Day 40, Nehemiah 9-13, Esther 1-7

Today's reading, which consists of Nehemiah and Esther, is a fun one. The Book of Esther is an especially awesome story, improved further by the fact that its text is read at PURIM, one of the best Jewish holidays. Let's get started!

We ended yesterday with the people going off to celebrate the Feast of Booths, or Sukkot. After the rockin' party they all put on sackcloth and fast, and join together to recite a lengthy prayer to atone for their sins. It should be  noted that this is not Yom Kippur, but simply a random and unnamed day of repentance.

The prayer, which fills two whole pages of my giant study bible, gives us a not-so-succinct history of EVERYTHING we've read so far. Awesome. It's like the writers of the bible knew that no one was ever going to want to read the whole thing, so they stick in recaps everywhere they can.

In chapter 10, the returned exiles reseal their covenant with God, and in chapter 11 Judea is repopulated. The people are strategically placed throughout the region, with the leaders and one-tenth of the population being selected to live in Jerusalem, and the other people moving to neighboring towns.

In chapter 12, the newly constructed walls are dedicated. There sure is a lot of pomp and circumstance in the ancient Near East. At some point after the dedication, Nehemiah goes back to Persia and doesn't return until twelve years later. When he comes back he discovers that everyone has been screwing up in his absence: a foreigner is living inside the temple, people are working on the sabbath, and priests have married foreign wives. Jesus Christ you guys! It's been less than fifteen years since you made the covenant! This makes me feel less bad about never keeping my New Years resolutions.

Nehemiah is understandably displeased, and when he encounters the wrongdoers he "beat[s] some of them and [tears] out their hair" (Nehemiah 13:25). Isn't that illegal? Assault and battery or something? Then he purifies everything and all is well again. The tome ends with a request: "God, remember me favorably!" (Nehemiah 13:30).

Now it's time for the really fun stuff. The Book of Esther, which was presumably written during the Persian Period (538-333 BCE), tells the story of how a girl named Esther saves the Jewish people from a mass extermination planned by the king's chief minister, Haman. It is one of the most secular books of the bible -- for instance, God is not mentioned -- and as I've already mentioned, it sets up the context for Purim. Yesssssssss.

The story begins with the Persian king, Ahasuerus, throwing a party. His wife, Queen Vashti, has a parallel party for women -- since apparently parties can't be co-ed -- and after Ahasuerus gets sufficiently drunk he sends for the queen. One of the courtiers who delivers this message, by the way, is named Carcas! That's unfortunate.

Anyway, for some reason Vashti refuses to come, which enrages the king. In order to make a statement to the people about the subservience of women, he fires Vashti from her role as wife/queen for disobeying his command and sets off to find a new bride.

His attendants gather together all the hottest young virgins in the land, among whom is Esther, a Jewish orphan who lives with her uncle Mordecai. The king thinks she's hot stuff, gives her cosmetics and food (what every girl wants), and makes her his queen. Around this time, Mordecai overhears some conspirators planning to assassinate the king, and lets Esther know. She tells her new husband and the would-be killers are hung. Mordecai, however, is not rewarded.

In chapter 3, Haman is promoted and becomes the king's chief officer. Although this is not mentioned in the text, it should be noted that Haman supposedly wore a triangle hat!

The hat apparently looked like the above image, except without jam in the middle and not delicious.

Anyway, Haman demands that everyone bow to him when he passes, but Mordecai refuses to do so. In a rare instance of overreaction -- I mean, this kind of thing never happens in the bible -- Haman decides that he will punish Mordecai by killing ALL THE JEWS. The king, who does not actually know the race of his hot wife, is bribed into going along with this plan.

In chapter 4 Mordecai realizes the consequences of his actions, and tears up all his clothes. Esther sends him some more, but he is so distraught he won't even put them on. He tells Esther she must try to intervene and stop the plan: "If you remain silent at such a time as this," he says, "relief and deliverance for the Jews will appear from another quarter; but you and your father's family will perish" (Esther 4:14). Esther agrees with him and devises a ploy to save her people.

The plot is actually a little bizarre, since I don't see the point of all the steps. Esther requests that the king throw two banquets for herself and Haman. When Haman is leaving the first banquet he sees Mordecai and becomes so irate that he and his wife construct a gallows on the roof of his house, plotting to have Mordecai hung the next day.

After the banquet, the king has some difficulty falling asleep -- probably too much sangria at the party -- and has one of his attendants read to him from the "chronicle of memorable events" (Esther 6:1). In the chronicle he discovers the story of how Mordecai saved him from the assassination plot and was never rewarded. He resolves to somehow honor the man who saved him.

The next day, Haman enters the king's court to request that Mordecai be executed. Before he can put forth his proposal, however, Ahasuerus asks him, "What should be done for the man whom the king wishes to honor?" (Esther 6:6). Haman, who has an inflated ego, assumes that the king wants to honor him and immediately answers that, "For the man whom the king wishes to honor, let there be brought a royal robe which the king himself has worn, and a horse on which the king rides, with a royal diadem on its head. Let the robe and the horse be handed over to one of the king's noble officers, and let him invest the man whom the king wishes to honor and lead him mounted on the horse through the city square, proclaiming as he goes: 'This is what is done for the man whom the king wishes to honor'" (Esther 6:7-9). Oh boy.

Some historians claim that humor and irony are Hellenistic innovations that did not truly factor into Jewish texts until the Hasmonean Dynasty and beyond. The Book of Esther is a pretty strong argument to the contrary! The king follows Haman's instructions to honor Mordecai, and Haman himself is the "noble officer" who has to lead the horse. That's FUNNY!

At the second banquet, Esther reveals her race to her husband and begs him to save the Jews from death. Interestingly, she adds that, "If it had been a matter of selling us, men and women alike, into slavery, I should have kept silence" (Esther 7:4). What, slavery is okay? What a bitch! But anyway, Ahasuerus freaks out and asks who is conspiring to kill all the Jews, even though he's ALREADY HAD A CONVERSATION WITH HAMAN ABOUT IT. She tells him, and as punishment Haman is hung from the very gallows that he constructed on the roof of his house.

What a story! Tomorrow we tie up the loose ends in the Book of Esther and begin the Book of Job, which I suspect is going to be awesome. Until then, sayonara.

Day 39, Ezra 7-10, Nehemiah 1-8

I know I said yesterday that I was looking forward to Ezra because I remembered him being cool, so I'm afraid I have to start this entry with some bad news: Ezra isn't cool. I just got him confused with Elijah and Elisha, who are awesome. All those 'E' names, you know. But that doesn't mean his book is bad! At least we're moving forward! I just watched the Friends episode where Ross has to talk to his girlfriend Mona about where their relationship is going, so I am aware that if you're not moving forward you're just standing still, and what good is standing still? No one is getting any younger! So in effect, if the bible were my boyfriend, it would be giving me the keys to its apartment right now. Moving forward. Yep.

In chapter 7, the Persian king Artaxerxes is moved by God to send Ezra on a voyage to Israel, where he is to serve as some sort of leader. How nice! Artaxerxes also gives him a bunch of gold and "salt without a set limit" (Ezra 7:22) which shows he's a truly decent fellow. As much salt as we want! Oh boy!

In chapter 8, we switch to a first-person narrative for the first time in the bible, which is kind of cool, I guess. It's different at least. Ezra gathers together a motley crew of fellow exiles to come along with him, and eventually arrives in Jerusalem where he presents his gifts to the priests.

Once he is settled in town, the priests inform Ezra that pretty much everyone has been very naughty and neglected to uphold the law against marrying foreign women. Ezra is immensely troubled by this and "pluck[s] tufts from [his] beard and the hair from [his] head and [sits] appalled...until the evening sacrifice" (Ezra 9:3-4). What a reaction! It seems to me that this Ezra is a bit of a drama queen, but maybe he was just really upset. The rest of chapter 9 comprises a desperate and deeply apologetic prayer he makes to God, begging the deity to forgive Israel.

Ezra's melancholy persists in chapter 10, where he locks himself up in a room and "[eats] no bread and [drinks] no water, for he [is] still mourning the unfaithfulness of the returned exiles" (Ezra 10:6). Give it a rest, Ez! After a substantial amount of moping, he gathers the people together in the pouring rain and instructs them that they all must divorce their foreign wives. However, divorce is a lengthy process in the ancient Near East, and some of the people question the logistics of it. Eventually a compromise is reached, and it is agreed that all the community leaders will divorce their foreign wives as a sort of symbol.

And that's Ezra's book! Gee whiz!

Nehemiah, as I mentioned before, is closely linked to Ezra and Chronicles and tells the story of a Jewish high official in the Persian court. Also, according to wikipedia, this book is the last historical narrative of the Hebrew bible. Oh my god. Does that mean we're just getting raunchy stories after this? Please tell me that's what it means.

Nehemiah is a pious chap, and when his brother tells him about an incident in Jerusalem at the start of chapter 1, he becomes distraught. He prays to God, and in chapter 2 requests that the Persian king permit him to return to his homeland: "How can I help looking unhappy," he says, "when the city where my forefathers are buried lies in ruins with its gates burnt down?" (Nehemiah 2:2). These Persians are apparently pretty nice people, since as with Ezra the king is very accommodating and sends Nehemiah on his way.

Once in Jerusalem, Nehemiah begins his efforts to rebuild the city wall, but encounters hostility from the non-Jews who live there. He tells off his critics by saying, "You have no stake, or claim, or traditional right in Jerusalem" (Nehemiah 2:20) which, as you can imagine, does little to endear him to his enemies.

In chapter 4 these enemies plot to attack, and Nehemiah is forced to reallocate his workers, assigning some people to serve as guards and some to build. It all sounds like a lot of work to me. I actually got kind of anxious reading it. Oh man.

Chapter 5 deviates a little from the storyline and presents a conflict between the rich and poor in the rebuilt city. When he is told that the Jewish aristocracy are oppressing the poor, Nehemiah cancels all debts. In other words, he is a SOCIALIST and probably an ARAB like Barack Obama. Nehemiah's middle name is Hussein. Just kidding. Nehemiah doesn't have a middle name, or a last name. He's like Lady Gaga in that way.

My notes on chapter 6 read "everyone fucks with Jews" which isn't very helpful. Everyone is always fucking with the Jews! What was I thinking writing that? Anyway, in this particular situation, a chap named Sanballat accuses Nehemiah of conspiring against the Persian king. Even some of his fellow Jews oppose him, but Nehemiah simply says "Haters gon' hate," and finishes rebuilding the wall. Good for him!

Chapter 7 is another delightful census. I'm actually pretty sure it's the same census from Ezra. Gotta love those! And fiiiiiiiiinally, in chapter 8, everyone has a big freaking party for the Feast of Booths. The festivities kick off with Ezra reading to everyone from the Torah, which FYI is always a great icebreaker at parties. They are so moved by the reading that they start crying, but he tells them to "feast yourselves on rich food and sweet drinks... [and] let there be no sadness" (Nehemiah 8:10). Oh boy! Sounds good to me! The people obey the instructions "because they had understood what had been explained to them" (Nehemiah 8:12). Well that's a good thing considering it was incredibly straightforward. I guess their oral comprehension is pretty decent!

That wraps things up for today. One fun thing I realized is that the Festival of Booths is actually Sukkot, one of the coolest Jew holidays, where you get to build tents out of palm leaves and stuff and live in them. Except in modern times you don't actually live in them because that would suck, you just play in them and eat a lot of food. Jewish holidays usually end in eating a lot of food. For all its flaws as a religion, at least we Jews have that!

Later gators.