The Importance of Reason in the Story of Esther

The only fair treatment that we can offer in terms of a description of Xerxes at this point in the book is that he's not that great a guy. We can feel sympathy toward him because he's a little bit gullible and he gets bullied and manipulated by people into doing things. And it doesn't seem like he really has any friends in this court. Even his wife will do crazy things. So I think that's kind of a situation where maybe they deserve each other. But I am not incapable of mustering sympathy for this guy looking at his situation. Also he's done monstrous stuff. That's the dude we're dealing with here.