Sunday Sermonette: Oink, oink

If you haven ' t already, please see the introduction to the Book of Esther that I posted yesterday. For Ch. 1, the main thing to keep in mind is that it is very unlikely the author intended this to be a story about the real emperor Xerxes. The Hebrew, Ahasuerus, is not the name of any actual Achaemenid emperor and we should assume that we are reading a story about a fictitious, generic emperor. That said, I would not be surprised if the real emperors, including Xerxes, were what we would consider actual sexist pigs. What we can ' t be sure of is how the author intended us to take Vashti ' s act of defiance, refusing to be paraded as a sex object. Obviously it turns out badly for her, but she must have expected that. Later Esther will make a different, pragmatic choice.1 This is what happened during the time of Xerxes,[a] the Xerxes who ruled over 127 provinces stretching from India to Cush[b]:2 At that time King Xerxes reigned from his royal throne in the citadel of Susa,3 and in the third year of his reign he gave a banquet for all his nobles and officials. The military leaders of Persia and Media, the princes, and the nobles of the provinces were present.4 For a full 180 days he displayed the vast wealth of his kingdom and the splendor and glory of his majesty.5 When these days were over, the king gave a banquet, lasting seven days, in the enclosed garden of the king ’s palace, for all the people from the least to the greatest who were in the c...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs