Yes…your comments are a better way of wording what I mean – i.e. that God did not “set up” Hadassdah to be be power-raped per se, any more than He set up Bathsheba. But He used Esther’s situation (and yes, her beauty) to effect His purpose in saving His people – and as I mentioned, not only this but to influence the king in ways that may have benefitted all Persians, not just the Jews.
Also I agree that wives are not called or expected to remain in abusive relationships when they have any option at all to leave it; but Hadassah would of course not have had a choice in her case.
And as the text does read that “the king loved Esther”, or at least more than the other, ahem, candidates, he may have found her to be an emotional refuge from the stresses of ruling an empire and treated her as such. My observation is that even the nastiest cholerics have a “sidekick” whom they keep glued to their hips as it were, to lean on and confide in even if they treat them a bit like property. Thus if Hadassah was the one person to whom the king felt he could show tenderness, her position may have been tolerable at least for a while.

I take your points, and you make some good ones. But the one place I really can’t go is: “Esther submitted to the fate God had placed before her.” God’s commands before this made it clear that the right path would be to protect women from this kind of “fate”; that is, nonconsensual sex. So I don’t believe GOD is the one who placed that before her. Rather, He used her no-win situation to help her and save her people. Esther submitted, but to God’s calling for her to do what she could where she was.

if that’s what you mean by “fate,” okay. But I want to make very clear for any woman in a situation of nonconsensual sex (whether married or not) or an abusive relationship, God is not calling you to stay there to influence a hotheaded husband. You have, and should have, a choice, and God is never on the side of oppression.

The main point I would like to offer is the influence Esther may have had after her people are saved and this chapter of Jewish history ends, on Persian society and throne room etiquette in particular. The book of Nehemiah takes place a couple of kings later, and we find Nehemiah serving the king AND queen – sitting side by side – at the Persian court. Chapter 2 v.6 reads, “Then the king said to me, the queen sitting beside him…” We know Esther risked her life in even approaching the king uninvited, so presumably a woman – even the queen – taking ANY seat in the throne room, much less her own throne, would have been unheard of. (After all, the women of the kingdom might get notions and ideas if a woman sat beside the king as his peer!) Being “test driven” in her tryout as the next queen was not fair or right (much like the NT slavery Paul referenced), but Esther submitted to the fate God had placed before her; and in addition to saving her people she may well have influenced this drunken, hot-headed king (and any children they bore), softening his attitude toward women and the role of wives, and thus altered the status and treatment of Persian women.

I appreciate your conscientiousness in explaining all of this (your command of Hebrew is obviously better than mine, but I’m doing my best to learn!) and avoiding such words like “heresy” and “blasphemy” in reference to be bringing up this one interpretation of the passage. Again, I’m not saying I embrace it, but I certainly found it interesting and it made certain aspects of this story more understandable to me. But that interpretation makes other aspects more difficult. Anyway, I’ve been doing additional research on this topic, including reading scholarly articles and more, and I’ll respond better later. (I said I did a deep-dive study before. Now I’m spelunking into Scripture!)

You make some good points, and I admit that verse 20 was not addressed in the sources I had been looking at before about this interpretation. Some versions translate that phrase as “as when she was brought up with him” and others as “as she did when she was in his care.” However, the Hebrew used there—and I’ll use the transliteration of ‘omnahdoes have the connotation of parenthood; “bringing up, nourishment, rearing, training, providing for (as a parent)” (https://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/hebrew/nas/omnah.html).

Honestly, at this point, I’m a little frustrated—mostly with myself—that this post stirred up such a debate about Mordecai’s relationship to Esther. Those were notes I wrote to myself in my personal study, and perhaps I shared my “what if?” thoughts too soon. When my major point is how this story is often told as a young girl winning a contest to be queen and then saving her people, when the reality is that Esther lived at a time where she had no right to say yes or no to a selfish, foolish king and was used by him (sexually and otherwise), and yet God saw her and worked through her to keep the remnant alive and His plan in place. If anything is my “agenda,” that is it.

I also agree that we in the church have a tendency to “sanitize” Scripture. Too often the story of Hadassah is treated like that of a Disney princess rather than the horror that it actually was (taken from family, forcibly married to Xerxes and forced to share his bed, not to mention this whole thing started because Xerxes wanted to use Vashti as an object of lust for him and his male guests, etc. etc.).

That said I think there are several areas where you are going far beyond what the text of Esther and other evidence supports. As others have pointed out the evidence that Esther was Mordecai’s wife rather than an adopted daughter is slim and there is plenty of opposing evidence. For example Xerxes “round-up” was for virgin young women, which Esther would not have qualified for if she was already married.

Mordecai was also already an “inside man”. So much so that he was able to expose a plot by fellow “insiders” to murder Xerxes.

I understand that it was this Scriptural passage that gave rise to this post but there are far better Scriptures that make the point of betrayal and poor treatment by a loved one or trusted person in the context of sexual assault.

1. Abraham claiming Sarah is his sister (twice!) and the king taking her by force to add her to his harem as you pointed out above.

2. The rape of Dinah. Not only do Jacob and his sons go along with making her marry her rapist, but two of her brothers decide to kill all the men of Shechem and loot the place. Imagine Dinah’s agony. Being raped, then forced to marry her rapist, then watching her brothers kill all the innocent men in Shechem in her name.

3. The story of Tamar and Onan. Her wicked husband is killed by God, then as was the custom at the time, her brother-in-law sleeps with her. Instead of providing her a child that could take of her in her old age and continue the family line he uses her for his own pleasure and then sadistically withdraws to prevent her from becoming pregnant. God kills him for doing this.

Often this story is seen as some sort of prohibition against birth control but in actuality what we see is that God literally killed a man for sexually mistreating a women. That’s the part of the story that we should be pointing out.

(Let me try to clarify my umbrage with this perspective…)

1. Esther 2:7 shows the familial connection (cousins), thereby establishing their candidness with each other throughout the book as decent behavior and not cultural impropriety. When Mordechai & Hadassah’s relationship is reiterated in verse 15 (as we know, a common Biblical practice to solidify a point), Talmud’s silent on the ‘wife/daughter’ topic. Now considering how much cross referencing Talmud does with all of its passages (let alone within the same passage), perhaps they figure their v7 definition carries over(?) Nevertheless, we get to v 20, “…She obeyed Mordecai’s orders, as she always had while he raised her.” The Hebrew word used for ‘while he raised her’ is בְאׇמְנָה/b’am’nah; the definition of this word is, “bringing up, nourishment, rearing, training, providing for (as a parent)”. That last part jumps out at me – ‘as a parent’, not ‘as grooming for marriage’. So when we take the aforementioned virgin/unmarried indicators and the specificity of this word, ‘as a parent’, the Talmudic perspective on Mordechai taking Hadassah as a wife proves false based on the Hebrew alone.

2. The concept of Mordechai taking Hadassah as a wife does drastically change his motives throughout the book – the dynamic relational difference of wife-vs-daughter is too palpable to be missed. This is as problematic as changing Paul’s motives in his instruction of the Body of Messiah and Jew & Gentile relations and responsibilities therein (what it means to be a follower of Yeshua/Jesus, how to unite in 1 faith despite our different ethnic/cultural backgrounds, how to treat each other, how to treat pagans, etc.)

(To connect to your last statement, J) Would changing Paul’s character/motives change the message of what he did, how he did it & why he did it? Yes. Would changing Mordechai’s character/motives change the message of what he did, how he did it & why he did it? Yes. Does changing Mordechai & Paul’s characters/motives change what G-d did/has done? No.

I see how 1&2 are connected. I see how anyone (including myself) even voicing them as possibilities is problematic. Having a Biblical understanding & application of Scripture (meaning, one that’s not colored by the fluctuation of emotions and agendas [thinking specifically, as is the case with Talmud]) is rooted so deeply in me that I react strongly when topics like this arise. It’s my own Phinehas moment (Numbers 25:6-13).

It isn’t your faith and intentions I intended to call out – it’s the perspective/any application of it (and its footing in Talmud) I’m confronting. SO SO SO sorry for the confusion and accidental insult! My tendency is to plainly speak in broadspectrum terms – ‘our’ being mankind, not specifically any one person – and being definitively specific when getting personal by using ‘I’ & ‘you’ (‘getting personal’…. sounds harsher than I mean, just not sure how else to phrase it.) I also write for anyone else reading the comments who hasn’t yet done the research you & I have; I apologize if I come across as patronizing – no personal insult is ever intended! (If there’s something else, please let me know!)

So I’m truly okay with having this conversation, and I appreciate the information and perspective you’re providing. But I feel like you’re not just sharing information or debating the issue; rather, you’re casting aspersions on my intent and/or personal faith. If you want to talk about it, fine. But can we engage about the passage without the character hits, please? Because I came at this from an honest perspective, did a fair amount of homework, and simply suggested a POSSIBLE interpretation that wasn’t even the main point of what I said.

And I don’t see how anything I said changes one’s viewpoint of God in this story, who still worked His plan in an imperfect situation and showed personal care for Hadassah and others.

Thankfully, the Hebrew is quite clear – “ בַת/baht” means “daughter” & אִשָּׁה/ishah means “wife”. The 2 are neither similar in spelling, nor share the same Hebrew root. That being said…

The Talmud espouses לְבַת/l’baht (for a daughter) to be a contraction of לְבַיִת/l’bayt (for a house), stretching that concept to mean ‘wife’; regardless of the fact that, in Hebrew, ‘wife’ is literally אִשָּׁה/ishah & is congigated (according to its root) אֵשֶׁת/ayshet. Even Talmud’s comparison to 2 Samuel 2 (their whole basis for this ‘wife’ crap) is a fine example of taking Scripture out of context & twisting/adding to it to conform it to our own theories.

Entertaining alternate ‘possibilities’ that DO NOT line up with Scripture promotes falsehood and confusion & does nothing to promote/understand G-d’s truth (especially to the babies of our faith.) Understanding that this lie exists & why it exists* helps us to combat it & teach G-d’s truth – not promote mankind’s own prejudices & agendas.

*The Talmud is HIGHLY anti-woman. When Talmud speaks of women it’s highly antagonistic, degrading, if not vilifies them outright (pro-woman sections are few and far between.)