Queen Esther Was a Sniveling Coward

This has nothing to do with Abelard, Johnny Cash, or politics. I'm just feeling contrary today and the character of Queen Esther is one of those Bible misreadings that I've been harping on for 20 years. Yes, I know she's always presented as a heroine who courageously faced down King Artaxerxes and saved her people. I argue instead that she was an immoral, cowardly woman who did the right thing in the end despite herself. Here's the evidence:

1. How did Esther become queen? We teach kids in Sunday School that it was a "beauty contest" of sorts. Well, "of sorts" is relevant here. It was a sexual contest. The king tested out a whole bunch of young virginal women and Esther won--either because of a stunning appearance or because she had been coached in things that virginal young women would not have normally known. In either case, she won her position by commiting an act of sexual immorality. Please note the contrast here with the woman she replaced. Queen Vashti refused to disgrace her self and her position by dancing a lewd dance in front of the king's male friends. She had character; Esther didn't.

2. Whom did Esther marry? When she won the contest, she was invited to marry the King of Persia. Not a bad deal. Unless, of course, you're a good Jewish girl who knows that God's laws do not allow you to marry a foreigner, at least one who does not acknowledge your God as Lord. This was expressly forbidden. But, no, Esther was not one to let such trifles as obedience to God's laws stand in her way, particularly after proving her value in the bed of a total stranger. Here comes the bride...

3. When did Esther act to save her people? When Haman set out to kill all the Jews, Esther was the only person in a position to do something on their behalf. But she didn't. Was she the only person in the country who did not know of Haman's decree? Or was she just insensitive to their plight and/or covering her own butt? It took the intervention of Mordecai before Esther was finally motivated to act. Even then, she wimped out the first time. And the second time. It took three tries before Esther summoned the courage to talk to her husband about possibly letting her people off the hook.

Someone's going to object that Esther had little control over her life--that she was probably coerced into the contest and into marriage. But you do not hear such reluctance in the text. And, even if she were, Esther still had options available to her. Not too many years before, three young Jewish men preferred death in the furnace to disobeying the God they loved. There is nothing of heroic choices in Esther's motives or behaviors. She had accommodated herself quite nicely to the moral climate of the Persian court and only very reluctantly "outed" herself as a Jew.

There are some who will argue that the story of Esther is not historical; it is a myth about God's preservation of His People. Maybe so. God does have a habit of picking unlikely people to accomplish His will and I am willing to acknowledge that He may have chosen Esther for this role for His own unique and inscrutible purposes. Even so, He chose her in spite of her character, not because of it.

It is instructive that she is known to us by her Persian name, Esther. The little Jewish girl named Hadassah must have been left far, far behind. 'Tis a pity. I wonder what she could have become?