Esther Redux, Chapters 13-16: Stupid is as stupid does

Chapter 13

The king sends a letter to his governors saying he wants peace and free movement in his kingdom, but doesn't have it. He asked his counsellors how to get it and they told him that there are these people, see, who are everywhere and have their own laws and won't follow regular laws, and they are preventing peace. The only solution is to kill them all on the fourteenth day of the twelfth month of this year. Then there will be peace.

Mardocheus hears all this and prays to god to explain that he couldn't bow down to Aman. H ecould have kissed his feet, but he can only bow to god, even if it meant his entire people would be massacred. So now he wants god to spare the people.

Chapter 14

Queen Esther puts on mourning clothes and covers herself in ashes and dung, then prays to god to ask why enslaving the Jews and destroying their idols wasn't enough for the Babylonians and now they want to kill them all. She also wants god to make her eloquent when she goes to speak to the king so she can turn him against Aman. We also find out that she hates non-Jews and doesn't like having sex with uncircumcised men. Wait, is her husband circumcised? She also hates her fancy clothes and crown as much as she hates menstrual pads and I am so there with you sister. She confesses that she never wears her crown in private because that would just be pretentious. She refuses to eat at Aman's table and barely eats at her husband's table, let alone drinking. She's a miserable queen. I do not feel sorry for her.

Chapter 15

After 3 days of being covered in dung, Esther finally takes a bath. Outwardly, she's a typical hot chick, but inside she's quaking with fear. She goes in to see the king, who is dressed in his finest and looking fierce. She faints. While she's passed out, god changes the king's mood and he goes to comfort his wife. He promises not to kill her and puts his sceptre on her neck, which I so hope is a sexual metaphor. She says that he looked like an angel on the throne and he's so awesome and I really hope he's circumcised because otherwise she's an asshole. Then she faints again.

Chapter 16

Back to the letter? Speaking in general? Who knows? Anyway, King Artaxerxes appears to be writing a new letter, or possibly continuing the same letter to his governors. He confesses that Aman pulled the wool over his eyes, but that Esther has made him see the light and now he loves the Jews. He decrees that they can live under their own laws and that now everyone in his kingdom has to celebrate Purim every year or risk being destroyed, demonstrating that he has learned nothing from this whole incident.

Esther Continued, Chapters 11 & 12

Way back in the Old Testament, there was a story about a very stupid Babylonian king named Ashureus who tried to get his wife to take off her clothes in front of some of his important guests. When she refused, he had her killed and found her replacement through a beauty pageant. The winner was Esther, one of the enslaved Israelites. Esther happens to have an idiotic uncle named Mordecai who refuses to bow down to some bigwig, which nearly starts a genocide of all the Israelites, but luckily Esther is nearly as hot as Judith and is able to intervene and save her people, then asks for an order to exterminate all their would-be genocidaires, which ends in 75 000 deaths and a Jewish holiday. Now the book bizarrely picks back up with some extra verses at the end of chapter 10 about a guy named Mardocheus who has a dream about a river that represents Esther. There are two dragons in the dream that stand for the countries that tried to destroy Israel. He also remembers the dice, or pur that were cast in the first part of the book that were supposed to determine which Israelites would die first, but god saved the people and the holiday became Purim.

Chapter 11

We get a blessedly brief genealogy of Mardocheus that tells us absolutely nothing. It turns out he's a slave at the king's court. We get another account of his dream about dragons and war and a fountain that floods and the sun and some weak people who rise up and defeat the strong. When he wakes up, he tries to remember the dream but doesn't write it in his dream journal.

Chapter 12

Mardocheus usually hangs out with two eunuchs named Gabatha and Tharra, plus some other slaves. He mostly saves up gossip so he can use it against people in the future. One day the eunuchs tell him about their plot to kill the king to avenge their balls and he notifies the king about the plot. The eunuchs are strangled and Mardocheus earns himself a promotion to court slave. He promptly gains an enemy in Aman, who was friends with the two dead eunuchs.

Isaiah, Chapters 56 & 57: The first mass hysteria

Chapter 56

Sabbath keepers rule. Suddenly, second-generation Jewish converts are totally kosher. Note it says nothing about converts themselves. Eunuchs should not complain about their shortcomings, because if they keep sabbath, they'll get a memorial plaque in the temple and an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off (v. 5) Ooh, that's a low blow. Please please please tell me that was on purpose.

Chapter 57

Apparently the bible's reason for why bad things happen to good people is that god is protecting them from future evil. One starts to see why Republicans love this book so much, with their fear of the future and nostalgia for a past that never existed.

Then the insults against the Molechites start. You remember them, right? Way back in Numbers, or was it Joshua? Somewhere back at the beginning of the bible, when reading it and creating a blog seemed like a lark, they were the child-sacrificing squatters the Israelites had to evict. Well, it must not have gone very well because here we are listening to him rant on about how their gods are only smooth stones in river valleys and how stupid it is to build altars in the mountains, as if Joshua didn't do that. They also cover themselves in ointments and have sex with the king à la Esther and at this point it starts to seem more like 'do as I say, not as my people do.'

Anyway, they seem to have betrayed god and now he's fixing to punish them. He tried to fix them, but it didn't work, so smiting is in order.

Esther, Chapters 8-10: The vengeful queen

Chapter 8
The king gives Esther all of Haman's wealth and makes Mordecai prime minister. Esther begs the king to lift the extermination order, and he does. Haman is impaled on the stake. Then things get ugly. Another order is issued, this time to kill everyone that would assault them (v. 11) and their families. How quickly the victims become the agressors! A lot of people convert to Judaism to hide.

Chapter 9

The Jews gather together to exterminate their enemies, including Haman's ten sons. But that's not enough, so Esther asks for another day of slaughter. All told, 75 810 people die in those two days.

To celebrate, the Jews get together and have a party. They decide to make the anniversary of their conquest a national holiday and call it purim, after the lots that were cast to determine Haman's would-be slaughter.

Chapter 10

The king raises taxes. There's no Tea Party revolt. Mordecai is a hero. The end.

Esther, Chapters 6 & 7: How to cure insomnia

Chapter 6

The king can't sleep, so he asks his servants to read to him from Chronicles. That certainly put me to sleep. They happen to open the book to the section where Mordecai rats out the two conspirators against the king. That reminds Ahasuerus that he hasn't rewarded his gatekeeper.

He looks into the courtyard and happens to see Haman, who has woken up bright and early for the hanging. The king asks him how he should honour a man who pleases him. Haman, thinking he's about to get a reward, he asks for the kings used robes, horse, and crown. Think big, Haman. Then, to his utter shock, the king orders him to dress up Mordecai and parade him around on his horse. Haman has no choice but to obey. Then he goes home and sulks and bitches to his wife and friends. Then the king's servants arrive to remind him about Esther's second banquet.

Chapter 7

The king and Haman arrive for the banquet. Before they even start eating, Ahasuerus is asking Esther to come out with her request, not that I blame him. She finally asks him to pardon the Israelites. Ahasuerus is so dumb he doesn't even remember granting permission to kill the Jews, nor who sought it. Esther points to Haman, who goes pale. The king goes out to the garden to cool off, while Haman makes the unwise decision to lay down on the same sofa as Esther. When Xerxes comes back, he thinks Haman is trying to rape her and orders him hoisted by his own petard.

Esther, Chapter 5: Mordecai's foolish pride

After three days of fasting, Esther puts on her prettiest frock and heads in to see the king. He holds out the sceptre to her, granting her permission to speak. He offers her anything she wants, because she's so freaking hot, even half the kingdom. No, she just wants him and Haman to come to a banquet. He agrees immediately.

At the banquet, the king knows something is still up so he asks her to come out with it. She waffles a bit, and only asks them to come back again tomorrow for another meal.

Haman leaves, in a great mood because he got to schmooze with the king and queen, but it sours immediately when he comes to the palace gate and meets Mordecai, who has clearly learned nothing, and refuses to bow again. He goes home to his wife and raves about the banquet and Mordecai's foolish pride, and vows to build a 50-foot gallows the next day to hang him from. Well deserved, I'd say.

Esther, Chapters 4: Mordecai the big, fat idiot

Chapter 4

Mordecai hears that the Jews are going to be killed and it's all his fault. He runs around wailing in sackcloth and ashes, as do all the other Israelites, rather than, you know, whittling spears or something intelligent. Esther hears about the sackcloth and tries to send her uncle some clothes, proving the apple didn't fall far from the stupid tree, and is surprised when they get sent back. Only then does she send her eunuch out to find out what happened. He explains it and tells the eunuch to ask Esther to intervene with the king.

Esther immediately starts whining that only people who've been summoned by the king can meet with him, and people who try to sneak in get killed. Would that had been the case for the Salahis. She, just two chapters ago the hottest virgin in the kingdom, hasn't been called for 30 days.

He gets nasty in reply, saying her status won't protect her and if she won't speak up, another force will intervene and save them, only her house will go down in flames. Esther believes him and asks him to tell the Israelites to fast for three days while she works up her courage to go to the king.

Esther, Chapter 3: Haman, the first persecutor of the Jews

Haman is appointed to some important post in Ahasuerus' court, and all the servants save Mordecai bow down to him. Because no human being has ever been able to mind his business for longer than 5 seconds, the other servants immediately start hassling him about it, especially since he told them he's an Israelite. They also snitch on him to Haman. You especially see this kind of behaviour between smokers and non-smokers in modern offices.

Of course, now that it has been pointed out to him, Haman has to get angry. At first he decides only to punish Mordecai, but there hasn't been a massacre now for like, 3 books, so of course Haman decides to wipe out the Israelites. He casts lots to figure out which day to start the massacre. Lots are called Pur, hence the festival of Purim.

He finally thinks to ask the king if he can start the first Holocaust, framing it in terms of There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of thy kingdom; and their laws are diverse from all people; neither keep they the king's laws: therefore it is not for the king's profit to suffer them (v. 8) which is pretty much the excuse given by every government in history to deport people it doesn't like, from Jews everywhere to Protestants in France to Muslims in modern-day Europe. The king is still distracted by his new harem of virgins, and he gives his blessing.

Finally, the day of killing arrives. Letters are sent to all the towns and villages, but the city of Shushan is perplexed.

Esther, Chapter 2: Pageant Queen

Today: virgin beauty pagents!

Ahasuerus discovers that an empty bed is not as fun as it fist seems, and decides to get married again. His ministers send out minions to all the provinces to round up hot young virgins and bring them to Senor Frog's the palace. The king will then crown the one he likes the best.

Now, working in the palace is a certain Mordecai, an Israelite, who happens to be the sole guardian of his niece Esther, who happens to be very hot. So she enters the wet t-shirt contest palace with the other babes.

Here's how the contest works: All the nubile young things get a first opportunity to go in to king Ahasuerus (v. 12). She then spends 12 months developing an eating disorder purifying herself. After that year, she gets a cash prize, and the chance to go back to the king's bedchamber, or whatever. If she lost enough weight and got those breast implants he likes her, she'll get called back when he feels like it.

Esther is the Miss Congeniality of the harem, because she isn't a total bitch. Oddly enough the king also likes her, and decides to make her his queen. He throws a big party. Esther keeps her identity secret.

She endears herself even further to the king when Mordecai overhears two men plotting to assassinate the king and she tells him about the plan. They get hung for their troubles.

Esther, Chapter 1: Biblical Strippers

Joe Francis Ahasuerus tries to turn his wife into a stripper! Whoo-hoo! Let's get it on!

So Joe Francis Ahasuerus is the king of everything from India to Ethiopia. In the third year of his reign, he decides to throw a giant 6-month-long party to show how rich he is, although his decorating sense white, green, and blue, hangings, fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rings and pillars of marble: the beds were of gold and silver, upon a pavement of red, and blue, and white, and black, marble (v. 6) is that of a colour-blind 12 year old girl.

At some point, he goes on a 7-day bender with his closest advisors and gets the brilliant idea that they should all look at his wife, Vashti. I'm going to interpret this as a would-be 'Girls Gone Wild' moment. Some pedants will insist that this episode has nothing to do with sex, and that all Joe Ahasuerus wanted his wife to do was show her face. The point, however, is not what he wanted her to do, but that he wanted her to do it at all. She was doomed from the moment he made the decision. Poor Vashti refuses to let her husband objectify her, even for a t-shirt, thus causing his entourage to decide she's a 'frigid bitch' and decide to make an example of her before any other wives get the idea that they don't have to strip for their husbands' friends. Of course, had she done whatever he wanted, whether it was poke her head in to say 'hi' or let his friends eat sushi off her naked body, he would have decided she was a 'slut' and had to be punished to make an example for the other wives.

See, this is where I actually like the bible: when it's showing us that really, truly, nothing ever changes. Too bad it spends so much time talking about building temples and massacring enemies.

Joe Francis Ahasuerus decides that her punishment will be banishment from his sight and replacement by a younger, hotter, Stepford model. The apparent effect of this will be that all the wives shall give to their husbands honour, both to great and small (v. 20) because every man should bear rule in his own house (v. 22). Or, you know, it will make marital rape legal for the next two thousand-odd years.