Today, I am reading and commenting on Esther 1-3.

When I began reading this I immediately noticed that Xerxes sent seven eunuchs on the seventh day to bring Queen Vashti before him and then consulted seven experts of the law when she refused to come.  Then later when Esther entered into the care of Hegai, before she went before King Xerxes, Hegai assigned seven female attendants to her.  My first thought was that these references to seven were part of the Jewish belief that seven was a number indicating completion and perfection.  However, I noticed that all of these references to seven involved the Persian royal court, in particular the first two references.  So, I looked into the significance of the number seven in Ancient Persia.  I found that seven was a very important number for the Persians.  In fact, historically we know that Xerxes would have likely sent seven eunuchs to deliver his request/command to Queen Vashti, and would certainly have had a council of seven advisors he would have consulted when she refused.  Which brings me to the significance of seven female attendants being assigned to Esther.  Hegai assigning seven attendants to Esther suggest a level of favoritism towards Esther in a way that Jewish readers would not fully comprehend.  Initially all of this was just, “well, isn’t that interesting.”  As I wrote this I realized it impacts my thoughts about the entire Book of Esther.  For some years now, I have been torn as to whether the story of Esther actually happened in a way that we would recognize from the account given here.  The argument that it is a historical novella similar to others written in the latter part of the First Persian Empire has some merit, except for one fact, none of the references to that genre mentions any other texts which fall into it.

In any case, I find myself again today looking into how we understand a biblical passage more than into a study of the meaning of that passage.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.