James Brown

I was also thinking of Xerxes' first wife, Vashti, being asked to dance seductively for his drunken party guests (and if you think that the text does not justify reading anything sexual into the passage then I can't help that.) That Vashti refused to do so (rightly I should add) forced him to eliminate her, and I'll wager that didn't mean setting her up in a cozy garden home on the far side of the kingdom.

I was also thinking of Xerxes so shamed by his wife's refusal to shame herself that he issued a decreee that "all the wives shall give to their husbands honor, both the great and the small" and "that every man should bear rule over his own house." In other words, let's show these uppity women who's boss.

I was also thinking about how "all the fair young virgins" were brought to the palace so that poor King Xerxes doesn't have to go without a wife. This was no American Idol tryouts to be narrowed down to one lucky winner. Even the Veggie Tales cartoon shows reluctant Esther being hauled away from her home and family to the palace in a paddy wagon.

I was also thinking about how it takes twelve months for women to "purify" themselves before they can be seen by the king--you know, because women are so unclean.

I was also thinking about how Esther convinced the king of hanging Haman's ten sons for the crime of being Haman's son.

We can quibble over whether killing 75,000 people as an act of self-defense is barbaric or not. I tend to think it is, but then I think the same thing of the world's only superpower bombing Iraq because of one tinpot dictator with a decimated army who farted in the U.N.'s general direction.

But I could be wrong.

-Jay-

I've wondered about this. Was the purpose of the "purification" to allow time for any of them who may have been pregnant to give birth, and thereby "prove" their virginity?