Wednesday Bible Study: Cattle call (or, Here she is, Miss Achaemenid)

I ' d be interested in hearing the reactions of some women to the story presented here. Basically, the king needs a new queen so they round up all the good looking virgins and he auditions them for a night until he finds the one he likes. Mordecai, the guardian of Hadassah aka Esther, goes along with this, as it ' s her chance to get ahead, winning the coveted title of Chief Sex Object of the Empire, and apparently it ' s fine with her as well. I wonder if the women of Hadassah, the U.S. Zionist women ' s organization, ever give a second thought to the name. I won ' t say more than that, people can read this for themselves.Do keep in mind that this is not the actual historical Xerxes. That ' s the name the NIV translators give him, it ' s not the name in the Masoretic text. This is evidently a fictitious generic Achaemenid emperor and there ' s no independent evidence that anything like this actually happened. However, it ' s obviously meant to be seen as plausible by readers. 2 Later when King Xerxes ’ fury had subsided, he remembered Vashti and what she had done and what he had decreed about her.2 Then the king ’s personal attendants proposed, “Let a search be made for beautiful young virgins for the king.3 Let the king appoint commissioners in every province of his realm to bring all these beautiful young women into the harem at the citadel of Susa. Let them be placed under the care of Hegai, the king ’s eunuch, who is in charge of the women...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs