The Girl Who Hid Her Name

The empire stretched from India to Cush, and King Xerxes ruled over its hundred and twenty-seven provinces from his citadel at Susa. In the third year of his reign, he threw a feast unlike any other. For a hundred and eighty days he displayed the vast wealth of his kingdom and the splendor of his majesty, and when those days ended, he held a seven-day banquet in the garden court of the palace. Linen and purple hung from silver rings on marble pillars. Wine flowed from golden goblets, each one different from the next, and every man drank according to his own pleasure. In her own quarters, Queen Vashti hosted a banquet for the women.

On the seventh day, when the king’s heart was merry with wine, he commanded his seven eunuchs to bring Queen Vashti before him wearing her royal crown, so that the peoples and officials could behold her beauty. But Queen Vashti refused to come. Word of her refusal spread, and the king burned with anger. His wise men warned that her defiance would ripple outward to every woman in the provinces, and so it was decreed that Vashti would never again enter the king’s presence, and that her royal position would be given to another more worthy than she.

When the king’s fury subsided, his attendants proposed a search. Beautiful young virgins would be gathered from every province and brought to the harem at Susa, placed under the care of Hegai, the king’s eunuch. Whichever young woman pleased the king would become queen in Vashti’s place. The plan delighted the king, and messengers carried the decree throughout the empire.

In the citadel of Susa there lived a Jew named Mordecai, a Benjamite who had been carried into exile from Jerusalem. He was raising his cousin Hadassah, also called Esther, for she had neither father nor mother. The young woman was lovely in form and features, and when her parents died, Mordecai had taken her as his own daughter.

When the king’s command was proclaimed, many young women were gathered to Susa, and Esther was taken to the palace and entrusted to Hegai. She pleased him and won his favor at once. He quickly provided her with beauty treatments and her portion of food, assigned her seven select maidservants, and moved her and her maids to the best place in the harem. Esther had not revealed her people or her family, because Mordecai had instructed her not to. Every day Mordecai walked back and forth near the courtyard of the harem to learn how Esther was and what was happening to her.

The time came for each young woman to go to the king, after twelve months of prescribed beauty treatments—six months with oil of myrrh and six with perfumes and cosmetics. When Esther’s turn arrived, she asked for nothing beyond what Hegai advised, and she won the favor of everyone who saw her.

Esther was taken to King Xerxes in the royal residence in the tenth month, the month of Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign. And the king loved Esther more than all the other women, and she found grace and favor in his sight more than all the other virgins. So he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen in place of Vashti. Then the king held a great banquet, Esther’s banquet, for all his officials and servants. He proclaimed a holiday throughout the provinces and gave gifts with royal generosity.

Even after she was crowned, Esther still had not revealed her family or her people, just as Mordecai had directed her; she continued to obey his command as she had when he was raising her. During those days, while Mordecai was sitting at the king’s gate, two of the king’s eunuchs, Bigthan and Teresh, who guarded the entrance, grew angry and conspired to assassinate King Xerxes. The plot became known to Mordecai, and he reported it to Queen Esther, who in turn told the king, crediting Mordecai.

The report was investigated and found to be true, and the two conspirators were hanged on the gallows. And all of it was recorded in the Book of the Chronicles in the presence of the king.