Agent of love
An agent of love and transformation.
The king loved Esther more than all the other women; of all the virgins she won his favour and devotion, so that he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti. Then the king gave a great banquet to all his officials and ministers –‘Esther’s banquet’. He also granted a holiday to the provinces and gave gifts with royal liberality.
Something to think about
The second chapter of Esther tells us how the harem of King Ahashuerus (also known as Xerxes) was managed. It is an account of the depravity and cruelty which often accompanies power – a state of affairs as familiar in our own time as it was in the ancient world. Esther represents a purity and humility which saved her from the degradation of lust and subsequent indifference which underpinned the rota for the king’s bed. She was, in her apparently small way, an agent of love and transformation.
The story may seem almost too good to be true, but to be cynical would be to believe that the divine love cannot permeate and redeem even in the most oppressive of circumstances. Esther’s interaction with realpolitik was to save her people. It did Ahashuerus some good too.