Esther Made Queen
12 Each young woman’s turn came to go in to King Ahasuerus after her purification for twelve months (for so were the days of their purification accomplished, six months with oil of myrrh, and six months with sweet fragrances and with preparations for beautifying women). 13 The young woman then came to the king like this: whatever she desired was given her to go with her out of the women’s house to the king’s house. 14 In the evening she went, and on the next day she returned into the second women’s house, to the custody of Shaashgaz, the king’s eunuch, who kept the concubines. She came in to the king no more, unless the king delighted in her, and she was called by name. 15 Now when the turn of Esther, the daughter of Abihail the uncle of Mordecai, who had taken her for his daughter, came to go in to the king, she required nothing but what Hegai the king’s eunuch, the keeper of the women, advised. Esther obtained favor in the sight of all those who looked at her. 16 So Esther was taken to King Ahasuerus into his royal house in the tenth month, which is the month Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign. 17 The king loved Esther more than all the women, and she obtained favor and kindness in his sight more than all the virgins; so that he set the royal crown on her head, and made her queen instead of Vashti. 18 Then the king made a great feast for all his princes and his servants, even Esther’s feast; and he proclaimed a holiday in the provinces, and gave gifts according to the king’s bounty.
A year of preparation for one evening, and the one thing Esther is recorded as doing is asking for less than she was offered.
The regimen is stated with the book's usual precision: twelve months of purification, six with oil of myrrh and six with perfumes and cosmetics. A year for a single audience.
Verse 14 describes what happened afterward, and it is the bleakest sentence in the chapter. She returned to a second house, to a different keeper, and came in to the king no more, unless the king delighted in her, and she was called by name. The book states the arrangement without editorial and lets the reader see what it cost the women who were not called.
Against that background verse 15 records Esther's one action, and it is a subtraction. When her turn came she required nothing but what Hegai advised. Every other woman could take whatever she wished from the house; Esther asked for the keeper's judgment instead of her own advantage.
The book does not say why, and it does not need to. The result is stated twice in two verses: she obtained favor in the sight of all those who looked at her, and then the king loved Esther more than all the women.
The crown is set on her head in the tenth month of the seventh year Esther 2:16, which places her in the palace four years before Haman casts his lot Esther 3:7. That gap is easy to read past and it is the book's method: the provision is in place long before the danger appears, and nobody in the story can see that yet.
And the chapter's turn is marked, as every turn in this book is marked, with a banquet.
settled What this mark means