The entire second chapter of Esther deserves attention, but I couldn’t get past Esther 2:12, which says, “Before a young woman’s turn came to go in to King Xerxes, she had to complete twelve months of beauty treatments prescribed for the women, six months with oil of myrrh and six with perfumes and cosmetics.”
Can we unpack this verse? We can say a whole lot of stuff about Esther 2, and we will. For now, the use of spices and ointments gives me pause.
Beautifying Women
If you say, “oils and spices” and ask me to name a scene from the Bible, I’ll go straight to either Mary pouring oil over Jesus’ feet or the female disciples going to the tomb to prepare his body.
They saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh (Matthew 2:11).
Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume (John 12:3).
When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him (Mark 16:1).
The purpose of these precious items in Esther 2 offers us such a shocking contrast. While the virgins were still young, their skin was probably dry and cracked. “It is likely women used oils and scents to some extent and taught their daughters how to make fragrances. But only the women inducted into the king’s harem would have had the luxury of a twelve-month beauty program,” wrote Karen Meeker on her blog Women from the Book.
This preacher’s wife proposes that Esther and the other virgins would have needed to go through a serious exfoliating and moisturizing regime to mitigate the harsh effects of desert life, presumably so they could please the king in the most superficial way.
In Esther 2:12, we see expensive oils like those used to prepare one for burial or to anoint a king employed to make girls look and smell pretty for sex.
The Anointing Process
What should it mean to anoint someone? You’re choosing that person for a special and important role; maybe a divine role.
It’s as though King Ahasuerus’ aids were preparing these women as an offering of worship to the king. Most of these women would be passed over, discarded — anointed, not appointed.
Robert Hampshire wrote that “the Greek word chriō, which actually means to consecrate (to set apart) and empower Jesus as the Christ and Messiah” tell us that “Jesus alone is the ‘Anointed’ King.”
There is also another kind of anointing: “when we are saved, the anointing of God puts the Holy Spirit into our hearts. This puts a mark or impression of royal ownership on our lives, which authenticates and guarantees [...] who we are and to whom we belong.” It’s contractual, not merely symbolic.
When Saul was anointed in 1 Samuel 10:1, “Samuel took a flask of oil and poured it on his head and kissed him and said, ‘Has not the Lord anointed you to be prince over his people Israel? And you shall reign over the people of the Lord and you will save them from the hand of their surrounding enemies. And this shall be the sign to you that the Lord has anointed you to be prince over his heritage.’”
Again, the contrast is so striking. This King did not obey God. In fact, jealous rage drove him into fits of violence, which nearly killed David who would succeed him, not as a morally better king, but as one who loved the Lord and sought his will.
Viewing the darkness and light in these pictures exposes the distortion of “anointing” embedded in King Ahasuerus’s process to find a queen. My heart (and perhaps yours) was yanked towards Christ in protest against Ahasuerus.
His depravity is like a shadow that draws your eye to the light; to a better King. Those who love Jesus are always his people. They are set apart, guarded by the Holy Spirit against eternal darkness, and they belong to God.
He doesn’t care what we look like; what we smell like. In the sense of our sin, none of us smells rosy, but our belief in Christ empowers us to “spread the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere” (2 Corinthians 2:14).
Not one of us is beautiful in our own right; our hearts are black and distorted. We have been purchased, however, not into slavery but out of slavery and the blood of Christ is our anointing.
A Stacked Contract
If King Ahasuerus was indeed anointing these women, the contract was stacked in his favor. After undergoing 12 months of beautification, only one woman appears to have become queen. Even if Esther shared her status, the majority of these former virgins were rejected.
They went in to the king, a term, which means “have sex with.” Since they were no longer virgins, what were they anointed for now?
Who would want these used-up women whom the king had rejected? He certainly didn’t love all of them or keep them all close to him; just Esther is given the spotlight.
I wonder if the women felt special.
Now, look at what Christ told the disciples when he washed their feet. “Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him” (John 13:16).
In our world, as Christians, we see that the scales have tipped dramatically in the other direction. King Ahasuerus took so much, and he lived to be served.
We took everything from Christ, including his very life, and he has given us everything in return. We don’t deserve it, but we’re his beloved.
The virgins are anointed to please the king. Jesus was anointed to be the king. The women were anointed to be serviceable. Christ was anointed to serve.
There Is No Such Thing as a Necessary Evil
Esther was favored, but what happened to the other women? Vashti was certainly anointed, but she didn’t keep her place. The other virgins were anointed, but where did they spend the rest of their lives?
Talking with a friend recently, she said that a number of them would have become Esther’s servants while others were used for sex until the king didn’t want them anymore. They were set apart to serve the desires of an earthly king and the daily needs of his queen.
I think that God wants us to know that there is a happy ending, but to not overlook the injustice going on around us today where so many individuals are set apart in an unholy way in the service of evil.
They are abused and discarded. God will provide beauty for ashes — he longs for sufferers to cry out to him as the only eternal and perfect source of relief — but it grieves him that anyone made in his image would give another person ashes in the first place. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4).
For further reading:
Esther's First Connection to the Gospel
What Strength Did Queen Vashti and Queen Esther Show?
Why Was Vashti so Important in Esther’s Story?
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