Helena Zlotnick, «From Jezebel to Esther: Fashioning Images of Queenship in the Hebrew Bible», Vol. 82 (2001) 477-495

Only three royal couples in the HB are seen in direct communication. Of these, two, namely Ahab and Jezebel, Ahasuerus and Esther, contribute unique insights into the interpretative and redactional processes that cast later narratives around themes of earlier stories, and both around the figure of a queen. In this article I explore the hypothesis that the scroll of Esther was shaped as a reversible version of the Jezebel cycle. With the aid of narratives of the early Roman monarchy, a sensitive and sensible reading of the biblical texts relating to Jezebel and Esther demonstrates the constructive process of an ideology of queenship. Underlying both constructs is a condemnation of monarchy in general.

commentary on the desirability of a kingship in general and on the character and activities of queens in particular. Clothing the tale of Jezebel and Ahab in an exilic garb further served to remind the audience of the perils inherent in intermarriage³⁵. The absence of the habitual condemnation of intermarriage in the scroll of Esther is as striking as is the absence of YHWH. In the exilic existence that the Esther tale aspires to delineate the only acceptable Jewish queen is, strangely, one who is matched not with a Jewish king but with a gentile one. Nor are her royal functions of relevance. Esther does not bear children to the king, nor does she secure the dynasty. The absence of these critical components of all royal marriages is important. She is brought into the harem to serve a single purpose that, strictly speaking, has nothing whatsoever to do with her.

        With superb irony the narrator of Esther’s and Mordechai’s vicissitudes at the court leaves both YHWH and prophets out of the story. Their absence raises the larger question of the place of YHWH in exile and outside the promised land of Israel. Although the issue of idolatry and apostasy is never raised, Haman’s words to Ahasuerus vividly illustrate the problems of the preservation of the Torah in a non-Jewish territory. Even God cannot appear in this context. At the heart of the rehabilitative narrative of the scroll lies, therefore, an unsolved problem, an end without an end. As Esther fulfils the purpose that Mordechai assigns her readers are left in the dark regarding the ‘happily ever after’. How long did the king’s affection last? If cyclical, as the beginning of the story strongly suggests, Esther’s end could have resembled Vashti’s.

        Ultimately the biblical narrative excised queens altogether. In exilic redactional perspectives figures such as Jezebel remained a threat even in remote hindsight. The only viable royal woman was one whose movements were controlled by men. If the prospect of reviving the monarchy occasionally crossed the exilic horizons, the possibility of another Jezebel could never be entertained. From the very beginning kingship had been unpalatable to YHWH and to His prophets. Their aversion had been, seemingly, fully justified. Anyone who contemplates the redacted annals of the impieties of the Israelite and the Judaean kings, and the activities of their queens, must share the Deuteronomistic conviction of the futility of Jewish kingship.