CHAPTER A
OK, here it is – the Bible book that doesn’t even mention
God. Yeah, that’s right – it doesn’t
even mention God. Odd, don’t you
think? Also odd – there are nine
numbered chapters and seven lettered chapters.
I don’t get that at all. For my own
records, I count it as a 16 chapter Bible book, but that really doesn’t make
much sense.
The intro tells me that there are Greek additions to Esther
that make many explicit references to God, so maybe those are the lettered
portions. I don’t rightfully know.
But getting on track, we start off with a lettered
chapter. Mordecai is a Jew serving in
the court of Ahasuerus. Ahasuerus is apparently a Persian Emperor, which is
neat because there was never a Persian emperor by that name. He’s supposed to be Xerxes. But Mordecai has a dream of two dragons in
battle, and the world is very gloomy, and – oh look, a God reference! “Then they cried out to God” it says during
the dream. Yup, the Greek portions of
Esther are the parts from the Bible.
At any rate, Mordecai wakes up and immediately figures out
that his dream means there is an assassination attempt on the king afoot. How he got that out of the dream, I’ll never
know. I don’t see it at all myself. But he does tell the king this, two eunuchs are
found to be conspirators, and are killed.
Mordecai is allowed to serve at court for his actions. I hope you remember this – because the story
will be repeated in a little bit.
(Oh, and I heard today that the Protestants leave out the
Greek portions of Esther for the same reason why they leave out seven full
books in the Catholic Bible. When the
Bible was complied, these sections only existed in Greek. There was no ancient Hebrew or Aramiac
(however you spell that word). So they
weren’t considered authentic enough, so out went seven entire books and parts
of Esther. Since then, they’ve
apparently found one of the seven books in Hebrew, but the Protestant Bible has
already been set. Well, I assume the
Jews have a similar logic for leaving these books out of their Bible.
CHAPTER 1
Now for a numbered chapter.
This is the first thing in the Jewish and Protestant version of
Esther.
King Ahasuerus (can I just call him Xerxes? I can spell
that) has a banquet. My God does he ever
have a banquet. It last 180 days and ends with a seven-day feast. (So what were they doing the first 173 days?
Eh, never mind). And on the last day,
when he “was merry with wine” (yeah, ya think?
After 180 days of partying?) he asks for his queen to come out. She’s a stone cold fox and he wants to show
her off. She says no.
So far, she sounds more reasonable than him. I get that this is a fictional story – heck,
the intro section to the book flatly says so here). And I’ll take it on those terms. But this guy is a empty-headed, fun-loving
worthless playboy. Who has a six month
party? Imagine what a drunk this guy
is. I don’t blame the wife for not wanting
to be around him.
But her refusal enrages the king, and his flunkies – er, his
advisors – goad him onward. If you let
her get away with this, it’ll be a sign that all women can treat their husbands
like this. Stand up for men! So the king immediately issues a decree:
she’s banned from court forever more. If
I’m her, I don’t see this as a bad thing.
So we’ve established that the king is an empty-headed
partier, and that he’s easily led. Maybe
Mordecai should’ve helped those conspirators.
CHAPTER 2
But if the old queen is banished, that means Xerxes needs a
new queen. Time for the hunt. He decrees that all the best virgins of the
empire be sought out – “let cosmetics be given them.” So the Bible is OK with makeup. Interesting.
So we’re reintroduced to Mordecai. Remember – in the non-Greek version, we
haven’t come across him yet, so it’s a full introduction. We learn that he is in the royal precinct and
has a niece he’s adopted and raised.
That niece, of course, is our hero, Esther. Apparently, Esther is a Babylonian name
derived from the goddess Ishtar.
Huh. That’s unexpected.
Well, she’s hot and enters the beauty contest – we’re told
that Mordecai “promptly furnished her with cosmetics.” So it isn’t just Persians who go for makeup,
but the good guys in the story, too.
Esther is also told to hide her nationality. We’re not really told why, but we’re just
supposed to assume that to be a Jew is to be maligned. That doesn’t actually make much sense given
how the Persian Empire let the Jews go back home and rebuild their temple and
walls, but let’s roll with it. This
isn’t history, after all.
Well, Esther advances to the final round of Who Wants to Be
a Persian Empress? Seven girls are left,
and they will all spend a night with the emperor. In order to be properly readied, they will be
beautified first. In fact, we’re told
the beautification process takes …. 12 months!
Six months for oil of myrrh and six months with perfumes and cosmetics.
Umm ……ew. Seriously,
would you want some you just spent a full year getting gussied up? That’s so much make up as to lose all
humanity. A law of diminishing returns
should kick in somewhere around here, and it should kick in probably in a day
or two – and this is 365 days! This
Persian emperor has some pretty artificial tastes. Six months of oil! Boy, if she steps in a
pool, the girl will kill all the fish!
Naturally, Esther wins.
Wouldn’t be much of a story if she didn’t? We’re told she gets the crown in the seventh
year of Xerxes reign. For the record,
the party where he dumped his old wife happened in the third year of his
reign. So he took his sweet damn time
finding a new one. Oh, and she’s still
hiding her ethnic background.
Remember that conspiracy Mordecai thwarted in Chapter
A? Well that story gets repeated her for
our Jewish and Protestant brethren who missed it last time. So for Catholics, it’s a twice-told
tale. This time there is no confusing
dream. And, of course, no mention of
God.
Oh, one new detail – the eunuchs are killed by being impaled
on stakes! Grizzly detail, Bible!
CHAPTER 3
The plot advances as we meet our villain: Haman. He’s the chief minister for the emperor. He’s such a chief minister that he wants all
other of the king’s lackeys bow down and kneel before him. All do – except Mordecai. So Haman wants Mordecai dead.
Nay, that isn’t enough.
He wants to kill all Jews, because Mordecai is one. Wait – what?
That’s insane. That is one wild
leap, but the Bible treats it matter of factly.
What’s the link between Mordecai’s refusal to bow down and being
Jewish? The Bible doesn’t say. I guess it’s just the solid moral core of
Judaism, and Haman is very immoral. (But
Mordecai would bow down to the emperor, right?
And by the way, what does the emperor think of this bowing? The Bible doesn’t say).
Well, the Bible does make an allusion to combing Jewishness and
what Mordecai’s actions. Haman takes his
“Kill all Jews” plan to the emperor. His
logic is this: these people don’t follow the customs of others, they stick out
like a sore thumb. They are a pain in
the ass. (This is the allusion I made earlier.
Mordecai is a pain in the ass who won’t follow the custom of bowing
down).
The king is won over by Haman’s five-minute talk and signs
off on the plan for genocide. I know
Haman is the bad guy here – and he really is – but the emperor is utterly
vile. He’s a partying piece of shit who
is so easily led that he doesn’t even think to have any moral qualms about ….a
proposed genocide! Come. On.
Also, where the hell are all the other counselors here? We get just Haman. That’s it. As stories go, this one isn’t too
believable.
CHAPTER B
This is just a copy of the letter the king sends out for his
genocide plan. It doesn’t add much to
the narrative. It basically says that
the king wants all to live in peace, but it’s been brought to my attention that
there is “one people of ill will.” So
let’s kill every single last one with the sword.
Morally vile. (But
please note – this is just a wider ranging plan for what Joshua did back in his
book. And he’s supposed to be one of the
heroes of the Bible).
CHAPTER 3 (CONTINUED)
That’s right. Chapter
3 again. That Chapter B part in Greek is
planted right smack in the middle of Chapter 3.
Well, not really the middle.
Chapter 3 is just about over, actually.
The royal letter is set out.
That’s all.
CHAPTER 4
Now that the order it out, Mordecai freaks out. In fact, so are all Jews. Yeah, you can’t really blame them.
Quick side note: you can tell this story is fiction, because
if there really was an order out there to kill all Jews in the Persian Empire,
don’t you think some other Jewish writing would’ve come down to us about
it? I mean, we get the siege of
Jerusalem three times – Kings II, Chronicles II, and Isaiah.
Esther hears about it and also freaks out. Mordecai goes to her and says it’s all you to
you, Esther. You’re the hope for our
people. Yeah, but there is a catch. No one can visit the king in his chamber
without being called. To do so without
being properly summoned will result in your death. Really?
I don’t know what to make of this.
On the one hand, it sounds like a typically overblown plot point in a
story simply full of overblown plot points.
But then again, those Persian emperors could really be some autocratic
motherfuckers. And really, though she’s
the big winner of the Ms Persian Empress competition, Esther is just another
wife. Maybe he’ll make exception for key
officials, but she’s just a wife. In
fact, we’re told he hasn’t called on Esther for 30 days.
Well, but Mordecai really puts the screws to her. Look, he says, the Jews will be saved somehow
(he apparently means by the hand of God, but since this is a numbered chapter,
God isn’t mentioned by name). But if we
are saved without your help, Esther, expect you and all your family to
die.
The pep talk works, and Esther resolves to see the king,
even if he decides to kill her for it.
CHAPTER C
But to the lettered chapters, where the author here knows
the story of the numbered chapters, but isn’t aware of how much we all
know. We’re back in the pre-pep talk
timeline. Ether and Mordecai both know
about the order, but they haven’t resolved to do anything. They are both separate in fact.
This chapter is just two prayers to God – the first by
Mordecai and the second by Esther. And boy oh boy – it’s like the author wants to
rectify the odd omission of the word “God” by jamming it in as much as
possible. Check out this little bit:
“And now, Lord God, King, God of Abraham.”
That’s 3-4 God mentions in just eight words (depends on if you count
“Lord God” as one or two mentions. By my
count, we get 21 mentions of God (and that’s counting “Lord God” as just one
mention).
Oh, and we get the official rational for Mordecai’s not
bowing down: he won’t do it to any person, just to God. So ….he wouldn’t bow down to the emperor? My, that might make things awkward, what with
him being a member of the royal court and all.
Why would the emperor have no real problem with that, until he gets 5
minutes of talk from his chief minister?
Answer: because the emperor is a weak-willed assclown.
Man, I really don’t like the emperor. I don’t like the bad guy either, but he at
least makes a cunning villain. The king
is completely bereft of all morals and skills.
The real sad part of the book might be when Mordecai thwarted the plan
of the eunuchs to overthrow the worthless bastard.
CHAPTER D
God gets mentioned twice in this short lettered
chapter.
Esther gets up in all of her finery – we’re apparently
post-pep talk now, and goes to see the king.
She’s all nervous on the inside but hot on the outside. The king sees her and is pissed – what the
hell is she doing here?
She faints, and that’s all it takes. He becomes all protective and goes up to her,
now gentle. He’s a sucker for a woman in
distress. Actually, he’s just a sucker, as
this book has amply demonstrated every chance it can.
Anyhow, he tells her don’t worry – she won’t die when all
the other Jews will. He’ll kill all the
other Jews, but not her. I’ll just point
out that a similar deal was perfectly fine for Rahab back in Joshua. She was fine with letting everyone in town
die, just as long as she didn’t.
She faints again, and he’s scared, and sends his attendants
to revive her. That ends the latest
lettered chapter.
These lettered chapters are poorly placed. We saw earlier that they were willing to put
one in the middle of a numbered chapter (Chapter B in the middle of Chapter
3). They should’ve done that with
Chapter C – but it in Chapter 4, just after Mordecai and Esther frets, but
before the pep talk. Then Chapter D
would work well immediately after Chapter 4, not here after Chapter 3. We go back then forth and it’s awkward and
difficult to read. Clearly, the
Jewish/Protestant version of this book works better. This is just poor execution on the part of whoever
it was that worked in the Greek bits.
CHAPTER 5
Back in the numbered letters, we vault back. Man, including all of these numbered and
lettered chapters together is incredibly confusing. Let’s put it this way. Let’s say the plot of Esther goes from Point
A to Z. Well, we start out with Point H,
then get A to M. Then we go back to L
and take it up to R. Now we’re back on
P. You get all this back-and-forthing
that is a pain in the ass and it doesn’t actually work. Plus you get some double-telling.
Here, Esther goes to the king. It’s the same scene as last time, but not
nearly as dramatic. There is no anger
from the king, no fainting from the title character. He sees her and is happy. (So much for not being able to see him unless
called for. Clearly (and obviously) he
can suspend that rule at a whim.
Then the Persian king, being the doofus that he is, says
that he’ll grant her any wish she has.
“Even if it is half of my kingdom, it shall be granted you.” Oh man –
look, that is very sweet. That’s a
touching thing to say. And if I felt it
was coming from a man with a good heart, I’d be touched.
But this is the king who has a 180-day party and agrees to
genocide without much consideration. He
doesn’t have a big heart. He’s a fucking
loser. So he sees a pretty face and says
he’ll give it half his kingdom. Lucky
for him, she’s not looking for that.
Seriously – how has this imbecile not been overthrown yet? Come back you rebellious eunuchs – you’re the
real heroes of the story to me!
Instead of half of the land, Esther just wants to have a
banquet; one featuring herself, the king, and Haman (our bad guy). The king consents. It’ll be tomorrow.
That night, Haman leaves the court feeling ever so chipper
about himself. He’s the man in power,
he’s going to kill a bunch of Jews – life couldn’t be brighter. Then he sees that damn Mordecai refuse to bow
to him still. This enrages him. Doesn’t
he know who I am? Doesn’t he know what I’m about to do? Heck, doesn’t he know I’m going to be the
sole guest at a banquet with the king and queen? And he fumes.
A lackey has an idea.
Don’t like Mordecai – kill him! (Why bother? Won’t Mordecai soon die with all the Jews
anyway? Eh, never mind). The plan is simple: get a stake, 50 cubits
high, and in the morning ask the king to impale Mordecai upon it. Great idea!
Two things. First,
it’s just a given that the king will sign off on it. Yeah, that works. The king really is a mindless twit. Second – where do you rustle up a 50-cubit
stake? What does he just have one of
those lying around or something? That’s
75 feet, people!
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