SERIES O --- RETURN TO THE LAND --- LESSON 17

ESTHER

ESTHER BECOMES QUEEN

From Esther 2

As time passed, the anger of King Ahasuerus calmed. Then he began to think about Queen Vashti and what she had done and how he had decreed that she could never see him again. [Command that a search be made for a new queen,] suggested the king’s attendants. [Let beautiful young ladies be brought before the king. We will appoint officers in each province of the kingdom to bring the loveliest young women to Susa the capital. They will be placed in the harem under the care of Hegai the eunuch, who is in charge of the women, and he will give them cosmetics to prepare them for the king. Then the young lady who pleases you most will become queen instead of Vashti.] The king was pleased with this plan, so he gave orders for it to be carried out immediately. In the capital at Susa there was a Jew named Mordecai, son of Jair. He was also a descendant of Shimei and Kish of the tribe of Benjamin. He had been exiled from Jerusalem with the captives whom King Nebuchadnezzar had taken from King Jeconiah of Judah. Mordecai had adopted his young orphaned cousin Hadassah, whose mother and father Abihail had both died, and was raising her as his own daughter. When the king’s decree went out, Hadassah, who was also called Esther, was brought to the king’s harem at the palace at Susa and placed into the care of Hegai, the eunuch in charge of the palace women. Hegai was pleased with Esther, so he gave her the best food, special cosmetics, and seven of the best palace girls as her maids, as well as the best living quarters in the harem. Mordecai had warned Esther not to tell anyone that she was Jewish, so she kept this secret to herself. Each day Mordecai visited the harem court to inquire about Esther and learn how she was. Each of the young ladies had twelve months of beauty care before she went to see the king. For six months she was treated with oil of myrrh and six months with special perfumes and cosmetics for women. When the time came for her to visit the king, she could take any clothing and whatever else she wished from the harem. She would be taken to the king in the evening and would return to the second harem in the morning, into the charge of Shaashgaz, the king’s eunuch who took care of the concubines. She would visit the king again only when he wanted her and called for her by name. At last it was Esther’s turn to visit the king. She did exactly what Hegai advised. Everyone who knew Esther was pleased with her. It was the tenth month, the month Tebeth, or January, in the seventh year of the king’s reign, when Esther was taken to visit him. The king loved Esther more than any of the other women, so he showed greater favour and kindness to her. He was so pleased with her that he placed the royal crown upon her head and made her queen instead of Vashti. To celebrate the event, the king gave another great banquet in Esther’s honour and invited all his princes and servants. He declared a holiday throughout the provinces and gave gifts and excused people from paying taxes. Sometime later, the king called for a second group of young ladies to be brought to him. Mordecai was now an official of the king and sat at the king’s gate. Esther still had not told anyone that she was Jewish or that she was related to Mordecai, for so he had instructed her. Esther still did as Mordecai told her, even as she had done when she was under his care. One day Mordecai overheard a plot by Bigthan and Teresh, two of the guards at the palace gate. They had become angry with the king and were planning to murder him. When Mordecai learned of the plot, he told Queen Esther, who in turn told the king, giving Mordecai the credit. The king had the plot investigated and found that it was true, so Bigthan and Teresh were hanged on gallows. While the king watched, the entire incident was recorded in the chronicles of the kingdom.

COMMENTARY

A PERSIAN KING’S HAREM

In the ancient Near East, men and women lived in separate sections of the same house, coming together only for brief periods during the day or night. The man or men in the house decided when those periods would be. The Persian kings did the same thing. All royal women lived in a building separate from the main palace called a {harem}; [they still exist in parts of the modern Middle East]. The word itself means {sacred, forbidden,} and entry into the women’s quarters was forbidden to everyone but the few who had the king’s permission to go there. The king married many foreign women in order to keep on friendly terms with their home countries. They were considered important people, and their commands were usually obeyed. An unhappy foreign wife could result in a war with her native country. But they had to live their lives mostly in the limited area of the harem and the palace, and strictly according to the king’s wishes. The king kept another group of women for his own enjoyment. There primarily for his pleasure, they were called concubines. Persian women and female captives who caught the king’s eye were brought to the palace and lived there with limited rights. There was little a harem woman could do to be the favourite of the king except to have a male child. She played on the king’s emotions with {womanly wiles,} the only power she had. It could be effective enough to threaten not only rivals, but also political figures and kings.