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The story of Esther is a pretty remarkable one. In it, an unlikely hero emerges despite her social and economical status. Esther, a Jewish woman living in Persia, is just a normal girl at the beginning of the story. Her life takes a twist when she is called to be “beautified” for the king, Ahasuerus. When Ahasuerus meets Esther, he soon makes her his queen. Eventually, Esther is thrown into a plot to save the Jewish people from annihilation. To us, this seems like a normal story, but it must have seemed bizarre to people around the era in which was written. Gender equality is higher now than it has ever been, but women were treated very unfairly during the times of the Old Testament.
Women in the Old Testament had to follow some very strict rules. According to B. A. Robinson, this list includes unmarried women not leaving home without their father’s permission, married women not being allowed to leave home without their husband’s permission, not being able to testify in court, not talking to strangers,not going to public venues, and having to wear veiled clothing in public. These sound archaic to us, but these laws were in effect during the time of Esther. I wonder if the reason King Ahasuerus’s first queen was so reluctant to show her face to the guests at the King’s party was because she knew that she was supposed to be veiled in public? In a way, she could have been punished for doing either choice. This is just one example of how unfairly women were treated in this era.
One reason that Esther’s story is so profound is that it breaks so many social norms. Specifically, I want to look at two things. The first is about the actual actions that Esther takes in her story. When you look at it, she takes quite the journey. She goes from being just a normal girl to becoming a concubine to the king and, eventually, the queen of the entire nation. Karen Johnson says in her paper that even Esther could not have predicted that she would rise to such positions. It really is a Disney moment isn’t it ( well except for the concubines and death)? Esther takes many actions as a queen that do not fit the standard actions of women during that time. Specifically, I am talking about her hold over the king. She asks the king for many favors, including the possibility to free her people, and he obliges her. Most women in this time did not have that kind of pull over their husbands, let alone the king! This makes Esther a hero, because she chooses to act to save her people rather than stand to the side and watch them suffer. This makes Esther somewhat of an innovator for the women of her time. The fact that she was the queen of the nation amplifies this, because surely everyone on the nation heard of Esther. This could be one of the events that slowly planted the seeds of change for women that led to them receiving more and more rights over the ages. This, I believe makes her a significant character in the Old Testament and role model for women of the time.
The second thing I want to look at is her story as a piece of literature. The book of Esther is different than most stories from that era or even hundreds of years after it was written. It has many traits that make it similar to other stories. It has its hero, its action, and its happy ending, but the fact that a woman is the main character makes it stand out from the crowd so to speak. You just did not see many stories from that time have women as main characters, especially ones with such power and dominance. I am sure that many people disputed and tried to destroy this story when it was first told. This is true probably for men, because no one likes to lose their power. Mark Driscoll says in his article that even men hundreds of years later, such as Martin Luther and John Calvin, disliked the book of Esther and tried to dispute it. The story of Esther even pokes at this concept in the section on the king’s first wife, almost as if the book predicts its controversial view. Hopefully, after hearing this information you will see that the book of Esther is not just a good story; it is a trend setter for literature on women. It started something that could show women of the age that they could move to a more gender-equal society. This proves to me that Esther is indeed a significant character in the Bible.
Breaking Down the Bible 