friend asked Xerxes if his youngest son might stay with him on the farm to help him look after it. He had three other sons in the army and wondered whether the youngest one might stay at home. Xerxes had the young lad brought forward, had the boy cut in half down the middle, had his army march between the two halves, and said to his friend ‘enjoy your son’s company’ or something like that.
Xerxes/Ahasuerus is not a godly man. Yet he is the absolute ruler of many nations and peoples in this story, including many Jews.
Chapter 1 also deals with Vashti, Xerxes’ wife, the first woman in the Bible to demonstrate feminine assertiveness. Xerxes and his mates are drunk and they invite Vashti in to come and join the fun. Vashti tells them to get stuffed. Xerxes responds with something as chauvinistic as Vashti’s action was feminist – he holds a beauty contest to find a fitting replacement for Vashti.
Xerxes pulls in girls from across the empire, has them dressed up and perfumed up, gives each of them a trial run in bed, and promises to the one who tickles his fancy most, that she will become the new queen of Persia. Enter Esther.
Chapter 2 outlines Esther’s rise to power. She pleases the king more than any of her contemporaries, and is much encouraged by her uncle Mordechai – himself a loyal servant of the king who helps to uncover a plot to assassinate Xerxes, and so earns the king’s favour.
Both Esther and Mordechai are Jews, but Mordechai seems to prefer to remain quiet about his Jewishness, and encourages Esther to do the same. Why? Because there seems to be a fair degree of anti-Semitism spreading through the empire, as becomes clear in Chapter 3 when we meet Haman –