Esther 1:9

VASHTI REFUSES TO HONOR THE KING'S CALL TO DISPLAY HER BEAUTY

"Also Vashti the queen made a feast for the women in the royal house which belonged to king Ahashuerus. On the seventh day, when the heart of the king was merry with wine, he commanded Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, and Abagthar, Zethur, and Carcas, the seven chamberlains that ministered in the presence of Ahashuerus the king, to bring Vashti the queen before the king with the crown royal, to show the peoples and the princes) her beauty; for she was fair to look on. But the queen Vashti refused to come at the kinifs commandment by the chamberlains: therefore was the king very wroth, and his anger burned in him."

"When the heart of the king was merry with wine" (Esther 1:10). This appears to this writer as a euphemism with the meaning that the king was drunk. That this is true appears from the fact of the king's unreasonable request.

"The seven chamberlains that ministered before the king" (Esther 1:10). The fact of these men having access to the king's harem indicates that all of them were eunuchs. Scholars usually suggest that this request of the king was reasonable, but this writer cannot believe that it was reasonable, else Vashti, knowing the outrageous nature of the king's ungovernable temper, would not have disobeyed him. She most certainly knew that death itself might be the penalty of her refusal.

"But the queen refused to come" (Esther 1:12). Scholars have suggested a number of possible reasons why Vashti would not obey the king, but in all likelihood, Vashti was pregnant with Artaxerxes I. John Bendor-Samuel writes that, "This banquet probably took place just before the birth of Artaxerxes";[10] and her natural modesty rebelled against making a display of herself before the king and his well drunken banqueteers.

QUEEN VASHTI IS DEPOSED AND DISPOSSESSED

What a heartless, evil wretch was Xerxes! "His design was to present Vashti unveiled before a multitude of semi-drunken revelers ... Xerxes' behavior here was a cruel outrage upon one whom he, above all men, was bound to respect and protect."[11] In a few days she would give birth to his son who would succeed him on the throne, but this half-drunken old fool had no honor or respect for anyone on earth except himself!

Some small measure of appreciation for Xerxes may be found in the fact that he did not at once order the death and dismemberment of Vashti, as he would later do for the oldest son of Pythius, for he restrained his anger sufficiently that he took the matter up with his counselors.