation’s saga of survival, against the odds. And one of the key tropes in the scroll, starting with its first chapter and heroine - is the right of resistance.
At some point, while the party’s raging, in separate areas divided by genders, the king summons the queen to appear for his guests in her splendor, with her crown on. Despite later commentaries - there is no assumption that a crown is the only thing she is told to keep on. Nevertheless, in defiance of what seems to be a drunken disgrace - Queen Vashti, of royal lineage and prestigious pedigree, becomes one of the first women in the Bible to stand her own ground:
וַתְּמָאֵן הַמַּלְכָּה וַשְׁתִּי לָבוֹא בִּדְבַר הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲשֶׁר בְּיַד הַסָּרִיסִים וַיִּקְצֹף הַמֶּלֶךְ מְאֹד וַחֲמָתוֹ בָּעֲרָה בוֹ׃
But Queen Vashti refused to come at the king’s command conveyed by the eunuchs. The king was greatly incensed, and his fury burned within him.
Esther 1:12
Though this is her only mention in the story, it is Vashti, not Esther, who is the first heroine here, lauded as a symbol of female empowerment. First-wave feminists hailed her as an icon for her refusal to abide by her husband’s misogynistic demands.
Harriet Beecher Stowe praised Vashti’s resistance as a
“first stand for women’s rights..we shall stand amazed that there was a woman found at the head of the Persian empire that dared to disobey the command even of a drunken monarch.”
And in the Women’s Bible Elizabeth Cady Stanton described Vashti as “a sublime representative of self-centered womanhood.”
Queen Vashti will pay the price - and be banished from court. The courtiers advise the king that by doing so he will eliminate the threat of other women daring to resist their husbands and the power of the throne.
The queen is gone - but her absence will be the lead-in to Esther’s entrance as the next woman to wear the crown.
Vashti’s defiance also sets the stage for the important role that defiance and resistance plays in this scroll. It will be Moredchai will refuse to bow down to Haman and by this act of resistance ignite wrath and get the plot going. And it will be Esther’s act of defiance and risk-taking that will save the day.
Perhaps this is one of the threads of this tale, of special importance to a minority struggling to find its place in the empire and keep its head above water, sometimes through obedience but sometimes through resistance. Biblical scholar Alexander Green interprets Esther as a political guide for Jews living in exile:
"Esther can be interpreted as a political work with its own inherent logic and integrity... it may be possible to regard the Book of Esther as a sober guide to the limitations and consequences of Diaspora Jewish life."
Sober or not, with persistence and resistance, high-stakes drama and nonstop wine will continue through these chapters as the plot invites new characters to play along the fault lines of betrayal and obedience, risk-taking and trust. Get ready to resist.
Image © Queen Vashti by James C. Lewis, from his
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