A Sexual Comedy

Now when the king returned from the palace garden into the place where they had been drinking wine, Haman was falling on the couch where Esther was. Then the king said, “Will he even assault the queen with me in the house?” As the word went out of the king’s mouth, they covered Haman’s face.  Esther 7:8  NASB

Assault – Why clean it up?  The Hebrew certainly implies that the king interprets Haman’s posture as an attempted rape.  In fact, the king’s interpretation adds comedy to the scene.  Haman is actually begging for his life, but his position brings about the king’s death sentence.  All, by the way, carefully orchestrated by Esther.

Read the translation from the JPS:

When the king returned from the palace garden to the banquet room, Haman was lying prostrate on the couch on which Esther reclined.  “Does he mean,” cried the king, “to ravish the queen in my own palace?”

As Adele Berlin points out in the JPS Commentary, “The literal meaning is even stronger, ‘with me in the house’—that is, with me present.”[1]

Alter notes:  “Ahasuerus, seeing Haman sprawled out on Esther’s couch, briefly imagines that his first minister is attempting to rape the queen, in the king’s presence. . . One should also keep in mind that to sexually possess the king’s consort is to lay claim to the throne, as Absalom does in cohabiting with David’s concubines on the palace roof in full view of the people.”[2]

Scholars recognize the sexual farce underlying the entire book of Esther.  For example, here the king is outraged, but this is the same king who agreed to parade his former queen before the ogling nobles and who chose the present queen from a contingent of virgins on the basis of their sexual performance.  Furthermore, the language of the story includes several tongue-in-cheek euphemisms.  All in all, the book of Esther is a bawdy comedy intended to achieve audience guffaws and chuckles.  Western translations typically remove these innuendoes, treating the story as a narrative rather than a play.  There are, of course, Victorian morals behind this translation, but in the end it doesn’t help us understand the text.  In fact, it obscures the text.  We lose the preposterous and boisterous elements.  We read about regulations and plots instead of laughing at the dim-witted king, the sly Mordecai, that creatively manipulative Esther and the arch-villain Haman.  The book becomes history instead of satirical amusement.

Perhaps you’ll want to re-read Esther with a different mindset.  Better have a few strong drinks available too.

Topical Index:  assault, rape, ravish, Absalom, comedy, Esther 7:8

 [1] Adele Berlin, The JPS Bible Commentary: Esther, p. 70.

[2] Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible: Volume 3 The Writings, p. 735, fn. 8