Read the book of Esther last night in prep for my visit to the museum after church & brunch today. Very interesting story.

Ancients were such weird people. So Xerxes, king of Persia, dumps his wife and sets out to find a new one. He holds the BC version of a beauty contest and selects Esther from all the others. Of course Esther did not tell him she was Jewish, but he was smitten and it was cool.

Then her adoptive father, Mordecai, decides that he doesn’t like Xerxes’ number one dude and he disses him. This pisses off number one dude and he comes up with a plot to hang Mordecai and kill all the Jews in Persia by royal decree. Xerxes is like “yeah, don’t bother me with details” and hands him his signet ring. So he sets it up.

Mordecai finds out and asks Esther to intervene with the king. Apparently even the king’s wife couldn’t converse with him without his permission, so she takes her life into her own hands (“if I perish, I perish) and busts out the number one dude about his plot. Long story short, she saves all the Jews in Persia, the former number one dude is hanged, and all of his cohorts in other parts of Persia killed as well. This became the Jewish holiday of Purim and Esther is credited with saving the Jews.

Fast forward to the 17th century and the country of The Netherlands was bucking for religious and political independence from oppressive Spanish rulers. Rembrandt and other Dutch artists began to use Esther in their paintings as a symbol of fighting for freedom and crafting her into a new hero in a new century, That is what this exhibit is about: The Book of Esther in the Age of Rembrandt. Should be good.