Queen Esther and how the book is presented

[LovebirdsFlying]

It's not the Scriptures themselves I'm discussing. It's the way I've always heard this book of the Bible presented, and I'm thinking there is a better, more accurate way to draw lessons from these events. I am not presuming to criticize the Bible. The book of Esther is told as a narration, not as a commentary. It says this thing happened, then that thing happened, and this person said this and did that, without making any evaluation on whether any of it is good or bad. (Possible exception in Haman's case. In his prideful hatred, he was obviously scheming.) The story is told, and included in the Bible, for God's reasons. I'm not saying He, or any words in the book, are wrong.

Yet every sermon I have heard on the book of Esther goes along the lines of, "Bad Queen Vashti! She got the punishment she richly deserved for disobeying her husband! Good Queen Esther! She was properly meek and subservient!" Not to mention that Esther was chosen based on her looks in the first place. Everybody knows looking beautiful and doing as she's told is a woman's only purpose in life. If she isn't meeting that standard, it's OK to kick her out and get a new one. Again, the Bible isn't stating this, but that was apparently the thinking of the day, and some people use this book to illustrate that it should still be so.

You know what? If I were in Vashti's position, I wouldn't have come either. King Ahasuerus and his cronies had been drinking and partying for days, and it is outright stated that they were stinking sloshed. Then to summon her just so he could put her on display, showing off how beautiful she was? "Hey, y'all. (hic) I gotta great idea. Wanna have some fun? Let me call my wife in here, so you can check out the eye candy. Hey, sweet cheeks, get in here!"

Have you ever been a woman surrounded by a bunch of rowdy, intoxicated men? They weren't about to stop with just gawking and leering at her. They were going to be slurring out catcalls. Chances are, they were going to get handsy. Who knows what could have happened to her? Of course she wouldn't come.

So the King's advisors were afraid this was going to set a precedent, and all women everywhere were going to start disobeying their husbands. Rest assured, my husband would NEVER expect me to place myself in a dangerous predicament, and no good husband ever should. King Ahasuerus would have been a lot more respectable if, after he sobered up, he apologized to his wife for his unreasonable demand, and took steps to see that it never happened again.

That would have made him a better King. But then Esther wouldn't have become Queen, and if she hadn't become Queen, then she wouldn't have had the opportunity to intervene when her people were threatened. That's what the book all leads up to. But instead of focusing on Esther becoming Queen by God's design, so she could be in a position to save her people, a lot of preachers spend too much time contrasting Esther with Vashti, one being good and the other being bad. Some people even lump Vashti into the same classification as Jezebel, just because she wouldn't jump when her husband called her. Proper womanly character is not the central theme of the book. God placing people where He can use them to make great changes, is.

I did hear one preacher say, when leading a Bible study, that perhaps God was protecting Vashti by taking her out of an abusive situation. After all, if her husband would so willingly expose her to that kind of danger, then somewhere down the line, he and his drinking buddies might have ended up doing something even worse to her. Things like this almost always escalate. They don't get better. At least that's a small departure from the typical "Vashti was bad and disobeyed her husband, and kicking her out on her ear was completely justified" interpretation that I usually hear.

When pinned to the wall by the women in the group, the preacher did admit that Vashti did nothing wrong. She was only protecting herself.

OK, I got the vent off my chest. Thank you for listening. Anyone is welcome to comment.

 

[PloverWing]

Yikes. I've never heard a sermon like that.

I haven't actually heard many sermons on Esther at all. It only shows up once in our lectionary, so, once every three years. I don't actually remember what our parish priests have said on those Sundays.

The commentary in the study Bible I use fits your interpretation, and I think that's what I've seen in commentaries elsewhere. The king was rude and drunk, and Vashti didn't want to be shown off in that kind of situation, so she said "no". Entirely justified, except that the king gets what the king wants in that kind of society, so he tossed her out. And now Esther is next in line. Esther is stepping into a very dangerous situation -- she knows it, the storyteller knows it, we the readers know it -- and that danger is part of the suspense of the story. It's why she has to go through the two-banquet thing; her husband is a dangerous and unpredictable man.

It's a story about living in a dangerous situation among dangerous people, and finding the courage to do what's right anyway. "What's right" isn't about obeying your husband, good grief. It's about finding ways to do things like prevent genocide, which Esther does in fact accomplish.

 

[LovebirdsFlying]

Since posting this, I have read other studies. According to some Jewish narratives, deposing Queen Vashti also meant killing her. Disobeying her husband, who was also the King, amounted to treason. But the stories state that Ahasuerus carried out this sentence while still drunk and hazy, and he didn't fully know what he was doing. When he came to his senses, he regretted his actions.

Who really knows what happened to Vashti after that night?

 

[Xeno.of.athens]

Since posting this, I have read other studies. According to some Jewish narratives, deposing Queen Vashti also meant killing her. Disobeying her husband, who was also the King, amounted to treason. But the stories state that Ahasuerus carried out this sentence while still drunk and hazy, and he didn't fully know what he was doing. When he came to his senses, he regretted his actions.

Who really knows what happened to Vashti after that night?

Have a look at the longer (Catholic canonical) book of Esther rather than the shortened version present in Jewish and Protestant scriptures.