Esther part Deux

The book of Esther is a 5th century sitcom, a tragic sitcom, but still a sitcom. So here's the first character of the sitcom: King Xerxes. King Xerxes is the only character that is involved from the very beginning of the book to the very end of the book, he is also the character who is singled out as the greatest fool in the book. He is a buffoon, a laughable leader, a joke.

Let’s check it out. First thing is his name. When you interpret his name into Hebrew just saying the name makes you laugh. So any Jewish person—by the way did you know that Jews were first called Jews while in exile in Babylon, they were named for the home of Judah—anyway, any Jewish person who read the opening sentences would already being doing a chuckle and then he’d go into some really great laughter because when you translate King Xerxes into Hebrew, the name means something like King Headache. We’re already getting some laughter going—like you get in Doonesbury Cartoons that make fun of leaders in subtle ways.

In chapter 1.2 we get more insight into this buffoon of a king. At that time King Xerxes reigned from his royal throne in the citadel of Susa… One word in this verse starts setting us up for a kind of silliness. The word is royal—the writer of Esther goes over the top with this whole concept of royal. It is so over the top that it is clear that what the writer is doing is mocking the king’s kingliness, making a joke of it. Kathleen O’Connor summarizes the whole deal for us, “…he serves royal wine and gives royal orders. The king has royal provinces, the royal palace, the royal gate, royal servants, royal laws, royal secretaries, royal governors, royal eunuchs, royal treasuries, a royal crown. He shows royal favor and owns a royal herd. Royal couriers go out on swift royal steeds. Haman (a character we’ll be introduced to in a moment)takes royalty and its trappings over the top. In his hopes to be the man whom the king will honor, he wants to wear the royal robes that the king himself has worn, ride the royal horse the king himself has ridden, and most ridiculously, the royal horse must be wearing a royal crown upon its head. What we see is a court and especially a king who is full of himself, but the truth is he shouldn’t be. After all, he can’t for the life of him make a decision on his own. You’ve seen the type in a sitcom or movie somewhere. The guy at the top who couldn’t make a good decision if his life depended on it. For those of you who remember the movie The Secret of My Success think of the guy at the top of the corporation that Michael J. Fox is taking over—he doesn’t have a clue that he can’t make a decent decision, that his wife is sleeping around, that everything is crumbling around him. We read in Chapter 1.13 Since it was customary for the king to consult experts in matters of law and justice, he spoke with the wise men who understood the times ¹⁴ and were closest to the king-Carshena, Shethar, Admatha, Tarshish, Meres, Marsena and Memucan, the seven nobles of Persia and Media who had special access to the king and were highest in the kingdom. This sounds like a reasonable thing to do, the queen’s done something he doesn’t like and now he needs some advice on what to do. But when you follow this royal king throughout the book of Esther what you find is that he can’t make a decision for the life of him. He’s always got to have someone else make the decision, always someone else taking the initiative. This guy soon looks like the worst bumbling incompetent one could have ever encountered.

Next time: More on the king