# Was Vashti right or wrong?



## Pergamum

> Book of Esther. (Esther 1:10 - 22)
> 
> ". . .the king. . . commanded . . .to bring Vashti the queen before the King. . . But the queen Vashti refused to come at the King's command. . . therefore was the king very wroth, and his anger burned in him. . .Then the King said to the wise men. . . What shall we do unto queen Vashti according to the law, because she hath not performed the commandment of the king. . .And Memucan answered. . . For this deed of the queen shall come abroad unto all women, so that they shall despise their husbands in their eyes, when it shall be reported. . . If it please the King, let there go a royal commandment from him. . . That Vashti came no more before the King Ahasuerus: and let the king give her royal estate to another that is better than she. And when the King's decree which he shall make shall be published throughout all his empire (for it is great,) all the wives shall give to their husbands honour, both to great and small. . .For he sent letters into all the king's provinces. . . that every man should bear rule in his own house. . ."



Did she do well to disobey a sinful command or did she sin by disobeying her husband/king's rightful command?


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## JP Wallace

Well. 

Acts 5:29 29 But Peter and the other apostles answered and said: "We ought to obey God rather than men. 

Refer to John Murray 'Principles of Conduct' on the question about bearing false witness to illegitimate authority. 

Also the commands are not all absolute all the time but are qualified at times by revelation. We are not to murder, but must take life to obey the command (See Exodus 21)

I believe concealing truth etc. is warranted by Scripture in a number of texts and noted as righteous (cf. Heb 11 and Rahab especially).


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## TimV

She threw a hissy fit. And since Christian divorce laws don't apply to archaic Iranians the King could divorce her just as easily as he did. I wouldn't look to figures from ancient history for examples of Christian family life btw.


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## Pergamum

So, her husband didn't sinfully desire to display her beauty and sexuality before others and show her off as a trophy (a sin), to which Vashti rightly disobeyed? So, the King was justified and was not merely an example of how an unsaved pagan acts towards his wife?


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## PuritanCovenanter

So this wouldn't apply to everyone even though it was from the beginning?



> (Mat 19:4) And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,
> 
> (Mat 19:5) And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?
> 
> 
> (Mat 19:6) Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.


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## TimV

> So, her husband didn't sinfully desire to display her beauty and sexuality before others and show her off as a trophy (a sin), to which Vashti rightly disobeyed? So, the King was justified and was not merely an example of how an unsaved pagan acts towards his wife?



You can read anything you want into passages that give a bare outline, like the one commentator that claimed she was told to come in naked. But the simple explaination usually best. He was drinking with his court and wanted to brag about how pretty his queen was. So what? She publically humiliated him, and all his advisers though so too, and she got what was coming to her for being so stuck up.


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## toddpedlar

TimV said:


> So, her husband didn't sinfully desire to display her beauty and sexuality before others and show her off as a trophy (a sin), to which Vashti rightly disobeyed? So, the King was justified and was not merely an example of how an unsaved pagan acts towards his wife?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You can read anything you want into passages that give a bare outline, like the one commentator that claimed she was told to come in naked. But the simple explaination usually best. He was drinking with his court and wanted to brag about how pretty his queen was. So what? She publically humiliated him, and all his advisers though so too, and she got what was coming to her for being so stuck up.
Click to expand...


Sounds to me like you've read into the passage whatever you wanted to... and I can't believe you think his actions appropriate, clothed or unclothed. Also, whatever his advisers thought about that idiot being embarrassed because his wife wouldn't put up with his request for 'show and tell' isn't relevant. So he was embarrassed - would you treat your wife that way if you got drunk with your pals and wanted to show her off? I guess she'd be getting what was coming to her for being so stuck up.


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## TimV

*to bring Queen Vashti before the king with her royal crown, in order to show the peoples and the princes her beauty, for she was lovely to look at. 
Est 1:12 But Queen Vashti refused to come at the king's command delivered by the eunuchs. At this the king became enraged, and his anger burned within him. 
Est 1:13 Then the king said to the wise men who knew the times (for this was the king's procedure toward all who were versed in law and judgment, 
Est 1:14 the men next to him being Carshena, Shethar, Admatha, Tarshish, Meres, Marsena, and Memucan, the seven princes of Persia and Media, who saw the king's face, and sat first in the kingdom): 
Est 1:15 "According to the law, what is to be done to Queen Vashti, because she has not performed the command of King Ahasuerus delivered by the eunuchs?" *

What don't you get about that? She was wearing the crown, and exalted, and had to follow the law. On what basis does a pagan public figure get to refuse a lawful order? Are you seriously comparing what the king ordered with him telling her she should sacrifice her baby to Marduk??

Randy Christians have a stricter law than ancient pagans and even Jews under Moses. Was Esther a sinner by marrying a man with more than one wife? Was Abigail? Would your fiance be sinning if you were still married?


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## PuritanCovenanter

Tim, seriously. This is way overboard on your account even. God's law about marriage has roots in creation. He was overly sinful. He had no right to do as he pleased. That is just hogwash you are trying to pull in my estimation.


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## TimV

The question was whether or not Vashti was wrong or not in disobeying her King's lawful command. I say yes. Perhaps you could show on what law based in creation that she would have been violating by obeying her King's command.


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## Alan D. Strange

I think that we have to be careful not to decontextualize this, recontextualize it, and then interpret it as if this is something happening in our world. Before thinking about what it might have to say to us (very little directly: it's part of a bigger narrative which has something to say to us), we need to understand it in its original context.

The king calls for the queen, to show her off, in the context of an on-going show-off festival. Was this inconsiderate, crude, and so forth? Yes, but it would not be seen so in the world of that day. It was par for the course. Does this make it right? No, but they did not have gospel sensibilities (sorry, natural law does not get you the details and is often violated even in its broadest senses). We need special revelation and even more so, the gospel in all its explicitness.

Was Vashti justified in not coming? I don't see on what grounds she was justified in disobeying one who was not only her husband, but, probably more importantly in this context, her sovereign. The notion that her husband's insensitivity (remember that's seen from our Christian perspective) somehow exempts her from obeying his command is without warrant. Even if he was terribly brutish, I see no textual evidence that he was commanding her to sin. And even if his motives were quite sinful, that does not render his command invalid. She disobeyed and paid the penalty for such disobedience (perhaps she was more than willing, or even happy, to pay the price).

If you're trying to applying this to husbands and wives in the Christian church today, a number of qualifications will have to be observed and I would ask the question "why?" Why do such? In preaching this, my focus would not be on--the king or queen: who's right and who's wrong? Rather, I would preach this in terms of God's providential ordering of bringing Esther to the throne so that she might be there and play the role in redemptive history that she does. The notion that Vashti was in some way justified in disobeying the king, however brutish he may have been, seems quite remote to sound exegesis of this passage.

Peace,
Alan


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## Semper Fidelis

Alan D. Strange said:


> I think that we have to be careful not to decontextualize this, recontextualize it, and then interpret it as if this is something happening in our world. Before thinking about what it might have to say to us (very little directly: it's part of a bigger narrative which has something to say to us), we need to understand it in its original context.
> 
> The king calls for the queen, to show her off, in the context of an on-going show-off festival. Was this inconsiderate, crude, and so forth? Yes, but it would not be seen so in the world of that day. It was par for the course. Does this make it right? No, but they did not have gospel sensibilities (sorry, natural law does not get you the details and is often violated even in its broadest senses). We need special revelation and even more so, the gospel in all its explicitness.
> 
> Was Vashti justified in not coming? I don't see on what grounds she was justified in disobeying one who was not only her husband, but, probably more importantly in this context, her sovereign. The notion that her husband's insensitivity (remember that's seen from our Christian perspective) somehow exempts her from obeying his command is without warrant. Even if he was terribly brutish, I see no textual evidence that he was commanding her to sin. And even if his motives were quite sinful, that does not render his command invalid. She disobeyed and paid the penalty for such disobedience (perhaps she was more than willing, or even happy, to pay the price).
> 
> If you're trying to applying this to husbands and wives in the Christian church today, a number of qualifications will have to be observed and I would ask the question "why?" Why do such? In preaching this, my focus would not be on--the king or queen: who's right and who's wrong? Rather, I would preach this in terms of God's providential ordering of bringing Esther to the throne so that she might be there and play the role in redemptive history that she does. The notion that Vashti was in some way justified in disobeying the king, however brutish he may have been, seems quite remote to sound exegesis of this passage.
> 
> Peace,
> Alan


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## PuritanCovenanter

TimV said:


> The question was whether or not Vashti was wrong or not in disobeying her King's lawful command. I say yes. Perhaps you could show on what law based in creation that she would have been violating by obeying her King's command.



You are correct Tim. I was not answering that question. I was dealing with the King and how he put her away. Even if she deserved some form of punishment I don't think divorcing her was the correct measure. But as Dr. Strange pointed out God sovereignly was at work. We could use this same argument concerning divorce today. I don't think making the excuse that this was a pagan king relinquishes the marriage institution God set up. And that seemed to be what you were implying in post number 3.


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## TimV

> Sounds to me like you've read into the passage whatever you wanted to... and I can't believe you think his actions appropriate, clothed or unclothed. Also, whatever his advisers thought about that idiot being embarrassed because his wife wouldn't put up with his request for 'show and tell' isn't relevant. So he was embarrassed - would you treat your wife that way if you got drunk with your pals and wanted to show her off? I guess she'd be getting what was coming to her for being so stuck up.



Pastor Strange made the same points I made, or would have made, if I had advanced training in theology and was more gracious and eloquent. I would add that being merry with drink isn't drunk, and would also point out that she was to wear her royal crown, thus making it a State event, and that the word idiot probably doesn't properly describe the man despite how he's portrayed in The Three Hundred getting all freaky up against the Spartans.


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## Pergamum

Alan D. Strange said:


> I think that we have to be careful not to decontextualize this, recontextualize it, and then interpret it as if this is something happening in our world. Before thinking about what it might have to say to us (very little directly: it's part of a bigger narrative which has something to say to us), we need to understand it in its original context.
> 
> The king calls for the queen, to show her off, in the context of an on-going show-off festival. Was this inconsiderate, crude, and so forth? Yes, but it would not be seen so in the world of that day. It was par for the course. Does this make it right? No, but they did not have gospel sensibilities (sorry, natural law does not get you the details and is often violated even in its broadest senses). We need special revelation and even more so, the gospel in all its explicitness.
> 
> Was Vashti justified in not coming? I don't see on what grounds she was justified in disobeying one who was not only her husband, but, probably more importantly in this context, her sovereign. The notion that her husband's insensitivity (remember that's seen from our Christian perspective) somehow exempts her from obeying his command is without warrant. Even if he was terribly brutish, I see no textual evidence that he was commanding her to sin. And even if his motives were quite sinful, that does not render his command invalid. She disobeyed and paid the penalty for such disobedience (perhaps she was more than willing, or even happy, to pay the price).
> 
> If you're trying to applying this to husbands and wives in the Christian church today, a number of qualifications will have to be observed and I would ask the question "why?" Why do such? In preaching this, my focus would not be on--the king or queen: who's right and who's wrong? Rather, I would preach this in terms of God's providential ordering of bringing Esther to the throne so that she might be there and play the role in redemptive history that she does. The notion that Vashti was in some way justified in disobeying the king, however brutish he may have been, seems quite remote to sound exegesis of this passage.
> 
> Peace,
> Alan



Thank you.


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## Jack K

Vashti's conduct is not meant to be an example of either right or wrong for us.

But it does help put the story that follows into context. We can appreciate Esther's tenuous situation more for seeing how she came to her position. The king was looking for a queen who would be more submissive and less strongheaded than Vashti. Esther managed to fill that role and was successful in the palace, but then she was called upon to risk it all by being bold. Her critical appearance before the king midway through the book is an even bigger risk than it otherwise might have been because the last queen was punished for not being submissive enough.

We also see in the incident with Vashti some of the character of the king. He's shallow and easily swayed by self-interested advisors. These character traits also show up again later in the book, and make it clear that however Esther may be charmed by the royal court, she is a wise girl to place her ultimate allegiance with the greater King in heaven.


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## TimV

I don't see any parallel there. Vashti was a spoiled, pampered brat acting out from her unregenerate soul and relying on her circumstances, and an everlasting example of The Shrew. Esther was ultimately submissive. She served her lord by excellent meals and submissive charm. The King recognised and loved her submissive, gentle spirit, and acted like any true man to the threat made to his dependents and went medieval on them.

Vashti's example is fit for all people at all times, and it's a bad example.


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## a mere housewife

I think the same wonder of providence Dr. Strange references as being more to the point in the circumstances of Vashti being deposed applies to Esther? Esther must have been quite beautiful and the story shows her as being wise and courageous (for her actions did cost her a great deal of anxiety); yet she never grabbed at autonomy, as Vashti did, in how she used those gifts and graces: she submits to counsel all the way through the story, and is careful to honor the king as well as her uncle. The Lord raised her up for such a time; and He equipped her for it, and part of her being so equipped was her submissive spirit. I think one 'take home' lesson, beyond the glory of what God has done and always will do to save His people, is that He has each of us exactly where He wants us; we are most useful in the gifts He has given us as we live in submission to His will, honoring those He has placed over us, etc.


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## O'GodHowGreatThouArt

At the end of the day, she dishonored the King by refusing to come into his presence. Since we have no pretense that implies she was to come forth for sinful purposes, it would be unwise to assume that sin was the purpose of her presence. For all we know, she could have been invited for a cup of tea with King Ahasuerus.

All we have is an ancient case of a father telling his daughter to come to him, the daughter refuses, and the father disciplines her for disobedience. Unless history gives a clearer picture, I simply prefer to leave it at that with Scripture.

While we're on the subject of history, does anyone know the "protocol" of people coming before the king in this culture during this time? It may not answer our question, but it may provide insights into patterns of purpose.


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