My Sunday Skl

Esther’s story begins…with Ahasuerus and Vashti.

Vashti! Wait, who?

Esther 1 and Persian king Ahasuerus has decided to have a banquet. The purpose was to solidify his power over all these provinces, to demand respect from all his various princes and nobles, possibly to threaten them with this show of might and wealth. To say it was just a banquet would be an understatement. It was an exhibition of his greatness, with the men being in one location and the women being in another, as per tradition. Alcohol does things to people, and one night when drunk, Ahasuerus sent seven eunuchs “to bring Queen Vashti before the king with her royal crown in order to display her beauty to the people and the princes, for she was beautiful” (1:11). Now, this likely meant more than just a twirl. Vashti’s show of loyalty likely would set the stage for everyone else to understand the kind of loyalty Xerxes demanded from each one of them.

But this is a beautiful queen and a room of drunk men. She must have felt uncomfortable.

She probably did, and so she refused.

“Does this man dare to ask me to do such a thing. Only a fool would bring me such news. Go back and tell him I refuse, and that he should find a new way to entertain his little friends!” Disclaimer – this is not in the Bible; this is just how it would play out in my head. And well, he did not take it well. He was humiliated. Esther 1:12 tells us that “the king became very angry and his wrath burned within him.”

Alright, so what did he do?

He asked the princes what should be done about a queen who refuses the order of her king.

¹⁶ In the presence of the king and the princes, Memucan said, “Queen Vashti has wronged not only the king but also all the princes and all the peoples who are in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus. ¹⁷ For the queen’s conduct will become known to all the women causing them to look with contempt on their husbands by saying, ‘King Ahasuerus commanded Queen Vashti to be brought in to his presence, but she did not come.’ ¹⁸ This day the ladies of Persia and Media who have heard of the queen’s conduct will speak in the same way to all the king’s princes, and there will be plenty of contempt and anger (1:16-18)

Memucan feared a rebellion. He believed that word would spread through the kingdom that the king’s wife resisted him and that this would lead to everyone’s wives thinking they can do the same. If the king cannot run his own house, the princes urged that it would create a situation for every other man in all the provinces that he ruled.

19 If it pleases the king, let a royal edict be issued by him and let it be written in the laws of Persia and Media so that it cannot be repealed, that Vashti may no longer come into the presence of King Ahasuerus, and let the king give her royal position to another who is more worthy than she. (1:19)

That is a bit of an overreaction. What kind of man would fall for that?

After hearing the prince’s council, Ahasuerus quickly got of Vashti.

He killed her?

He put her out of the kingdom, banning her from her role and from being in his presence for the rest of her life.

Wow. This is why I don’t drink.

“The lust of Ahasuerus provoked by alcohol quickly leads to another unbridled passion of anger. Instead of humility at this demonstration of the limit of his power, his deflated pride leads to his famed fits of anger…The ultimate irony of human vanity is that the absolute monarch of the great Persian Empire is not able to govern himself. We may put a man on the moon, split the atom, use the latest gadget technology, but after 6,000 years man still cannot master his passions.” (Ferguson)

 “After these things when the anger of King Ahasuerus had subsided, he remembered Vashti and what she had done and what had been decreed against her” (2:1).

With all the things that have been happening, his anger against Vashti has long since Vashti been forgotten. The king remembers only her beauty, the warmth of her arms, and the comfort of her understanding. But she’s gone.

I think you are going to easy on him. If he really cared, he had just put his pride to the side and bring her back.

The problem, though, was that the law of the Medes and the Persians stated that when a king made a decree, no one- not even the king himself – could reverse it.

Hmm, I still do not feel sorry for him. But I do want to see what he did next.

² Then the king’s attendants, who served him, said, “Let beautiful young virgins be sought for the king. ³ Let the king appoint overseers in all the provinces of his kingdom that they may gather every beautiful young virgin to the citadel of Susa, to the harem, into the custody of Hegai, the king’s eunuch, who is in charge of the women; and let their cosmetics be given them. ⁴ Then let the young lady who pleases the king be queen in place of Vashti.” And the matter pleased the king, and he did accordingly (2:2-4).

Rather than moping around all day long regretting his decision, he decided to do what, start his own Babylon’s Next Top Queen search?

Yep.

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