When a jeweler wants to highlight the brilliance of a diamond, he often lays the gem on a black cloth. The contrast between the cloth and the diamond reveal the highest brilliance of the jewel he is showing. While Esther is going to be revealed as God’s shining diamond, this first message is nothing but the black cloth being laid out. Power, vice, lust and misogyny highlight a wicked king in a foreign land. See the enemy’s plans to maintain hostility between male and female. Esther would appear later on a scene marked with one man’s power spun out of control.