Was Esther Taken Against Her Will?
I truly believe that Esther acted according to God’s will. However, I wonder if she was also a sex slave?
Esther 2:2-4
Then the king’s servants who attended him said: “Let beautiful young virgins be sought for the king; and let the king appoint officers in all the provinces of his kingdom, that they may gather all the beautiful young virgins to Shushan the citadel, into the women’s quarters, under the custody of Hegai the king’s eunuch, custodian of the women. And let beauty preparations be given them. Then let the young woman who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti.” This thing pleased the king, and he did so.
Esther 2:8
So it was, when the king’s command and decree were heard, and when many young women were gathered at Shushan the citadel, under the custody of Hegai, that Esther also was taken to the king’s palace, into the care of Hegai the custodian of the women.
There is no word of Esther’s consent, or non-consent. It just isn’t part of the story one way or another.
- Maybe this happened against her will.
- Maybe it was something she chose and was excited about.
Here’s the point: I don’t think anyone in Esther’s time would have thought of it that way. Esther was not forced into blatant prostitution, and she actually received a lot of status, power, and privilege from her place as queen.
We need to be careful that we aren’t guilt of anachronism – that is, the action of attributing something to a period to which it does not belong.
For better or worse, our modern world is massively influenced by (1) material prosperity and comfort that is unmatched in all human history and (2) a sense of individual rights and privilege that is also unmatched.
If Esther was “forced” or “compelled” to enter that beauty pageant, it probably wouldn’t have occurred to her that she had much choice about it. It’s just the way things were. That doesn’t justify any theoretical harm done against Esther; it just means that we think about such things differently today than they did then, or for much of human history.
- If Esther or someone like her was sold into blatant prostitution, even back then they would have understood – “That’s wrong. She has been abused.”
- But if Esther or someone like her was forced or pressured into a beauty contest where she because the queen of the king of the Persian Empire, they likely would have said, “That’s awesome. What a lucky woman.”
Again, the emphasis on charting your own course, living your own dream, fulfilling your own destiny – these are modern concepts. For most of history people thought more in terms of duty and family obligation.
So the bottom line is, even if Esther had no choice in becoming the queen of Persia, it’s not accurate to say she was a sex slave or human trafficked. It’s extremely unlikely she would have used those terms to describe herself.