Summary: King Xerxes of Persia gets a new wife named Esther, who is secretly Jewish. When a man named Haman plots to destroy the Jews, she risks her life and goes before Xerxes to stop his plot, on the advice of her cousin and adopted father Mordecai. Haman is put to death and the plot is stopped, and a festival called Purim is adopted to celebrate this occasion.
First, I know that there are some texts where a different book comes after Nehemiah (According to Wikipedia, in the Eastern and Roman Catholic Bibles the next book is Tobit, which is then followed by Judith, which is finally followed by Esther), but I’m going straight through with my Good News Bible version.
So, like I said in the summary, the main focus of this book is the plot by Haman to destroy the Jews. And when I say “plot,” I mean it’s like an evil supervillain’s plot to destroy Metropolis or something. First, the reason he’s even angry (at every Jew everywhere, remember) is that Mordecai, one guy, is not allowed to bow to Haman (because he’s a Jew, though I don’t remember exactly where that comes from and I can’t be bothered to find out). So he decides…well, here’s what he decides:
“Haman was furious when he realized that Mordecai was not going to kneel and bow to him, and when he learned that Mordecai was a Jew, he decided to do more than punish Mordecai alone. He made plans to kill every Jew in the Persian Empire.” (Esther 3.5-6)
I look at that, and I see Lex Luthor or Dr Octopus or Willow from Buffy when she was evil. It’s just such a ridiculous thing to do, especially because Xerxes agrees to it almost by accident. Haman tells him that there is a race of people who observe their own customs and don’t obey the laws of the empire, so they should all be killed. Xerxes, naturally, responds by not even asking who these people are and giving Haman full authority to kill all of them. So, Haman is like the sketchy Wormtongue guy in Lord Of The Rings who makes the king do things without actually telling him what these things are.
Then, Haman posts a notice in all cities of the Persian Empire that all the Jews are to be killed on a specific date. And that notice can be read by everyone, even the Jews. First off, that weakness of overconfidence can also be attributed to, you know, most villains in movies. Second, this is a plan that is (other than telling your victims about it) almost identical to Star Wars Episode III when the Emperor sent all the bad guys to hunt down and kill all the Jedi. I mean, the Jews even have magic powers that they get if they pray hard enough to God. That’s how close the comparison is.
So, Mordecai convinces Esther to risk her life in going to the king (Usually, a queen who appears before the king without being summoned is put to death). Her possible self-sacrifice to save her people is a lot like Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum going to the alien ship in Independence Day (yeah, I just busted out an Independence Day reference, and it sadly fits better than Randy Quaid’s actual self-sacrifice in the movie).
Esther is, of course, spared, and she asks the king to be her guest at a banquet. At this banquet, Haman is embarrassed by the king honoring Mordecai, and overcompensates with a ridiculously grandiose gesture – in this case, he builds a gallows 75 feet tall – intended to kill him (Live Free or Die Hard, when the bad guy gets annoyed at McClane taking over the power station and killing his girlfriend, so he sends all the natural gas back to blow it up). Then, naturally, his own weapon comes back to kill him when Xerxes has him hung on the gallows instead of Mordecai (Let’s stay with Die Hard 4, when McClane makes the bad guy shoot himself by shooting through McClane’s shoulder into the bad guy’s heart).
And honestly, if I found these acts to be implausible (and oh, how I found them implausible) in the movies I just named (Lord Of The Rings excepted), then shouldn’t I do the same in this book? And really, the movies have an out here, because they’re supposed to be mindless entertainment that’s not much more than fun while Esther is supposed to be a serious thing that actually happened. Stupid action movies never claim to be more than stupid action movies. Stupid book get revered for thousands of years as literal truth and the word of God, and to doubt it is to be a heretic.
I just wish there was a Bible equivalent of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Some other notes…
- Reading Chapter 5, which was all about Haman’s humiliation watching King Xerxes honor Mordecai and coming up with his plan to build the gallows, I wonder how many anti-Semitic Christians have read this book. There’s got to be some, right? And then I wonder how many of them thought “Oh come on, Haman! You can’t kill all the Jews! They’re God’s people! What the hell is wrong with you?” It’s a natural thing to think because you’re on their side during the entire story. And then I wonder how many of them who thought that didn’t realize the ridiculous irony of thinking that. For that last one, I’d say most of them.
- I like that twice, after telling about how the Jews defeated their enemies (because they still got attacked by a few people, but Xerxes proclaimed that they would be allowed to kill in self-defense), the book goes out of its way to point out that there was no looting. We’re so proud of you, Jews Who Just Killed A Bunch Of People!
- Also, when Esther becomes queen at the beginning of the book, the king declares a holiday. Jeez, Xerxes. You’ll never become a giant industrial power if you let your people take days off all willy-nilly. I wouldn’t be surprised if some Macedonian dude ended up conquering all your land and destroying your empire.
