On the seventh day, when King
Xerxes was in high spirits from wine, he commanded the seven eunuchs who served
him—Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, Abagtha, Zethar and Karkas— to bring before him Queen
Vashti, wearing her royal crown, in order to display her beauty to the people
and nobles, for she was lovely to look at. But when the attendants
delivered the king’s command, Queen Vashti refused to come. Then the king
became furious and burned with anger.
Esther 1:10-12
Then Memukan replied in the
presence of the king and the nobles, “Queen Vashti has done wrong, not only
against the king but also against all the nobles and the peoples of all the
provinces of King Xerxes. For the queen’s conduct will become known to all the women, and so
they will despise their husbands and say, ‘King Xerxes commanded Queen Vashti
to be brought before him, but she would not come.’ This very day the Persian and
Median women of the nobility who have heard about the queen’s conduct will
respond to all the king’s nobles in the same way. There will be no end of
disrespect and discord. Esther 1:16-18
A few things to keep in mind when
reading this story.
King Xerxes did not follow God. He was a Persian king with a different set of
morals. While wives should respect her
husbands, this incident was not about marriage responsibilities, but about a
drunken husband and partying wife trying to see eye-to-eye. They made stupid mistakes.
The Bible is not endorsing this handling
of disrespect, merely reporting what happened.
However, God moved amongst all these
bad decisions to put a beautiful Jewish woman in the king’s household. Xerxes and Vashti are not the models of
godliness being reported in the book of Esther.
Esther is the one whose character stands out.