Divine Appointments: Malice in the Palace

Transcript

JROT 28
Divine Appointments (Part One): Malice in the Palace
4/14/2024
Esther 1:1-22
Jesse Randolph

“Careless seems the great avenger; History’s pages but record one death grapple in the darkness, ‘twixt old systems and the Word. Truth forever on the scaffold Wrong for ever on the throne: But that scaffold sways the future; And behind the dim unknown standeth God, within the shadow keeping watch above His own.” Those words were written by the American poet James Russell Lowell in the year 1845 in a popular poem at the time titled The Present Crisis, and Lowell’s immediate context, the reason he wrote those words, was to protest the Mexican-American War and the U.S. government’s annexation of Texas through which the balance of power between slaveholding southern states and free northern states was going to be tilted in the balance of the former at the expense of the latter. See, Lowell, was a northerner from Massachusetts and he was an abolitionist and he wanted to see the institution of human slavery completely eradicated throughout the United States and of course, that battle would be fought about 15 years later or so, in the American Civil War. But for our purposes here this evening I’d like us to take note of the final words of Lowell’s poem there again. Again, he wrote, "behind the dim unknown standeth God, within the shadow keeping watch above His own.”

Those are fitting words to consider as we embark on a new series and a new study tonight through the Book of Esther. Esther is a book which if it is about anything it’s about divine providence. What one author calls the "hand of God in the glove of history.” Or, to use Lowell’s language, Esther is a book in which there are many "dim unknowns.” It’s a book which as you read you can find yourself wondering what this is all about and where this is going and where the narrative is taking you. But it’s also a book when you take it as a whole, you can clearly see that God is standing over at all. Or again, in Lowell’s words He is "keeping watch above His own.”

Now, over the centuries scholars and theologians have had a real love-hate relationship with the book of Esther. Martin Luther didn’t like the book because it included what he called "too many heathen unnaturalities.” John Calvin preached 353 sermons in Isaiah but never preached a single sermon from Esther. So, I’m excited to pass Calvin tonight in the only category I’ll ever pass him in, preaching Esther. For over 700 years of church history not a single commentary was written on Esther. For some this angst and uneasiness with Esther stems from the fact that this book is not quoted anywhere in the New Testament. Now, to be fair, neither are Ezra or Nehemiah. For others they’ll point to the fact that not a single fragment of Esther has been found in the Dead Sea Scrolls collection. But for most, the most perplexing detail about Esther, the book of Esther, the one that causes them the greatest amount of angst and heartburn is the fact that the name of God appears nowhere in this book. This has led some to question whether Esther is truly inspired of God and whether Esther truly belongs in the 66 books of the canon. But in doing so, though, they are really imposing their own tests of canonicity which are more stringent than those set by God Himself which suggests that they have forgotten, as one commentator has put it, that “God is the Author of all history, even if He does not sign His name at the bottom of every page.” That is so true. Yes, it’s true that God’s name is not mentioned explicitly in any of the 10 chapters of the Book of Esther. But no fair-minded, clear-headed, Spirit-indwelt reader of this book could seriously make the case that God’s presence and His power are not clearly displayed throughout its pages. Though the author of Esther did not explicitly mention the name of Yahweh in this book, there’s no doubt that the fingers of the Author of Life, God Himself, are all over its pages. The hidden hand of God is all over this book as He provides deliverance for His people through a series of designated “coincidences.” There are no such things as a “coincidence.” We’re going to call “Divine appointments” as He uses to carry out His divine will and divine purposes through His own divinely chosen means.

So, in the time we have together this evening we’re going to work our way through the first chapter of Esther, all 22 verses of it. If the Lord got us through 24 chapters of Luke this morning. He can get us through 22 verses of Esther this evening. But before we get into the text itself since we are studying a new series afresh, a new book afresh this evening, let’s work our way through some of the background information related to this book. What’s going on in Esther? Well, let’s start with the setting of the book. What’s the context of Esther? Well as we’ll get into it in a moment here, the setting of Esther is very clearly a foreign land. Meaning this is written during the time that the people of Israel were in exile. They had been conquered. They had been taken captive. They had been hauled away by the Babylonians. But in a movement of divine providence, what the secular world would call a “twist of fate,” Babylon itself had been conquered and itself had been defeated. See, some fifty or so years after the Babylonians took the people of Israel captive a Persian king named Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon and effectively became the ruler of the known world. What this means is that by the time of the events recorded in the book of Esther, the exiled Jewish population were now under a different ruling authority, the Persians. They weren’t any more under the rule, the rulership of the Babylonians and the Jews of this day, at the time of Esther’s writing, were really second and third generation exiles meaning, they were the children and the grandchildren of those who had been hauled away by the Babylonians in the first place. In other words, the audience of this book, those who would have read this in real time, these were Jews who had never once stepped foot in Jerusalem. To many of them Yahweh was considered distant and far away as though He was some sort of localized deity who remained behind in Jerusalem while they were hauled off into captivity into Babylon.

And, by the way, this is likely why, in the Book of Esther we never see Jerusalem mentioned or the Temple mentioned or the Law or the Abrahamic Covenant or the Passover; and this is also likely why the king’s name is written some 190 times in this book but the name of God, Yahweh is not mentioned even once. But again, though God, Yahweh may have seemed distant to the Jews of Esther’s day, the second and third generation exiles, as we are going to see as we work our way through this book, God was very much there. He was very much present. So, that’s a little bit about the setting of Esther. The context is that the Jewish people are still in exile, but they are now under Persian rule. Now what about the date of Esther? When was Esther written? As we’re about to see the narrative of this book is set during the reign of a Persian king named Ahasuerus. You can pronounce it a lot of different ways. I’m going with Ahasuerus, like Colossae. Remember that? Ahasuerus. His reign began in 486 B.C., and he died in 465 B.C. and the events recorded here in Esther as we’re going to see in Esther 1:3, begin during the third year of his king’s reign, somewhere around 483 B.C. Now, what about the authorship of Esther? Who wrote this book? Who wrote what’s recorded here in these ten chapters? The answer is we really don’t know. We don’t know for sure. There have been some who surmised that maybe Ezra or Nehemiah were the author or was the author. Those are fair suggestions, but we can’t say that with certainty and that’s okay because in this case our absence of information about the human authorship of this book just like the absence of God’s name not being mentioned in this book really changes nothing about the message and the purpose of the book.

That’s a little on the setting, the date, and the authorship of Esther. The next question we need to ask, and answer is what is Esther all about? What is the purpose of this book? Well, at one level this book is about Esther. This Jewish orphan girl who became Queen of the most powerful empire on planet earth. At another level, though the book of Esther is about God’s preservation of His people, the people of Israel during their period of exile during the rulership of the Persians, notwithstanding the plan, this plot to annihilate him, annihilate them that was concocted by a wicked man named Haman. This is a preservation which to this day is celebrated by the Jewish people with their festival of Purim and it’s a preservation which even in our day is going to survive, bringing it up to current events, a few hundred Iranian drones. But yet another level, as we’re going to see, the book of Esther is really all about God’s providence. As the Puritan John Flavel once noted, “Providence is like a Hebrew word, it can only be read backwards and that’s certainly true of the Book of Esther. Taking it in its totality and you see the providential fingerprints of God all over this book.

That’s a little bit it in terms of preliminaries and background information. Let’s go ahead and get into our text. The title of this evening’s message with all the ballyhoo is Malice in the Palace. I chose this title not because it rhymed and not because I wanted to tip my hat to a legendary NBA brawl 20 years ago. But as you’ll see I think it fits our text this evening where we’re going to see all sorts of bad behavior brewing in this palace in Persia. So, for you notetakers here this evening I’ve got three points which we’re going to track with three natural divisions of our text Esther chapter 1. In verses 1-9, we are going to see the Royal Revelry. In verses 10-12, we’ll see the Royal Refusal and in verses 13-22, we are going to see the Royal Resolution. The Royal Revelry, the Royal Refusal, and the Royal Resolution.

Let’s start with the Royal Revelry picking it up on verses 1-9, God’s Word reads “Now it happened in the days of Ahasuerus, the Ahasuerus who reigned from India to Ethiopia over 127 provinces, in those days as King Ahasuerus sat on his royal throne which was at the citadel in Susa, in the third year of his reign, he held a feast for all his princes and servants, the military officers of Persia and Media, the nobles and the princes of his provinces being in his presence, while he displayed the riches of his royal glory and the splendor of his great majesty for many days, 180 days. And when these days were fulfilled, the king held a feast lasting seven days for all the people who were present at the citadel in Susa, from the greatest to the least, in the court of the garden of the king’s palace. There were hangings of fine white and blue linen held by cords of fine purple linen on silver rings and marble pillars, and couches of gold and silver on a mosaic pavement of porphyry, marble, mother-of-pearl, and precious stones. And drinks were served in golden vessels of various kinds, and the royal wine was plentiful according to the king’s hand. And the drinking was done according to the law; there was no compulsion, for so the king had established it for each official of his household—that he should do according to what pleased each person. Queen Vashti also held a feast for the women in the royal house which belonged to King Ahasuerus.”

Since we’ve got 22 verses to cover, we’ll get right into it. The book of Esther starts with these words, “Now it happened,” there in verse 1 and that could be translated “this is what took place.” In other words, the author of Esther here is taking down historical details. He’s taking down historical facts. He intends for his readers to understand that the ensuing story is really something that actually happened. This isn’t poetic. This isn’t allegorical nor is it apocalyptic. This is history.

Next in verse 1 we’re given a time reference. All that’s about to be reported happened, the text says, “in the days of Ahasuerus, the Ahasuerus who reigned from India to Ethiopia over 127 provinces.” See if you can follow along with this, the actual name of this king in his native Persian tongue was Khashayarsha. I won’t try to spell that. When that name is translated into the Hebrew, meaning the name his Jewish subjects would have referred to him by the king’s name was Achashverosh. I won’t spell that either. Now translate that word from Hebrew straight into English and you have our word here on the page of verse 1, Ahasuerus.

Now who was Ahasuerus? As you can see from verse 1 here, more than one Persian king went by this title in these days which is why the author of Esther specifies that this was “the Ahasuerus who reigned from India to Ethiopia over 127 provinces.” Now this king is more regularly referred to in the annals of history by his Greek name Xerxes. So, if it’s OK with everyone here to save some time and some syllables and some sanity I’m going to refer to him as Xerxes tonight. If you have any questions raise your hand and then say, who are you talking about, and I’ll make sure I bring it back to Ahasuerus. Okay? So, I’m going to call him Xerxes from now on unless I’m reading it straight out of the text.

Who was Xerxes? Well, Xerxes was the grandson of Cyrus the Great. The same Cyrus the Great who united two people groups, the Medes and the Persians to topple the Babylonians after the Babylonians had taken the Jews into captivity. This is the same Cyrus, by the way, who allowed the Jews to begin to return from captivity to Judea around 538 B.C. This is the Cyrus mentioned in Ezra 6 and 7. Cyrus had a son. His name was Darius. Some call him Darius. I think I’ll go with how we would say that name, Darius. This was the Darius who the Jewish prophet Daniel served under. He’s mentioned in Daniel chapter 6. Darius was infamous for taking on the Greek Empire in his day and ultimately losing to the Greeks at the battle of Marathon. Well, Darius’ son was Xerxes, Ahasuerus. The very king we now see is mentioned in the Book of Esther. Xerxes’ kingdom was expansive, and his power was massive and his desire, his thirst to avenge his father Darius’ defeat at the hand of the Greeks was unquenchable.

Looking again at Esther 1:1, note how massive the geographic scope of Xerxes’ kingdom was. It says, he reigned, “from India to Ethiopia over 127 provinces.” Now “India” here refers to the Indus River Valley region in modern day Pakistan. This is not the India that we think of. The “Ethiopia” here refers to the land going south of modern-day Egypt all the way down to the Sudan. This was a massive slice of territory which included parts or all of modern-day Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Armenia, and Romania. It was huge, his territory and as we see from this text, this massive slice of territory was divided up into 127 provinces. What this is really telling us here in Esther 1:1 is that Xerxes ruled over the entire known world at this time. He was, without question, the most powerful man in the world in his day. This fact, by the way, was not lost on Xerxes. A prideful man as we are about to see, He knew how to keep tabs on how powerful he was. If Xerxes had an Instagram or a Facebook page, he would know exactly how many followers he had or friends he had. He knew how popular he was, and he was counting on it. In fact, there’s this inscription that’s been discovered related to the days of Xerxes’ reign in he writes this of himself, “I am Xerxes, the great king, the only king, the king of this entire earth, far and near.” Well according to Herodotus, a Greek historian from this era, Xerxes was not just prideful, he was a ruthless, merciless, and vengeful man. In fact, there’s this story about how he ordered two bridges to be built across a river to accommodate his army. The bridges were built. They were built successfully but unfortunately; a storm came about one night and took both bridges down. Now instead of holding a council or some kind of architectural planning meeting Xerxes had the bridge engineers beheaded. That was his solution to the problem. He was a prideful king. He was a vengeful king. But he was a king, no less, and he was feared and honored and respected as such. Millions of people from various diverse cultures, religions, and ethnicities, all of which had been swallowed up by the Persian Empire gave their allegiance to this man.

Moving on we now come across what can only be described as a major display of Xerxes’ power through his proclivity for partying or, as we’ve outlined here, his Royal Revelry. Look at verse 2, and we’ll read all the way through verse 4. It says, “in those days as King Ahasuerus sat on his royal throne,” again that’s Xerxes, “which was at the citadel in Susa, in the third year of his reign, he held a feast for all his princes and servants, the military officers of Persia and Media, the nobles and the princes of his provinces being in his presence, while he displayed the riches of his royal glory and the splendor of his great majesty for many days, 180 days.” Now, some background here. The Persian Empire was so vast and so powerful during Xerxes’ time that it had not just one, not just two, but four capital cities and one of those capital cities was Susa. This city that was situated on this fertile plain in the southwest part of what is now Iran near the Iraq-Iran border today. The crown jewel of the city of Susa was this fortified royal palace which 120 sat feet higher than the rest of this city. It served as the winter and the spring residence of the Persian the king. It provided him protection but also it sorts of symbolically placed him in a lofty and exalted spot of importance within the city.

As we read on in verse 2, we note that just he had in Persepolis, that would have been the main capital city of the Persian Empire, Xerxes had a throne here in Susa. Verse 2 says he “sat on his royal throne which was at the citadel in Susa.” That’s describing a literal throne on which King Xerxes was perched. He’s there sitting securely. His kingdom settled. He’s making decisions on behalf of the entire Persian Empire, the greatest world empire of his day. Then, in verse 3 we’re given this time referent. As I mentioned earlier his reign began in 486 B.C. Now, in verse 3 we’re told that “in the third year of his reign,” meaning, in 483 B.C. and then look what it says. He holds this “feast for all his princes and servants, the military officers of Persia and Media, the nobles and the princes of his provinces being in his presence, while he displayed the riches of his royal glory and the splendor of his great majesty for many days, 180 days.” Now, this is the first of three feasts or banquets that we’re going to see here in Esther chapter 1. The first is in verses 3-4. The second feast is in verses 5-8 and the third is in verse 9.

Now, this first feast or this first banquet, which is described as lasting 180 days, six months, has a really interesting backstory. You’ll remember how Xerxes’ father was Darius and Darius was defeated by the Greeks back in his day at the battle of Marathon and it was an obsession of Xerxes to avenge his father’s defeat at the hands of the Greeks and to conquer the Greeks himself. We do know from secular historical records that Xerxes launched this military campaign against the Greeks in 481 B.C. We also know that Xerxes’ immense fleet of warships defeated the Greeks initially at the battle of Thermopylae but that he was eventually defeated by the Greeks in 480 B.C. at the battle of Salamis or you might pronounce it, Salamis. It’s also documented that in the secular historical literature that Xerxes spent four years preparing for that invasion of Greece that he launched in 481 B.C. I’m belaboring all of this and bringing all this up because what this means is that this first feast that’s mentioned here in Esther 1:3-4 which we’ve already established happened in 483 B.C. “in the third year of his reign” falls right within this four-year window of Xerxes preparing to take on the Greeks.

Why is that significant? It’s significant because what it’s telling us is that this first feast here in Esther 1 was not all fun and games. This wasn’t just about a good meal and an exhibition. Rather, this 180-day feast was more like an extended military planning session. A working retreat, of sorts. A war council in which Xerxes called in the various military and civil and political leaders of the Persian Empire representing the 127 different provinces, representing the different branches and levels of government, they all descend upon King Xerxes’ palace here in Susa in preparation for this massive war effort against the Greeks that was about to begin.

Now, it’s worth noting that though this feast did have this future military campaign as its focus, drawing up plans and strategies and the like, this was also an opportunity, don’t get me wrong, for Xerxes to show off and the text tells us that in verse 4. He’s not only talking military strategy with the various leaders of these various provinces, but it also says he was displaying “the riches of his royal glory and the splendor of his great majesty for many days.” Why was he doing that? Well, on the one hand, surely to feed his own massive ego. On the other hand, though to rally the support of each man from each province to get their loyalty, to gain their loyalty, to consolidate his authority over them as he carried out those ambitious plans, he had to take on another major power, the Greeks.

When we come to verse 5, we come to our second feast in this account, our second banquet. Look at what it says. It says, “And when these days were fulfilled, the king held a feast,” this is a whole different now, “lasting seven days for all the people who were present at the citadel in Susa, from the greatest to the least, in the court of the garden of the king’s palace.” So, there’s this first, 180-dav feast which was more of a military planning session and when that feast was over this second feast started. This feast is more likely what you were thinking of when you heard of a king of Persia throwing a feast. This one was more like a frat party, like a it was a real ragger as Xerxes opened the doors to his palace and invited anyone and everyone who was in Susa to come party with him. That’s exactly what is meant in verse 5 here where it says he invited in “all the people who were present at the citadel in Susa, from the greatest to the least.” It didn’t matter how high or low a person was ranked in Persian culture. If they were near the citadel, if they were within earshot they were welcomed at this giant party in Xerxes’ palace. Specifically, as we see at the end of verse 5, it was being held in “in the court of the garden of the king’s palace.” This would have been a breezy and pleasant place to gather a large group of people.

Now, as we turn to verse 6, we see what Xerxes’ guests would have seen as they arrived at his palace for this party. Look at verse 6. It says, “There were hangings of fine white and blue linen held by cords of fine purple linen on silver rings and marble pillars, and couches of gold and silver on a mosaic pavement of porphyry, marble, mother-of-pearl, and precious stones.” If you are catching all of those details this is essentially saying this was like a little slice of paradise. There are these fine linens on display. There are these precious metals everywhere. There’s this ornate gemstone mosaic tilework beneath their feet and by the way, all of this is supported by the secular historical record of these days. For instance, Herodotus again tells us that when the Greeks later in history defeated the Persians many years later, they found in the Persian camp “many tents richly adorned with furniture of gold and silver, many couches covered with plates of the same, and many golden bowls, goblets, and other drinking vessels.”

There is also the account of Alexander the Great who arrived and conquered Persia some 200 years later. It tells us that he was mesmerized not only by the glory and the beauty of Xerxes’ old palace there in Susa, but Alexander the Great’s armies found a thousand tons of gold bullion and 270 tons of gold coins. 200 years later, it’s ornate to say the least. Now look at verses 7 and 8. It says “And drinks were served in golden vessels of various kinds, and the royal wine was plentiful according to the king’s hand. And the drinking was done according to the law; there was no compulsion, for so the king had established it for each official of his household that he should do according to what pleased each person.” In other words, there were no plastic or paper cups at this party. No, they were drinking out of golden vessels. Golden goblets and note that when it says in verse 7 there these were “of various kinds.” Meaning that no two goblets or vessels were alike. Each was its own unique artistic creation. In other words, drinking was taken very seriously in Susa. Which is confirmed at the end of verse 7 that “the royal wine (it says) was plentiful according to the king’s hand.” Anyone with a goblet, in other words, could drink as much as he desired. The king was liberal with his wine. Free refills in the palace in Susa.

Then, in verse 8, we see this interesting language: it says, “And the drinking was done according to the law; there was no compulsion, for so the king had established it for each official of his household, that he should do according to what pleased each person.” So, the idea here is that everyone was free to drink however much, or however little, they wanted. Which, when you kind of think about it, it’s sort of strange that they had to put that in a law in that on that topic somewhere. To legislate freedom. If freedom is what they wanted to give them then why did, they have to put it into law? We will leave that one for later.

Well, moving on. The sights were beautiful. The grounds were stunning. The wine was flowing.
This was a party that was marked by luxuriance, extravagance, and indulgence and then we see that somewhere else on the grounds of the palace there in Susa, another feast. Another banquet was taking place. Look at verse 9. It says, “Queen Vashti also held a feast for the women in the royal house which belonged to King Ahasuerus.” Now, this is the first mention of Queen Vashti here in the book of Esther and we’re told that she was holding this separate feast for the women in the royal house. Meaning, the wives of those who were partying it up with Xerxes in the citadel. See, according to the custom and culture of the day women couldn’t go into the main banquet where the men were. Rather, they were to stay in their separate quarters. Queen Vashti here is holding a separate feast for the women over there. Now we’re hardly given any details about Vashti’s feast. All we know is that it was separate from the feast being held for the men and we know is that it was held in this “royal house which belonged to King Ahasuerus.”

Now, everything that we’ve seen so far in these first nine verses is meant to paint this picture of King Xerxes’ greatness from the size of his kingdom to him sitting on his royal throne to this first feast he threw where he was displaying “the riches of his glory and the splendor of his great majesty” to this second feast, this seven-day feast where he’s further showing off his wealth and power and might to even this third feast, though Vashti is holding it, it’s very clearly noted here that it’s being held in the royal house which belonged to King Ahasuerus, to Xerxes’. What’s being pointed out by the author of Esther here is that King Xerxes had it all. He ruled the world. He was revered by the greatest military forces in the world. He possessed the most glorious treasures from all over the world. He lived in the most magnificent palace in the world. He was at the peak of success and luxury and wealth and power. No one could compare to him. No one could touch him. No one could topple him. No one could bring him down. Or could they?

That takes us to our next heading, in verses 10 through 12. We’ve looked at the Royal Revelry. Now we’re going to see the Royal Refusal, verses 10 through 12. It says, “On the seventh day, when the heart of the king was merry with wine, he said for Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, Abagtha, Zethar, and Carkas, the seven eunuchs who attended to the presence of King Ahasuerus, 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 in appearance. But Queen Vashti refused to come at the word of the king which was delivered by the hand of the eunuchs. Then the king became exceedingly furious, and his wrath burned within him.” To set the stage for verses 10-12, King Xerxes has been on a weeklong bender which follows this six-month long feast involving serious and strategic military planning. He’s been puffing his chest out in several different contexts. He’s been showing off and demonstrating his wealth and showing what a big shot he is to all sorts of people. Now, at the end of the second feast, the one where he’s invited everyone to join him in this palace in Susa, the one where everybody gets their own specially crafted golden goblet. The one where the wine was flowing freely. At the end of all of that Xerxes is now drunk. He is inebriated. He is intoxicated. That’s what it means, in verse 10, when it says, “the heart of the king was merry with wine.” In that drunken state look what Xerxes does next. He calls in these seven attendants, Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, Abagtha, Zethar, Carkas. Those are strong Persian names and note, that they’re described as “eunuchs.” These are young men who have been castrated. Why? Why were they castrated? They have been castrated so that they would have no illusion of taking down Xerxes and starting their own dynasties. Look what Xerxes orders these seven eunuchs to do. He says it there in verse 11. They were “to bring Queen Vashti before the king with her royal crown in order to display her beautify to the people and the princes.” Why? “For she was beautiful in appearance.”

So, he’s just come off this six-month run of showing off his wealth and his splendor, his power, his majesty to anyone and everyone who would put up with him. But it wasn’t enough for him. No. He had one more thing he wanted to show off and not really a thing, but a person. He wanted to show off his wife.

Now, here’s where an interpretive decision needs to be made about what’s meant here when it says that Xerxes wanted “to display her beauty to the people and the princes.” Some have taken this to mean that perhaps Vashti was veiled, her face was veiled and displaying “her beauty” here Xerxes’ wanted the men at banquet to see the veil lift and be privileged to see the beauty of her face. I actually think that something far more sinister is happening here. I think what’s happening here is that the drunken Xerxes, he’s trying to get his wife, the Queen Vashti, to parade herself nude before all the men that he was entertaining. Why do I say that? Well, for starters, there is plenty of historical data from this time in this context in Persia that the women of Persia weren’t covering their faces with veils at this time in history. What that would mean is that Vashti, being a public figure, being a queen, being in the public eye had a face that the people of the kingdom, including men, were already familiar with some of these dignitaries who were at Xerxes’ feast. Her “beauty,” in other words had already been displayed at least facially. So, everyone already knew and recognized the beauty of the face that was behind that veil. Adding to that piece of data we have Herodotus, again, who wrote extensively on various different practices of the Persian Empire, and he wrote that because the Persian people of this time were so promiscuous and so sexually immoral it was actually commonplace for kings to parade their wives and concubines around unclothed. It was a way to show off and demonstrate their own power. Taking those factors in and also factoring in Xerxes’ drunken state here and his tendency to take things to the extreme with his wealth and his feasts and drinking. I think it’s as reasonable a conclusion as any that in this context here he wanted his wife to disrobe, to parade herself and to do so in front of this room of other drunken, power-hungry men. In a really sick and depraved way, this was ultimately Xerxes’ way of showing off to get other men to lust after his wife and then to envy him for having such a prize.

Back to our text. Queen Vashti, we see over in verse 9, was hosting this separate banquet for the women. In this inebriated Xerxes tells the seven eunuchs to bring Vashti out so that he could parade her, again, I would say, nude before these other men and of course, that’s what she did, right? She immediately obeyed as a properly submissive wife. She was familiar with Ephesians 5, submit to your husbands therefore, right? No. That’s not what happened. Look at the first half of verse 12. It says, “But Queen Vashti refused to come at the word of the king which was delivered by the hand of the eunuchs.” So, the command had come from almighty Xerxes, the one who was accustomed to putting down mighty empires like the Babylonians and the Egyptians and, he was hoping, the Greeks. No one could say no to Xerxes. No one could refuse Xerxes. Except Vashti. She wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t follow his perverted command.

Just like that, the king of the most powerful empire on planet earth, who had spent the past six months explaining to the rulers of Persia’s 127 provinces that he was going to be able to conquer and command other empires of the world including the Greeks, with all eyes on him at this banquet he’s now being upstaged and embarrassed by his disobedient wife. Xerxes knew exactly what was happening. He was very much in the moment. He was very aware of the magnitude of this problem. He was cognizant of the stakes. He was concerned with what this must of all have looked like to his guests and he started getting hot under the collar. Look at the last part of verse 12. It says, “Then the king became exceedingly furious, and his wrath burned within him.” He had been denied. He had been disobeyed. Not only that, in the front of a room full of guests whom he had been trying to impress with his authority and his majesty and it was all brought about by Vashti, who was a woman, challenging the authority of a man. A wife, disobeying the orders of her husband. A subject, who was defying the orders of a king. Xerxes here is enraged. The old commentator Matthew Henry says that “He that had rule over 127 provinces had no rule over his own spirit.” That’s going to be a common theme by the way that we’re going to see in our study of Esther that this king, Xerxes, this mighty monarch, could control everything but himself. His advisers easily influenced him. He made hasty decisions which he later regretted and then when he didn’t get his own way, as here he became angry.

Now, I should note that a great deal of ink has been spilled throughout the years in trying to supply a motive for the author of the book of Esther as to why they included this account of Vashti’s refusal to follow her husband’s order. All kinds of theories are out there. There’s feminists’ theory, there’s queer theory, there’s all kinds of theories out there about why this text, this account is included in Esther 1. Is Vashti mentioned here to serve as a symbol for future feminists? Does Vashti’s example here prove that God is really an egalitarian, and not a complementarian? Is Vashti the true heroine of the story? No, no, and no. The reality is when you look at this book as a whole, and this chapter as a whole, this section as a whole, Vashti here is not even the one who is in focus. The focus, rather, is on Xerxes. If you look at this whole narrative the focus is on Xerxes’ and what we see here is that for the first time, really ever, he’s presented as weak, and limited, and a failure and not only that, but he’s also presented in those ways in this very public way. What Xerxes should have done at this point was to splash some cold water on his face to sober up and to apologize to his wife to seek forgiveness. But that’s not what he did. Instead, he ran straight to a group of, we’re going to see here, so-called “wise men.” He sought advice from people he paid to agree with him, which takes us to the next part of our text. If you’re taking notes, this is our third point this evening. This will be the Royal Resolution.

We’ll take this next and final section in three parts. First, we see Xerxes’ questioning his counselors. The question he poses to them in verses 13-15. Look how the scene unfolds. It says, “Then the king said to the wise men who knew the times—for it was the custom of the king thus to speak before all who knew law and justice and were close to him. Here are the names of these seven “wise men,” Carshena, Shethar, Admatha, Tarshish, Meres, Marsena, and Memucan, the seven princes of Persia and Media who had access to the king’s presence and sat in the first place in the kingdom.” Then here comes the question in verse 15, “According to law, what is to be done with Queen Vashti, because she did not do the declaration of King Ahasuerus delivered by the hand of the eunuchs?” Now, for starters, we need to determine who these “wise men” were. Who were these “seven princes” “who had access to the king’s presence and sat in the first place in the kingdom”? Well, we won’t go through each one of these one by one. There’s not a whole lot we can dig up about them but collectively this was Xerxes’ cabinet. This was his team of closest confidants. These were his counselors, and we know that throughout the ancient Near East wise men like these guys played important roles in governments. We think, for instance, of Daniel’s position in the Babylonian and Persian Empires and Xerxes’ men, we’re told in verse 13, it says “knew the times.” They “knew the times.” and that likely has some sort of astrological meaning. These were men who were consulting the stars and engaging in other forms of divination. But not only that it says in verse 13 that they “knew law and justice.” “Law”? “Justice”? Why “law and justice?” What was, what was Vashti’s crime? Why was this suddenly a legal matter? Well, her “crime” was that she had disobeyed a command of the king. So now, having just been royally embarrassed by her disobedience and probably as a way to save face, Xerxes wanted to make this a legal matter. He wanted to engage in a form of judicial damage control. He wanted to bring the lawyers in as a PR tactic.

Well, as we turn to verse 16, we see what the chief spokesman for Xerxes’ legal team, Memucan, said and told him. This is the counsel he gets from Memucan, really on behalf of the whole team of counselors and advisors. It says, “Then in the presence of the king and the princes, Memucan said, ‘Queen Vashti has committed iniquity against not only the king but also against all the princes and all the peoples who are in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus. For the word about the queen will get out to all the women causing them to despise their husbands in their eyes by saying, “King Ahasuerus said for Queen Vashti to be brought into his presence, but she did not come.” This day the ladies of Persia and Media who have heard of the word about the queen will speak in the same way to all the king’s princes, and there will be plenty of spite and indignation. If it seems good to the king, let a royal word go forth from 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 better than she. The king’s sentence, which he will make, will be heard throughout all his kingdom, for it is vast, and all women will give respect to their husbands, great and small.’” Now, there are two things going on here with the counsel here, the counsel from Memucan on behalf of team of counselors. First, there is the counsel itself and second, there’s the reasoning for the counsel. Let’s take these in turn. Starting with the counsel itself. Now, the questions Xerxes’ asked we find in verse 15 again. Verse 15 he says, “According to law, what is to be done with Queen Vashti, because she did not do the declaration of King Ahasuerus delivered by the hand of the eunuchs?” By the way, that’s a really tame way of describing what he actually asked his wife to do. She didn’t “do the declaration” of what I asked her to do is essentially what he is saying there. And then Memucan’s counsel back to Xerxes’ is actually very straightforward and clear. We see it in verse 19. It says, “If it seems good to the king, let a royal word go forth from 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 better than she.” In other words, the legal determination, the legal counsel here was that Xerxes ought to send Vashti away for her offense. In light of her rebellion Xerxes ought to get rid of her and replace her it says with “another who is better than she.” Presumably, that would be one who is more obedient, one who is less likely to do what Vashti did.

But not only that, the counsel Xerxes received here was that Vashti’s banishment ought to be codified by way of Xerxes’ “royal word” and we see that in verse 19, “let it be written in the laws of Persia and Media so that it cannot be repealed.” So, this is the counsel Xerxes receives in a nutshell. Vashti’s refusal to be paraded around publicly and in a sexually provocative manner by her drunk husband was not only grounds not only for sending her away but now for passing this irrevocable law which publicly lays out the details of Vashti’s punishment. That’s the counsel he gets.

Now, I mentioned that there are two things going here in the counsel that Xerxes receives. First, is the counsel itself which we just walked through. Second, is the reasoning for their counsel. Let’s look at the reasoning for the counsel. There’s both a negative component to this reasoning and a positive component. The negative component is found in verses 16-18. Let’s look at that again. I think I heard a couple of snickers and laughs when I read that the first time. “Then in the presence of the king and the princes, Memucan said, ‘Queen Vashti has committed iniquity against not only the king but also against all the princes and all the peoples who are in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus. For the word about the queen will get out to all the women causing them to despise their husbands in their eyes by saying, “King Ahasuerus said for Queen Vashti to be brought into his presence, but she did not come.” This day the ladies of Persia and Media who have heard of the word about the queen will speak in the same way to all the king’s princes, and there will be plenty of spite and indignation.’”

Now, first of all, note what Memucan on behalf of the other counselors is doing here. He’s managing here to spin what is otherwise a household matter between a man and his wife or even a king and his queen into this national crisis. He’s saying here that “Queen Vashti has committed iniquity against not only the king but against all the princes, all the peoples all the provinces. By the way, I have to note here that these counselors were shrewd. Talk about a way to ensure your job security by exaggerating the problem and inflating your own importance in the eyes of this king and making the king more dependent on you. Well, after politicizing this matter and blowing it up to a size of national proportions Memucan next plays the fear card in verse 17. He says, “For the word about the queen will get out to all the women causing them to despise their husbands in their eyes by saying, ‘King Ahasuerus said for Queen Vashti to be brought into his presence, but she did not come.’ This day the ladies of Persia and Media who have heard of the word about the queen will speak in the same way to all the king’s princes, and there will be plenty of spite and indignation.” In other words, if word got out that Vashti had defied Xerxes command, there, this is going to spark some sort of feminist uprising in the Persian Empire. Women are now going to despise their husbands. They’ll start defying their husbands as verse 18 says, “there will be plenty of spite and indignation.” And according to the counselors here, this empire-wide crisis is looming. One that has to be addressed right away. And so, pandering to their already-angry overlord, Xerxes and I would even say, probably spurred on by some fears they had about their own wives and their own homes, these so-called “wise men” give Xerxes the counsel we saw in verse 19, “If it seems good to the king, let a royal word go forth from 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 better than she.”

So that’s the negative aspect of the counsel of these “wise men,” meaning it was rooted in their fear of unruly women and unruly wives turning the Persian Empire upside down. In verse 20 now, we see the positive aspect of their counsel meaning, the “good” that these “wise men” thought their counsel would bring. It says, “And the king’s sentence, which he will make, will be heard throughout all his kingdom, for it is vast, and all women will give respect to their husbands, great and small.” Now, you can hear in this language how, how blatantly these “wise men” were playing off the ego of King Xerxes. The sentence that they are recommending would be heard it says, throughout “his” kingdom. Just a reminder, king, this is your kingdom. You’re the king and then the reminder, right in the middle of verse 20, “for it,” meaning the kingdom, “is vast.” That’s like stroking the ego of a prideful pastor and reminding him that he’s a pastor of a really big church. You know, telling a king that he’s the king of a very big kingdom, a vast kingdom. Then comes this promised solution to this crisis of their own making. Once Xerxes issued this sentence by sending Vashti away by way of this irrevocable law then, and only then, it says, end of verse 20, “all women will give respect to their husbands, great and small.” Because that’s what you need ladies, right, to respect your husbands? You need legislation? You need national, federal, state, local legislation to get you to respect or honor your husbands? No. Wrong. Respect is a matter of the heart and the counsel offered by Memucan and the other “wise men” here was foolish. These “wise men” were anything but wise.

Well, Xerxes who many times in this book, as we’ll see, proves himself a fool, finds these “wise men” to be wise and he finds their counsel to be compelling and persuasive. Look at verse 21. It says, “And this word was good in the eyes of the king and the princes, and the king did according to the word of Memucan.” So, he’s still motivated by anger and revenge. He’s unwilling to overlook an offense. He’s unable to cope with and move on from his wounded pride and he rashly signs the recommendations of these counselors into law. Francis Bacon, the English philosopher, and statesman once said that "A man that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green.” That was Xerxes. He kept the wounds green meaning he kept them fresh. He stayed under the sway of his sinfully angry thoughts. He surrounded himself by a bunch of “yes” men who would give him what he wanted and tell him the things he wanted to hear and then he sent Vashti away.

All of that is summarized in the final verse of Esther chapter 1 in verse 22. It says, “So he sent letters to all the king’s provinces, to each province according to its script and to every people according to their tongue, that every man should be the ruler in his own house and the one who speaks in the tongue of his own people.” In other words, all 127 provinces of the Persian Empire received this decree, and it was accompanied with its own written explanations and instructions. That’s what the meaning of that word “script” there and it was translated into the native language, the native tongue of each province. Hence, “according to their tongue” meaning, there would be no excuses allowed for not understanding what was being said in this decree. Then we have the heart of the decree itself, at the end of verse 22. It says, “that every man should be the ruler in his own house and the one who speaks in the tongue of his own people.” So, the king’s decree was that every man in his kingdom was to be the “ruler in his own house.” But he was not only to rule with an iron fist, but that’s also the idea here, he was to rule with an iron tongue as only the husband’s language was to be spoken in the home. That’s the meaning of that second part of verse 22. So, all of this was Xerxes’ response in response to his wife’s refusal to heed his drunken demands. He’s drunk at a party. He demands that his wife be paraded around, I believe, nude. He doesn’t get what he wants. His response is to run to his counselors, his paid friends and then to pass this kingdom-wide edict mandating that husbands not only dominate their wives, but they dictate the language that their wives speak. Talk about over-correction. Talk about lashing out an anger. Talk about foolishness. Talk about pride.

Well, it may have seemed that Xerxes was sitting on top of the world to the watching world. He had riches. He had armies. He had people telling him all the time what he wanted to hear. But in the end and what we’ve seen in this account tonight is that Xerxes was not as “in control” of all things as he thought he was. Yes, he was the king of the greatest empire on planet earth at this time but ultimately, as we’re going to see as we work our way through this book, he himself was a subject. A subject of the One who truly reigns overall, Yahweh Himself and though God, Yahweh is not mentioned anywhere by name here in the book of Esther it is going to be clear as we work our way through this book that, once again, God’s fingerprints are all over its pages. It is clear that God was active and involved not only in the lives of people like Xerxes and Vashti. We’ll see next week, it’s clear that God was involved in the life of Esther, this young Jewish girl who would eventually become the Queen. In carrying this over to our day, the God of Esther’s day is yet the God of our day and it’s clear - is it not that though we don’t see Him, He is intimately and intricately involved in every single detail of each one of our lives. I started this message this evening with the poetic words of James Russell Lowell. I’ll end with them, as well. Again, “Careless seems the great avenger; History’s pages but record One death grapple in the darkness, ‘twixt old systems and the Word. Truth forever on the scaffold wrong for ever on the throne: But that scaffold sways the future; And behind the dim unknown standeth God, within the shadow keeping watch above His own.”

Let’s pray. God thank you for the privilege we’ve had this evening to get into a book that is not often preached, the book of Esther. A book that speaks of and testifies to Your sovereignty over all things and Your providential control and guidance and direction of all things. God, I know that this book at times will be perplexing to us and we will ask questions internally, if not externally, what does this have to do with us. But we know, God, that all Scripture is breathed out by You and it’s all profitable. You put this book in the canon of Scripture for a reason and there’s something and many things in this book that You want us to learn. So God as we work our way through this study I do pray that You would guide my thoughts and my time as I seek to unpack and unfurl what we learn, what I learn in this study and may we each Sunday evening come away from this book transformed as we understand more about Your providence, more about Your sovereignty, more about Your dealings with mankind, and more with us specifically. May we as we study this book not lose sight of the fact that we live on this side of the cross. That we live on this side of the cross in a world in which we know that You have sent Your Son, the Lord Jesus into the world. He has died. He died a death that we deserve, and He atoned for the sins of the world. He conquered death through His death and burial and resurrection. He is coming again. We have a blessed future hope to look forward to with Him and ruling and reigning with Him again on this earth. God, may we not lose sight of those truths even as we go deep down to the rabbit’s hole of the book of Esther. God thank you for this group. Thank you for this study this evening. May You strengthen us for service of You ultimately, all this week. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.