If you have never read it let me give you the highlights. A great and powerful king is having a huge party that lasts days. After a few days of drinking the kings decides he wants to show off his wife so he summons her. She tells him no. The king's advisors are horrified and the queen is then dismissed. So now the king doesn't have a queen. To rectify this there is a contest held. The most beautiful women in the area enter the contest, they have beauty treatments, are put in the best clothing, and are treated as future queens while living at the palace. Then they all go have an 'interview' with the king. The king then chooses the one who pleases him the most. The king chooses Esther, the heroine of the story.
This is a rough summary of the first 2 chapters. The rest of the story is wonderful and shows how God can work through the most difficult situations. I encourage you to read it.
But it is this part that has fascinated me lately.
I have had the pleasure of studying this book and the person of Esther in several classes. This part of the story always brings so much discussion and controversy. Who would ever do something like this?
I have heard more than once how wrong this is and how blessed we are to live in a time when this doesn't happen.
Really? This doesn't happen?
You mean there are not men out there who just get tired of there wives for some random reason and choose to find someone new? Really? I can think of a few politicians, actors, famous business men, and yes even sports icons who have done this very thing. Of course we do live in a time when women are able to do the very same thing, and some take full advantage of that fact.
And we wouldn't put a bunch of beautiful women in one huge house and have them vie for the attention of one man? Maybe not without a few T.V. cameras, a host, and a bunch of producers to call even more attention to it all. We can not forget however, that we are living in a time of equality of the sexes, so in the next season it will be a bunch of attractive men competing for one woman.
Yes, I have been reflecting on Esther. And the conclusion that I keep coming to is that we have not really changed so very much.
I'm so glad that there are more people who are paying attention to the feminine aspects of Scripture. You're right, nothing, in some regards, has changed at all. Sue Monk Kidd does some interesting writing about the feminine divine in Dance of the Dissident Daughter.
ReplyDeleteThanks Nancy! I'll have to read that book. I tend to like Sue Monk Kidd. Even if I don't agree or like what she writes it always makes me think, and that I love.
ReplyDeleteThe older I get, the more I recognize the strength and importance of the women in scripture. We have a lot of great models in both the New and Old Testaments.