The Bible comes down heavily on Saul for his failure, and the author goes along with the idea that the total genocide of the Amalekites would have been the proper outcome. Instead some of the livestock is spared and so is King Agag.
Saul loses his kingdom because he doesn’t commit complete genocide. The story goes that Saul is ordered to conquer the Amalekites and kill every man, woman, and child therein, as well as all the livestock.
That part is told in the personal point of view of King Saul (which Esther could not have known) and delves into one of stories of the Old Testament that I find most distressing and difficult. This works fairly well, except for the parts that go into the history of the bad blood between the Israelites and the Amalekites.
Most of the story is told in first person, with Esther herself narrating her life story to her would-be successor. But what can one girl do against this powerful hatred? Hadassah is entered in this “beauty contest.” Her entire future and the future of her people, the Jews, will depend on how she handles herself with Xerxes because of powerful forces at court who would rid the land of Jews in a bloody purge. When Xerxes’s queen, Vashti, displeases him by not obeying a direct command to parade herself in front of the drunken court, Xerxes deposes her, and the search for a new queen begins. Hadassah: One Night with the King fictionalizes this account, fleshing it out with detail and emotion.Īs in the biblical account, Hadassah (later Esther) is a young girl being raised by her relative Mordecai after her parents are killed by Amalekites. This story has a little bit of everything in it: murder, treachery, palace intrigue, brave deeds, and love. The Bible contains any number of riveting stories, and my personal favorite is the story of Esther, wife of the Persian king Xerxes, known as the Purim story to those in the Jewish faith.
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