Through the Bible: Esther 1-5
So when the king’s order and his edict were proclaimed, and when many young women were gathered in Susa the citadel in custody of Hegai, Esther also was taken into the king’s palace and put in custody of Hegai, who had charge of the women.”
— Esther 2:8
The movie Pretty Woman hasn’t aged well. If you saw it in the Nineties it seemed like a perfect date movie. Handsome co-stars, witty dialogue, romance. It was a modern Cinderella fairy tale.
Except that it wasn’t. It was a story about a rich man picking up a prostitute. But many of us missed that the first time around. Decades later, we look at the story with more culturally sensitive eyes. There’s a reason Pretty Woman doesn’t get a lot of re-runs.
The story of Esther creates the same discomfort. At first glance it feels like a fairy tale: a beautiful girl swept into a palace, chosen by the king, crowned queen. But look closer, and it’s also the story of a young woman caught up in a system where her choices were few, her body was commodified, and her future was dictated by an empire.
The truth is, both lenses capture something real, but neither tells the whole story. And that’s where the pitfalls of applying our modern categories and moral sensibilities to ancient narratives come in.
So how do we read Esther today? Somewhere between Cinderella’s slipper and the Epstein Files lies the beautiful, uncomfortable, redemptive truth of the story. So let’s talk about five pitfalls to avoid as we study this remarkable book.
Pitfall #1: Flattening the Text
When we “flatten” a story, we make it one-dimensional. We reduce Esther to either a Cinderella princess or a trafficking victim—and in doing so, we miss the tension the Bible actually preserves.
A flat story is easier to digest, but it’s less honest. Fairy-tale Esther inspires us with romance but ignores the exploitation and the loss of agency. Victim-only Esther stirs our outrage but erases her courage, her strategic wisdom, and the way God used her to save her people.
The truth is, the Bible almost never gives us paper-thin characters. Think about Jacob: he was both a deceiver and the father of the twelve tribes. Think about Peter: he was both the rock on which Christ built His church and the man who denied Jesus three times. When we flatten their stories, we strip them of the richness that makes them so recognizable as real people—and we risk missing the ways God works through deeply imperfect vessels.
The book of Esther refuses to be flat. It presents a complex, layered picture—Esther is both vulnerable and brave, both caught in a broken system and raised up by God for redemption. If we try to make her only one or the other, we end up with something less than the story God actually gave us.
Pitfall #2: Applying Modern Categories to Ancient Narratives
Words like “trafficking” or “rape culture” describe real evils, but they arise from our own legal and social frameworks. To project them backward risks distorting the text.
In Esther’s world, kings wielded absolute power, marriages were arranged for politics, and women often had little agency. That doesn’t excuse injustice, but it does remind us we’re not reading a 21st-century story. To honor the text, we have to understand Esther’s world before we impose our categories on it.
The same is true with the David and Bathsheba narrative (see 2 Samuel 11). We read about a powerful king summoning an innocent woman to the palace, and we think rape. Or we read about a beautiful woman bathing on her roof, and we think seduction. Each reading introduces 21st century categories into 10th century (BC) stories.
The truth is, the biblical author never spells out Bathsheba’s motive or level of agency. Was she coerced? Was she complicit? The text is silent. What the text does emphasize is David’s sin—his abuse of power, his cover-up, his murder of Uriah, and God’s judgment against him. When we force Bathsheba into either the victim box or the temptress box, we risk obscuring the author’s theological point: the king chosen by God was still capable of grievous sin, and only God’s mercy could preserve his house.
In both Esther and Bathsheba, we need to be cautious. Modern categories can help us empathize, but if they become our controlling lens, they can actually distract us from the story’s emphasis. The question isn’t just “What does this story tell us about gender and power?” but “What does this story tell us about God and His purposes?”
Pitfall #3: Failure to Read Theologically
One of the easiest mistakes we make is to treat biblical narratives as if they were only moral case studies. Was Esther complicit? Was she coerced? Was Bathsheba a victim? Was she a temptress? These are important questions, but if they become our main focus, we miss the deeper point.
The Bible is not first and foremost about human heroes or villains—it is about God. The book of Esther isn’t primarily about the morality of the Persian court, but about the hidden hand of providence, guiding events for the preservation of His people. The Bathsheba story isn’t primarily about her motives, but about David’s sin, God’s judgment, and His astonishing mercy in allowing Solomon to arise from that union.
When we fail to read theologically, we reduce the Bible to moral fables. But when we ask, What does this reveal about God’s character, His ways, and His purposes?—we see the story in its true depth. That’s why Paul reminds us in Romans 15:4:
For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.”
These stories are not just about them back then—they are about God for us now.
Pitfall #4: Using Ancient Texts to Fight Modern Culture Wars
It’s tempting to turn Esther into a proof-text about feminism, or Bathsheba into an exhibit in debates about purity culture. Depending on which “side” we’re on, Esther is either the model of female empowerment or the poster child for patriarchal oppression. Bathsheba is either a powerless victim or a dangerous temptress.
But when we use these texts primarily as weapons in our cultural skirmishes, we miss what they are actually saying. The Bible wasn’t written to validate our positions in the 21st-century West. It was written to reveal God and redeem His people. When we force Esther to carry the weight of modern gender debates, or Bathsheba to embody our anxieties about sex and power, we risk silencing the voice of Scripture itself.
Of course, this doesn’t mean the Bible has nothing to say to modern issues. It absolutely does. God’s Word still speaks with authority into questions of justice, power, and human dignity. But the order matters. We start by letting the text speak in its own voice, in its own world, about God’s purposes. Then—and only then—do we ask how that word intersects with today’s struggles.
Paul warned Timothy about this very temptation: “Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels” (2 Timothy 2:23). When we turn the Bible into a culture-war arsenal, we are no longer being shaped by the Word—we are using it to bludgeon our enemies. That’s a reversal of God’s intent. The point is not to draft the Bible into our battles, but to be drafted ourselves into God’s kingdom.
Pitfall #5: Losing the Tension
If Pitfall #1 warned us against flattening the people in the story, this one warns us against flattening the theology. The danger here is not just reducing Esther or Bathsheba to a one-dimensional character, but reducing God’s providence to something neat and tidy, stripped of the tension the Bible actually preserves.
There’s a reason the Bible has endured for millennia. No other book in history is started over again the moment it’s finished. No other book is gifted as widely, studied as deeply, quoted as often, or debated as fiercely. The reason is simple: the Bible is complex. It’s nuanced. It refuses to be reduced to neat categories. As Hebrews 4:12 reminds us, “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”
But we don’t always like complexity. Our culture prefers either/or clarity. Either Esther is Cinderella or she is a captive. Either Bathsheba is a victim or a seductress. Either these stories are about empowerment or they are about exploitation.
The Bible is far more comfortable with tension than we are. It doesn’t resolve every ambiguity. Instead, it often forces us to live in the both/and:
- Esther was both swept into a system that objectified women and raised up by God to deliver her people.
- Bathsheba was both powerless in the face of David’s command and later an active advocate for her son Solomon’s throne (1 Kings 1).
- David was both “a man after God’s own heart” and capable of orchestrating adultery and murder.
If we insist on tidying up the story, we will almost always end up with something smaller and safer than what God actually gave us. But when we allow the text to stand in its raw tension, we see a God who works through human frailty, sin, and ambiguity to accomplish His purposes.
Joseph told his brothers in Genesis 50:20: “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.” That verse is a master key for so many biblical stories. Humans mean evil; God weaves good. Kings exploit; God preserves. Power corrupts; God redeems.
If we lose the both/and, we lose the wonder of a God who is sovereign enough to work through the mess.
So Let’s Begin…
If we resist these pitfalls, we begin to see Esther for what it really is: a story of God’s hidden hand at work in a hostile world, preserving His people through surprising means. And that’s good news for us, too. Because we also live in a world where God often feels hidden, and where His people feel powerless. Esther will remind us—again and again—that He is still present, still sovereign, and still writing His story.
So let’s walk through this book together, with eyes open to its beauty and its complexity, trusting that God will meet us in its pages.
More on Day 266
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