Episode 164: Purim 2023—Honor, Shame and Two Brave Queens

The book of Esther is a thrilling story to read about and yet we rarely look into what this would have been like to live through for the two very brave and virtuous (yes, both of them) Queens who had to walk a knife edge within the world of honor/shame dynamics where a shamed woman could easily wind up a dead woman.

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Purim is next weekend, the celebration of the deliverance of the Jewish people throughout the Medo-Persian Empire (which was pretty much all of them at that point) from certain annihilation. Esther is a tale of honor, shame, pride, downfalls, foolishness, and wisdom. However, for me, it is about two women stuck in an impossible situation, how they handled it, and how much our own culture colors how we see them. One of only two books in the Bible which don’t mention God at all, it is nonetheless where we see Him working behind the scenes in delightfully deliberate and even hilarious ways. However, the stories of these two women aren’t funny at all, and reflect the throw-away status of women in the ancient world. Nonetheless, I see them as two women of dignity and honor who were doing the best they could despite the attempts of the men that surrounded them to use them for their own purposes. To one extent or another—for good or for evil. One thing that is often missed in reading Esther is that honor was a game men played, but it was a woman’s express job to avoid shame at all costs for not only her sake, but for the sake of her husband and family.

Hi, I am Tyler Dawn Rosenquist and welcome to Character in Context, where I teach the historical and ancient sociological context of Scripture with an eye to developing the character of the Messiah. If you prefer written material, I have seven years’ worth of blog at theancientbridge.com as well as my six books available on amazon—including a four-volume curriculum series dedicated to teaching Scriptural context in a way that even kids can understand it, called Context for Kid (affiliate link) and I have two video channels on YouTube with free Bible teachings for both adults and kids. You can find the link for those on my website. Past broadcasts of this program can be found at characterincontext.podbean.com and transcripts can be had for most broadcasts at theancientbridge.com. If you have kids, I also have a weekly broadcast where I teach them Bible context in a way that shows them why they can trust God and how He wants to have a relationship with them through the Messiah.

First of all, it is interesting how Veggie Tales handles this book of the Bible. Vashti is portrayed as a woman woken in the middle of the night to make a sandwich for her husband, which she refuses to do. King Xerxes kicks her out of the house and holds a beauty pageant for all the beautiful young women and the winner “gets” to be the Queen. I know that we can’t be that explicit with kids but wow—history hasn’t been so whitewashed since King George wanted Uriah’s ducky and even tried to kill him to get it. Or something like that—my kids will be 22 next month and I have to admit that it’s been a long time. I still know the words to every song however. The Biblical story, however, is entertaining in retrospect but in terms of honor/shame culture and the ancient Near Eastern historical realities, also a very disturbing one.

We begin the story with the tale of Vashti, who I believe has been unfairly vilified when placed in an impossible situation where she had to choose between the lesser of two shames. Either way, she was going to lose. Although this has been classically interpreted in some circles as a matter of a prideful wife refusing to submit to her husband, rabbinic and scholarly commentaries are more mixed in how they treat Vashti—with some praising and defending her virtue and others at least acknowledging the complexity of the situation, given that we are not given very much information about what exactly happened. Regardless of what happened, we have to admire her courage in refusing the King’s command. Perhaps, with the ongoing nature of the drunken festival, she underestimated the danger of his impulsivity when he was in the company of the men of the city and his own honor seemed to be threatened.

I always like to imagine how thrilling it would have been to visit the five-month Great Exhibition in 1851, organized by Prince Albert, and home to ten thousand exhibits of the greatest technological wonders of the time, as well as a display of the goods produced by the territories of the British Empire. We can imagine how amazing it would be—or, if you are a fellow Marvel fan, imagine the year-long Stark Expo. Events like these brought honor to whatever institution was in charge; in the case of Ahasuerus’ 180 day display of wealth, greatness and power, followed by a seven day feast for everyone within Susa where everyone from richest to poorest could eat and drink whatever and however much they wanted in the presence of the King, well, let’s just say that this was excessive. And it indebted everyone to him, great and small, and he would be celebrated for it. Which was the whole point.

Vashti, on the other hand, was sequestered within her own quarters and was giving a feast not for all the women of the Kingdom but for the women of the palace. As the wife of the King, she was somewhat sacred and inaccessible to the general public. She was incredibly beautiful but she belonged to the King alone and could only appear before him if he called for her, which limited her interaction with any save himself and the palace staff. This would have given her an air of mystery and elevated honor among his subjects. She wasn’t a concubine or a prostitute to be on display. Her body was sacred as the body of the Queen mother to the next generation needed to be. Therefore, she was jealously guarded and she couldn’t live her life as a normal woman could, nor could she follow the same social rules. She lived in a precarious situation where to be shamed meant her ruin and perhaps the ruin of her children as well.

In honor/shame societies, it was the job of a man to gain honor for himself and his family. As the king, one would think that he had nothing to prove but the book of Esther shows him to be rash, impulsive, and even naïve. Not to mention very hard to please. His wife Vashti, on the other hand, walked a razor’s edge trying to avoid anything that would bring shame to herself or to her husband. Her life depended on it in more ways than one. And so, after seven days of feasting and drinking heavily, when Ahasuerus sent his seven personal eunuchs to Vashti—she was faced with a terrible dilemma. The Bible says only that she was commanded to appear before the gathered people, all of them likely intoxicated, wearing her royal crown “because she was very beautiful to look at.” Esther Rabbah, compiled somewhere between 700-900 years ago, was a collection of midrash (what if stories) about the Book of Esther, filling in the blanks in order to expand upon the text and teach ethical and moral lessons. Judean in origin, it paints Vashti in a very positive light—as the more virtuous spouse by far. According to this legend, Vashti was commanded to appear in her crown and only in her crown before, literally, the entire city of Susa. Bear in mind that if this was the case and if any man even accidentally touched her, she would be not only shamed but also defiled. If this was the case then Vashti was in terrible danger that her husband would only come to fully grasp after he had sobered up. The Rabbis who penned the materials saw Vashti, therefore as a model of wifely virtue in refusing to dishonor either herself or her husband. The Babylonian Talmud, on the other hand, in tractate Megillah 12b, agree that the was commanded to come naked but described her as a wanton who actually wanted to do this but God inflicted her with curses of leprosy and growing a tail and whatever else to keep her from going. Dang. Harsh.

What exactly happened? We really don’t know much more than the fact that Vashti found herself in a Catch-22. There was no optimal answer to her dilemma. But we do know that she refused to go to him and display herself. This is something that she would have had drilled into her since infancy, the importance of avoiding shame at all costs. Surely when her husband came to his senses he would see her wisdom. And he did but by that time it was too late because, impulsively, while drunk and angry he allowed himself to be influenced to depose Vashti. And, they were all drunk and engorged at this point after seven days of this, so they were in no position to give wise advice either. Instead, they acted in their own best interest in order to make sure that their wives lived in mortal fear of saying no to them, no matter what. Women in the ancient world lived precarious lives where they could be destroyed and even murdered over an unsubstantiated accusation. And when men of one family wanted to shame another family, the easiest way in the world was through making a plausible accusation against the women of the family. If virtue couldn’t be proven, then the shamed woman often had to die in order to restore the honor of the family. In the case of Vashti, she wasn’t killed because there was no question of sexual impropriety and any children he had with her would need to have their own honor protected, but she herself was never to be seen by the King again. She would have been shut away for life. She was still sacred and no other man could touch her, marry her, whatever. She was less than a Queen, sort of a wife, and perhaps a mother. Welcome to the “privileged” life of women in the ancient world who didn’t have to go to war but had to live in a constant state of stress over their reputations and who did not have the power that men had to recover from being disgraced.

And because Vashti is out, a new Queen is needed. And so, a suggestion was made that no ancient Near Eastern king would ever object to (and too few men today, for that matter). “Hey, let’s have all the beautiful virgins in each of the 127 provinces (which would have included Judea) rounded up and put in a harem so they can be cleaned up and beautified and the King can try them out one by one until he finds one he likes.” No surprise, this suggestion made the King really happy and so they just went around and took all the beautiful girls from India to Cush. Among them was the “beautiful of form and figure” Hadassah, a descendant of the royal line of Saul whose ancestors had been exiled from Judah about a hundred years earlier. She was an orphan being raised by her cousin Mordecai. And the King’s people came and took her and placed her into the harem under the care of the harem eunuchs, particularly Hegai. She gained favor with him and he supplied her with all sorts of honors, including special food, seven female servants from the palace, and placed them in the best rooms of the harem. Although, presumably, she was taken during the third year of the reign of Ahasuerus, it wasn’t until the seventh year that she was presented to the King. Her age might have been a factor, or perhaps Hegai was protecting her. We just don’t know. But after four years of living like a queen, she had no trouble whatsoever impressing Ahasuerus and he made her queen instead of sending her to where the concubines lived.

Can we just stop and remark on how gross this is? The beauty treatments took a year and so that means that the King has been “trying out” potential queens for three years—perhaps a thousand women unless he took nights off. These women were trained and then used for one night only to be rejected as not good enough to be queen and then dumped into the quarters for the concubines and would never be permitted to be married to anyone else either. Remember that as with Vashti, women with whom the King had slept were considered somewhat sacred. Any man who would approach one would be guilty of not only shaming the king but also of treason and making an attempt to seize the throne. Which should sound familiar to those who have read the I Kings 1 and 2 account of King David’s virgin bed-warmer who he took on as a pseudo-wife when he was too old to keep himself warm. In David’s final days, his oldest surviving son Adonijah attempted to seize the throne with the support of Joab, the general of Israel’s armies, and Abiathar, the priest. However, Nathan the prophet and Zadok the priest found out and David made Solomon king instead—before his death. Although Solomon spared his life, later Adonijah attempted to gain Abishag, David’s bed-warmer, as his wife. Perhaps because she was a virgin, he thought he could get away with it but Solomon saw it as an attempt to gain the throne and he had his older brother executed.

The other time we see this is when Absalom revolted against his father David in 2 Kings 15 and once he had secured the palace in Jerusalem, he openly bedded his father’s concubines on the roof of the palace—furthering his claim to the kingship by taking what was only to be touched by a king. It wasn’t about sex so much as it was about taking his father’s honor away and thereby gaining it for himself. That’s how honor worked in the ancient world, if I shamed you and took away your honor, that honor would be added to mine. Even though, nowadays, I would probably just be seen as a jerk. But it still works in High School. Boy was I glad to get out of that place. Taking the king’s palace, taking the king’s throne, and taking the king’s concubines was the same as taking the kingship. And what David didn’t understand but the men fighting for him did is that Absalom had to die—there was no way of keeping him alive while maintaining David as king. And dang, these poor women. David never touched them again and they were kept hidden away for the rest of their lives. We would hope, as we would with all the concubines of Ahasuerus, that they had been lucky enough to get pregnant so that they could at least be mothers. The situation was bad but I would imagine that it would be far worse in that culture to be childless for life. It would certainly be a very lonely and somewhat meaningless existence as they would have limited options for how to spend their lives and probably the overwhelming majority were uneducated.

But Esther was not shamed by being resigned to the life of a concubine. Instead she was honored as Queen, whether she wanted that life or not. Remember that in today’s society, all of these women would be considered the victims of sexual trafficking and rape. Living in luxury doesn’t change that. And there are people who are very harsh on Esther for marrying a non-Jew but let’s take a step back and think about what Scripture commands. The Jews were only ever forbidden to intermarry with the Canaanites, the people of the land. She wasn’t forbidden to marry Ahasuerus and probably the reason Mordecai asked her to hide her identity was because if she displeased the king, he might take it out on her people. There were no checks and balances. If the king was angry, even his own wife couldn’t trust him. But socially, in the eyes of the community, Esther had been exalted not only to the role of queen but also as having a sacred status and the wife of the king. Whether she liked him or not, whether he was good looking or not, whether he was a good lover or not or had terrible breath or was unkind, he was her husband, by force, and all she could do for her own sake and for the sake of her people was to play the hand dealt to her. But it was no sin for her to be a concubine in that culture or according to Moses. It was a fact of life in those days. And there was no marriage ceremony for concubines, you were just taken to bed. Wives were contracted for legally between two families and had certain protections but life for concubines was far less secure—just look at what happened to poor Hagar! Really Abraham? Some bread and a skin of water? But I digress…

I am going to skip all the stuff about the men, might do a second part next week or maybe next year, but a time comes when Mordecai offends her husband’s right hand man, the wicked Agagite Haman. And Haman schemes and takes advantage of the King’s over-baked pride and manipulates him through a series of claims and actions into agreeing to a plan to commit genocide against the Jews in all 127 of the provinces. So, like everywhere that Jews were at that time. And they were going to make it worth everyone’s while to do it by allowing them to loot the homes and businesses of the Jews they slaughtered. And so, Ahasuerus, without fact checking Haman’s meme claims, effectively signs the death warrant on an entire people group. This guy is not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but his right hand man is a whole lot more clever and conniving and takes advantage of the king’s weaknesses. Weaknesses that were used by his councilors against Vashti and weaknesses that were used to rob young virgins of the chance to get married and have families, and weaknesses that are now being exploited to extinguish the Jews—the historical enemies of the Amalekites. Saul, if you will remember, destroyed all of Amalek except for their king Agag—who Samuel killed later when he found out that Saul had spared him. I dunno, professional courtesy I suppose. Actually, having a vanquished king for a pet was quite popular in the ancient world. And you may protest that the Bible said that they were all slaughtered, but we see that sort of language a lot where they were “all” this or that but then we see later that it was a literary exaggeration. Which ancient authors used for effect and not to be deceptive. All that is to say, there is some history and really bad blood here.

Esther becomes the only person with any ability to fix this issue because of her relationship with the King but there is a problem—we know that virgins have been gathered again for the harem and that the King hasn’t called Esther into his presence for a month. It doesn’t take a genius to read the writing on the wall. Esther’s position is anything but secure, and this is a mere five years into their marriage. Had she failed to provide an heir? Did Ahasuerus consider wives somewhat disposable? Does he simply miss the good old days of bedding a new virgin whenever he wants? We can’t be sure, but Esther was on thin ice and she knew it. She also knew that she could not, for fear of her life, go to the King without being summoned. If he didn’t welcome her into his presence when he saw her, then she would be executed. But if she didn’t then she might end up being the only Jew left on earth. She was probably only about twenty years old, and this was a very scary thing. As it was, she hadn’t seen anyone from her family or her people in nine years! None of the girls who were taken ever saw their families again. I don’t know about you, but being wealthy and pampered for the rest of your life isn’t worth that unless you had an awful family!

But Esther decided to help her people, even though she was very scared. She knew that one way or another, something horrible was going to happen—but fortunately God had different plans. She and her servants and all of the Jews prayed and fasted for three days and on the third day, Esther went to see the King. He surprised her by being happy to see her and asked her what she wanted and promised to give her just about anything, and she invited him and the evil Haman over for a big feast. Haman was thrilled because when someone invites you to eat with them, they are treating you like an equal or at least like you aren’t pond scum. But eating with a person in the ancient world was the same thing as accepting them. This was a great honor for Haman and after the feast he went back home and bragged to everyone he knew. The next day, however, things started going very badly for Haman and his plans started to really fall apart. But that’s for another broadcast. But he was looking forward to a second feast that Esther had invited them both to, one where she promised her husband, the King, that she would tell him what she wanted.

Haman was shocked to find out that Queen Esther was a Jew, and that her cousin Mordecai had saved the life of the King before he ever came to court. The King was also shocked, and very angry. He stormed out and Haman was so desperate for forgiveness from Esther that he fell down close enough to touch her and when the king came back, he thought that Haman was raping her and trying to take his Kingdom! Now do you see why it was so important to understand the stories of Absalom and Adonijah? Haman was executed, and Esther was given everything that Haman had ever owned. Mordecai became the Prime Minister and together, the two of them came up with a plan to save the Jews—a plan that God blessed so completely that the Jews were able to kill all of their enemies. And because of the great deliverance of their people, they instituted the Feast of Purim and the Jews honor God’s miraculous deliverance of His people even today.