The Book of Hiding

Gender, Ethnicity, Annihilation, and Esther

Timothy K. Beal

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• eBook ISBN: 9781134704729
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

The Book of Hiding offers a fluent and erudite analysis of the parallels between the Bible and contemporary discussions of gender, ethnicity and social ambiguity. Beal focuses particularly on the traditionally marginalised book of Esther, in order to examine closely the categories of self and other in relation to religion, sexism, nationalism, and the ever-looming legacies and future possibilities of annihilation. Beal applies the critical tools of contemporary theorists, such as Cixous, Irigaray and Levinas, challenging widely held assumptions about the moral and life-affirming message of Scripture and even about the presence of God in the book of Esther. The Book of Hiding draws together a variety of different perspectives and disciplines, creating a unique space for dialogue raising new questions and reconsidering old assumptions, which is profoundly interesting and well-articulated.

1 WRITING OUT, I

Then, in the presence of the king and the officials, Memucan said, “Queen Vashti has transgressed not only against the king, but also against all the chiefs, and against all the people in every one of King Ahasuerus’s provinces. For word of the queen will go out to all the women, and they will despise their lords with their eyes, saying ‘King Ahasuerus said to bring Vashti the queen into his presence, and she did not come.’ On that day the women of the chiefs of Persia-Media will talk to the chiefs of the king concerning the word that they heard about the queen, and there will be plenty of contempt and wrath. If it pleases the king, let a royal word go out from his presence, and let it be written among the laws of the Persians and the Medes so that it may not be changed, that Vashti shall never again come into the presence of King Ahasuerus, and let the king give her royal status to another who is more pleasing than her. Thus when the decree of the king is heard thoughout all his kingdom – vast as it is – all women will give rightful honor to their lords, from the greatest to the least.”

(Est 1:16–20)

Unroll the scroll of Esther, and open onto a many-splendored sea of booze. Indeed, it often appears that drinking parties are what float the plot. In the first nine verses of the story alone, there are three drinking parties. The first two are hosted by King Ahasuerus, who, as the story progresses, turns out to be a real wino who never turns down a drinking party. The third is hosted by Queen Vashti, very soon to be ex-Queen Vashti, written out by royal law for her refusal to be the king’s favorite object. Indeed, as the story opens, and as the wine flows from on high – and as the king becomes quite full of it – one quickly realizes that, in this kingdom, parties have something to do with national politics, and that national politics has something to do with sexual politics.

OPENINGS

When I ask college students in introductory biblical studies courses to give a synopsis of the book of Esther, I often find that the story of Vashti in chapter 1 is left out entirely. Why? Certainly it is not due to a lack of interest in this opening story, for once I ask them about Vashti we often spend the rest of the class session discussing her story and the sexual-political issues it raises. Rather, I suspect that many simply do not know what to do with it in relation to the rest of the book. How does this story about a woman who refuses to be the object of the king’s all-male gang ogle relate to the story of the orphan Jewish queen of Persia, her cousin Mordecai, and the struggle against Haman and his plans to annihilate all Jews? What kind of an “opening” is this?

Without realizing it, most of my students are dealing with this question much as a formalist biblical scholar would. They are reading chapter 1 as a story that serves its function within the larger narrative and then disappears nearly without a trace; that is, this opening is understood to be making space in the royal court for the entry of the permanent (“real”) cast members, after which it erases most of itself (except, of course, the king) and the questions it raises before they arrive. And so when it becomes time to talk about the story of Esther, Vashti gets short shrift.

Suspecting that there may be more to this opening in relation to the narrative that follows, my reading avoids such formal decapitation. As a way into the story world of Esther, I will argue that the gender-based conflict which opens the narrative indicates, on the one hand, the vulnerability of the “patriarchy” it is presenting, and, on the other, the extremes to which the male subject will go in order to maintain his position over against the woman-as-object. At the same time, the text locates dynamics of gender identity-building within a larger apparatus of ethnic identity-building. In the process of opening the story, then, Esther 1 opens up the possibility of a critique of the very gender- and ethnicity-coded political order it introduces.

Moreover, insofar as the narrative, in farcical fashion, indicates vulnerabilities within this kind of patriarchy, it also, more generally, insinuates the vulnerability of ostensible, centralized consolidations of power to peripheral subversion. As it makes a farce of royal, masculine power relations, it encourages identifications with that royal power’s ultimate abject, that which is neither subject nor object within the present order and which must therefore be pushed outside its borders. The abject is “what disturbs identity, system, order. What does not respect borders, positions, rules” (Kristeva 1982: 4; see below). In this case abjection is embodied in the other woman who refuses to be reduced to the object of the male ogle; later it will be embodied in the other Jew, construed as Persian law’s quint-essential perversion. As will be seen in subsequent chapters, the text of Esther builds a striking solidarity between the other woman Vashti, marked over against the subjects of the law (the king, Memucan, and the other officials), and Mordecai as the “other Jew” over against the same (but with Haman replacing Memucan). Thus as we read we may identify not with the subject of the law, at the center of ostensible power, but with the one marked for oblivion as that subject’s antithesis, and with forms of covert power that rely primarily on ambiguity.

HONOR, PLEASURE, AND OTHER
DIFFICULT OBJECTIVES

After a brief sketch of the setting (vv. 1–3a), the text dives straight into the first two drinking parties, hosted by the primary subject, King Ahasuerus (vv. 3b–8).¹ The fact that drinking is the primary focus of these festivals is clear not only from the word designating them (mishteh, a noun form of the Hebrew verb “to drink”), but also from the details describing them. Other than the decor in verse 6, all the details given about the parties have to do with drinking: the goblets in which the drinks were given, the potency of the wine, and the kind of drinking (“without constraint”) that the king wants his guests to enjoy.²

The first drinking fest lasts 180 days and includes all the king’s high officials and nobility who are “in his presence,” or more literally, “to his face” (l^epanayw).³ The host’s interest, explicitly related in verse 4, is to display his unequaled honor, greatness, and wealth. The kingdom is so secure that all its high officials can party on at the king’s open bar in the palace of Susa for over half a year. When the party is over, the king directs his attention to the other strata of his royal dominion, namely, “all the people who were found in the acropolis of Susa, from greatest to least” (v. 5), which advances and extends his purpose of displaying his own greatness. Thus the second party works to exhibit his unequaled greatness and honor over every social stratum. Already, then, a picture is developing in which all ostensible power, from greatest to least, is consolidated around and identified with the king, and with the palace at Susa as its central, physical location.

One can map the space of this narrative world as it emerges in terms of concentric circles of power. The king and his officials are located in the palace as the centermost ring, and the king himself, vacuous though he may be, is in the center of that center. In the second ring is Susa, and in the third ring are all the provinces “from India to Ethiopia.” Certain other details of this map will become important as the narrative develops. For example, the boundaries (palace gates, city gates, territorial borders), as threshold markers or limins, will gain significance, as will liminal figures such as Mordecai and the eunuchs who are often found occupying those thresholds.

Throughout these first eight verses, which are focused primarily on the innermost ring of power, emphasis on the security and greatness of Ahasuerus’s reign is excessive.⁴ There are, for example, five references to the king’s rule (m-l-k in nominal or verbal forms). Territorial references are mentioned repeatedly, along with several other words or phrases suggesting pre-eminence and/or security (“resting securely,” v. 2; “glorious” or “weighty riches,” “honor,” “splendor of his greatness,” “numerous,” v. 4; high numbers, vv. 1, 4–5; and lavish descriptions of the party decor, vv. 6–7). Perhaps most significantly, the purpose of the festivals is explicitly aimed at demonstrating the king’s honor (v. 4). Indeed, honor, most closely associated in Esther with y^eqar, is a central theme throughout the entire narrative, and emerges already here as an important means for consolidating power.⁵ As will soon become clear, moreover, the king’s royal honor, as presented here, is not unrelated to every man’s honor, especially concerning their status over against women. Such excessive emphasis on the king’s power pushes, it would seem, any insecurities to the margins. On the other hand, margins will possess no small significance in Esther.

The language of proximity in this narrative, already prevalent in the opening eight verses, also deserves special notice, for through it the relations between spatial location, identity, and power emerge as particularly significant. The phrase “in the presence of” (the construct lipnê or something closely related) occurs nine times in chapter 1 alone, all in reference to the king. In each case, it carries a connotation of control: to be in the king’s presence is – at least ostensibly – to be under his control. The hierarchical social order, on top of which the king “rests securely” (v. 2), can only be maintained if other members of that order remain fully present – or at least as long as they are readily presentable. This necessity will be especially important when it comes to Vashti.

In addition to proximity/distance – which itself implies inside/ outside as well – the narrative is dominated by the discourse of pleasing/ displeasing, which is developed primarily through verbal and adjectival forms of the word tob (“good,” “pleasing,” “to be good,” “to be pleasing”), and which is especially prevalent at key junctures in the narrative action involving the king. For example, it occurs five times in the interchanges of 1:10–22, with four of those occurrences concentrated around Vashti’s refusal to come and her subsequent ban (vv. 11, 19 [twice], and 21; see the subsequent discussion). To “be pleasing” is to confirm, or at least to appear to confirm, the order of things, to maintain stasis. Within the sexual political order, beauty and pleasure are associated with objectification – to be one of the objects by which the subject secures power publicly. Insofar as objectification is associated with presentability, moreover, the integration of proximity/distance and pleasing/displeasing as codes for locating ostensible power becomes particularly important. For Vashti in particular, to be pleasing will mean to remain accessible and presentable as object for the pleased male ogle.

One might well suspect, by the way, that although “from greatest to least” (v. 5) covers the social-class gamut, it may not include women. Indeed, that suspicion is confirmed in v. 9: “Also, Queen Vashti threw a drinking fest [for the] women of the royal house of King Ahasuerus.” In the otherwise all-male series of events described thus far, Vashti’s party stands out, both literally and figuratively. That is, it takes place elsewhere and is thrown by the other sex. Contrasted against the descriptions of the two previous festivals, moreover, the details given about this one are scant. Yet this verse is freighted with significance. It is introduced with the particle gam (“also”), which has the rhetorical force within the narrative of emphasizing a turn in the story while maintaining an association with the previous material. As such, this particle draws attention to a new acting subject. Up to this point, every active verb has had the king as its subject. He has “displayed” his honor, “ordered” his officials, and (twice) “thrown” or “made/prepared” (‘asah) drinking fests. Now, it is Queen Vashti who is the acting subject. Moreover, she acts in precisely the same way the king has acted: she “throws a drinking fest” (‘astah mishteh).

While these women are in the king’s house (v. 9b), they are not fully in his presence. Neither totally outside nor totally inside, both inside and outside, they are not totally in his control. Yet since they are not entirely outside, they cannot simply be dismissed as beyond his concern either. How to exclude without losing control? (A kingly dilemma indeed.) What might they be doing? Well, drinking, for one. What might they be talking about? With particular insight, and perhaps pushing the parody of male anxiety which will be particularly evident later in the chapter, Targum Sheni, an early Aramaic renarration of Esther, suggests that during her party Vashti brings the women into the king’s most intimate quarters (his bedroom) and answers all their questions about his private life.⁶

Even at this early point in the narrative, then, locations of ambiguity and peripheral power begin to appear within the space of the story world – even, and perhaps most significantly, within the palace walls, within the innermost circle, at the very center of royal power.

SETTLING DIFFERENCES

On the last day of the king’s second drinking party, whether out of insecurity or a desire to show off to the other men or some combination thereof, the drunken king wants to present Vashti to his companions. He asks his seven eunuchs to bring Vashti the queen “into the presence of” (lipnê) the king. While there may be some other more ritualistic aspect to this bidding that is lost to us (see Fox 1991b: 20), the text does give one explicit motive: “to display to the people and the chiefs her beauty, for she was pleasing [tob] to look at” (v. 11). Just as he was displaying (b^ehar’otô… ‘et) his honor and unequaled greatness in verse 4, so now he intends to display (l^ehar’ot… ‘et; nearly identical wording) his queen’s good looks. Given this close parallel, it is reasonable to understand the king’s request here as another public display aimed at consolidating and securing power, this time by securing his subject position as the true patriarch and absolute center of it all. For the king, the narrative parallel suggests, maintenance of male subjective power in the royal household economy (oikonomia,“house-order”) is integrally related to the maintenance of power in the larger order of things.

In all this, Vashti is treated exclusively as an object of exchange between men: she is to be brought by the eunuchs and looked upon by the king and the other men for pleasure. She is a means to identification between the king and the other men, bringing them closer together and providing their subjective position in the center with ever greater definition. They require her as the object obliged to enable their identification with one another.⁷

The king sends the eunuchs across to the women’s party, in order to carry his desire to Vashti and to carry Vashti back to him. The fact that seven eunuchs are sent for her on the seventh day, moreover, may suggest that this will be the impressive finale of the king’s display (the ultimate act of hospitable exchange), and that it will conclusively establish his secure resting-place on the throne.

The queen’s response, however, undermines any such desire (v. 12a). In fact, her refusal to come at the king’s bidding marks the first and only point in the narrative where the royal impetus is, so to speak, brought low. Just when his 187-day long demonstration of honor and power is about to come to its final climax, the party is cut short. The pleasure of an appropriate finish is frustrated, and the queen’s refusal is met with burning rage.

At this point, the utter dependence of this narrative’s primary male subject on her rapidly becomes clear. Ironically, however, it is not Vashti’s presence that makes clear the royal subject’s dependence on her, as well as the related dependence of the other male subjects on other women. For, as has been noted already, she is never really fully present in the narrative. Rather, it is her willful absence, her refusal to come, that throws a wrench into the machinery and leads to her dishonorable discharge. So long as she can be construed to be absent by exclusion, there is no problem. Eventually, however, the male subject requires a special object, a quintessential something to bounce off in order to remind him of how solid he is, a negative image, something to reflect his own self-made image back at him (“who’s the potentest of them all?”). Of course, this dynamic reveals the male subject’s special and highly problematic dependence on her as fixed object. She is the grounding for his own identity, the subject’s object. From verse 10 onward, Vashti is clearly the king’s primary objective, and it is equally clear from the parallel “display” of his splendor and glory in verse 4, discussed earlier, that her objective status is linked to his subjective status. Needless to say, then, her refusal to come and be pleasing to look at does not reflect well on him.

The king turns to those “wisemen” who are already “in his presence.” The text emphasizes their close proximit...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• THE BOOK OF HIDING
• PREFACE
• INTRODUCTION: DISLOCATING BEGINNINGS
• 1 WRITING OUT, I
• 2 PALIMPSEST
• 3 THE BIBLE AS MORAL LITERATURE
• 4 WRITING OUT, II
• 5 FINDING ONESELF SIGNED UP
• 6 INSOMNIA AND A LOST DREAM OF WRITING
• 7 SUBVERSIVE EXCESSES
• 8 COMING OUT
• IN CONCLUSION
• NOTES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY