Study 4: Esther 2:11-20

As I was reading about all the "beauty treatments" the candidates for Queen Vashti's replacement were subjected to--a six month oil of myrrh treatment followed by a six month perfume and cosmetics treatment--my mind kept thinking about the way our own culture objectifies and consumes human beings (and in particular, women) like that. Subjecting a helpless girl to a year-long beautification ordeal on the off chance that she might please the tastes of a decadent (seemingly insatiable) Emperor, who is himself the embodiment of a decadent (seemingly insatiable) culture, doesn't seem that different from our own culture's obsession with female beauty and body-image. Think of the "use" of the female body in advertising media; think of the multi-billion-dollar-a-year cosmetics industry (or the thinness industry, or the plastic surgery industry); think of Hollywood's sexist cult of celebrity; think of the increasing pornographication of our culture and the implicit (often explicit) misogyny it expresses. The author of Esther, of course, didn't have any of these things in mind when he or she wrote this story down, but at the very least, not much has changed. 

This is why verse 2:15 was particularly haunting for me. When it's Esther's turn to "go in" to King Ahesuerus, she "asked for nothing, except what Hegai the king's eunuch suggested." The idea here is that each contestant in this insidious "contest" was allowed to bring anything she wanted into the King's chamber with her, to increase her chances of gratifying his desire (v.13). And Esther chose to go in "unarmed" (so to speak, more or less). I've mentioned before how the Book of Esther quite clearly has the story of King Saul and King David playing in the background, so when I read that, my mind went immediately to the story of David and Goliath. When David is about to square off against Goliath, he tries on Saul's armour, then specifically chooses to go into battle with nothing other than his sling. He goes up against Goliath, that is, "unarmed" (so to speak, more or less). Maybe, I'm reading too much into this, but Esther seems to be doing the same thing here, as David did when he faced Goliath. And if it's true, it would mean that, for the author of Esther (and for God), King Ahasuerus’ “beauty contest" is as pernicious an evil as Goliath was, back in the day, and that ultimately, God intends to overthrow this evil as unexpectedly and as decisively as he did Goliath. You can make up your own mind on that one, but for me, it speaks a prophetic word against all the “Ahasuerean” tendencies of our own culture to objectify and dehumanize and consume human beings (and again, women in particular; see above). It sort of hits you like a sling-stone to the forehead: when the powerful objectify the vulnerable, God in his Messiah stands on the side of the objectified, and decisively against the objectifiers. 

Discussion Questions 
  1. What are your thought about the one year long beauty treatment process? It is described in scripture so I think, is there to give us reason to pause. What compares in our society today to this type of body obsession? 
  2. We could make strong case that objectifying females happens in our society today very much like it did was in Esther’s day. Do you think, in our culture, this is true for only women?
  3. Esther go to the king “unarmed so to speak”. What other examples are there in the bible that teach us that we don’t need “ props”, but rather we should put our trust in our heavenly Father in all life’s situations? What do you think about the analogy of David and Goliath as a way of explaining what is going on in this passage from Esther?

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