spoken for

When I bought Facing the Giants last week, I also went for One Night With the King. I’d gotten good reports on this one, so I really wanted to see it.

Steve and I watched it Saturday and both of us really liked it. I thought it was very well put-together, the acting and the music were great, and, of course, Esther has always been one of my favorite Bible stories.

Yes, overall I really liked it, though there are some things that I would have changed were I the one producing the movie (haha).

Warning, if you do not know the story of Esther, there will be spoilers…

Now, I understand that this movie was based on a historically-based novel but I feel that it should have more closely followed that of the original story. And, yes, I understand that the original account is full of what many would consider “holes” and so the writers had to fill in a lot of dialog and some introductory events. But, again, I would have liked to see the rest of it hold more true to the original account. Here are a few things I noticed…

– Vashti most likely remained queen for two years after the fateful party before the king went, oh, yeah, I am supposed to get a new queen, thanks to his being off on attempted conquest. She then would have remained with the rest of the concubines, but stripped of her queenly title. The new virgins that were brought in then had to go through a year of beauty treatments before meeting with the king.

– The king chose Esther simply because she was more attractive to him than any of the other girls.

– The scene where Esther reads the king the chronicles and then starts telling him the story of Jacob, Rachael, and Leah did not happen. It wouldn’t have happened, either, as the women in the harem were only brought out for… uh, their one night… and then returned to a different area of the palace grounds, for concubines. They remained there until called for again by name. This would also not been practical since she was hiding her Jewish heritage.

– The king did have the chronicles read to him one night when he couldn’t sleep, but it was read to him by servants. This was how he realized that Mordecai had saved his life (which I believe he already knew) but that nothing had been done for him yet. This was after the first banquet between him, Haman, and Esther, that same night.

– Mordecai visited the palace grounds every day while Esther was there but it would have been very unlikely that Esther would have met with him privately outside as she did in the movie and then be seen by the king in an embrace with him (therefore angering the king).

– Regarding the above, if that had been the case, the king surely would have had her put away immediately. He being the ultimate power of the world at the time would not have put up with such an offense, a greater one than Vashti pulled. (Vashti only didn’t want to be shown off to a bunch of drunken idiots and refused to show at his party of the males in full royal garb.) Also, had this been the case, and he didn’t have her put away immediately, he certainly would not have been so receptive when she entered his throne room without being invited (for which there was a possible penalty was death).

– Haman was probably a descendant of an Agag who had been king of the Amalekites during the reign of Saul who had been spared by Saul but later killed by Samuel. This might explain why Haman hated all Jews so much, but he finally snapped when Mordecai refused to bow down to him. It wasn’t just bowing, either, Mordecai was refusing to worship him, and so he decided he’d “show them all.”

– When Esther entered the throne room uninvited, there was not all that drama of the king’s protectors (or advisers or whoever they were) raising a sword to kill her right then and there, and the king stopping it. To do so would have been to usurp the king’s authority and really tick him off. It was his ultimate decision if he was going to enforce the death penalty here or hold out his scepter in acceptance of the uninvited visitor.

– The king liked or loved (or something) her so much that when she entered uninvited, he held out his scepter to her, she walked forward and touched it, and he asked what her request was, telling her that she could have whatever she wanted, up to half the kingdom.

– Oh, yeah, there was no necklace showing the Star of David. I don’t even think that is possible, at least not then, lol.

– When the king, Haman, and Esther were having the second banquet, Esther brought out Haman’s plan to have all the Jews killed. The king was ticked at that, and that is why he walked away. When he came back, Haman was actually begging Esther for his life. The king got even angrier, saying “will he even molest the queen while I am in the house?” And that finally sealed Haman’s fate.

– When all that was said and done, the king took back his signet ring from the dead Haman and gave it to Mordecai and gave all of Haman’s house and stuff to Esther, who put Mordecai in charge of it. They then had to reverse the order that Haman had sent out which would cause the people to rise up and kill all Jews they could and steal their property in approximately 11 months’ time. But the law of the Persian king could not be changed and so Mordecai instead drafted a new law that said that the Jews could defend themselves and kill anyone who tried to kill them and take their property. Most people backed down, however, because they obviously didn’t want to get killed and the Jews then only killed those who tried to kill them but, to their credit, did not take their property. The ten sons of Haman were killed and then hung.

Well, that took longer than I thought it would. :)
But I really did like the movie and I plan to watch it again soon. It’s just that when it comes to historically based movies, I like to see them be as historically correct as possible!