Where is vashti in the bible

To be considered for the position of queen, Vashti circa B. She was probably designated from birth as being a suitable wife for the emperor Ahasuerus , so she grew up very sure of her own status and was trained as a possible future queen. It may sound glamorous, but the harem of an ancient Middle Eastern king was a dangerous place to live. At some stage in his reign Ahasuerus held a great banquet for his princes and nobles, to show off his power.

At the end of it, Ahasuerus held a prolonged dinner party for his chief advisers and courtiers. It went on for seven days and nights.

As was the custom, the wives dined separately, with Vashti as their hostess. This was how things were done at the time. It allowed the men licence to get drunk and do as they pleased, without the wives having to witness the foolishness of their husbands.

On the last day of the banquet, when the men were well and truly drunk, Ahasuerus and some of his princes were bragging about whose wife was the more beautiful. It seems harmless enough, but when you look at it in the context of a royal court, it becomes sinister. If it was a trap, the drunken Ahasuers fell straight in.

What safety nets do we depend on instead of depending on God, our lifeline? At what point are we willing to give up our comfort for the good of others?

Although Esther is the queen of a Gentile nation, she is a Jew by birth. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this? Up to this point, she has not revealed her ethnicity to the king.

She is in a position to save her people. Hegai, who was in charge of the harem, prepared First Lady Queen Esther well. Persian customs and culture are no longer foreign to her. In Esther , Queen Esther calls for the Jews in Susa to fast for her, eating and drinking nothing for three days and nights. And if I perish, I perish. It is time to embrace the moment!

Queen Esther strategically sets the stage for her own banquets. It came at the right time, with the right audience and under the right circumstances.

She is intelligent, courageous, and patient. Let the wicked fall into their own nets, while I pass by in safety. Her act of desperation is not a selfish move on her part.

Favor follows Esther from the moment she came to the royal palace. In our society, there is a notion that women should be passive and allow men to do whatever they desire. Or, maybe, an attractive woman is not taken seriously as an intellectual or as a businesswoman, and she is told she got ahead on her looks alone. Esther and Vashti were not passive pawns in the Persian Empire. They leveraged their power to do good for themselves and others with less influence.

The text does not say exactly how she is told to appear, only that she is to wear her royal crown. But given the king's drunkenness and the fact that all his male guests are likewise intoxicated, the assumption has often been that Vashti was commanded to show herself in the nude — wearing only her crown. Vashti receives the summons while she is hosting a banquet for the women of the court and refuses to comply.

Her refusal is yet another clue to the nature of the king's command. It does not make sense that she would risk disobeying a royal decree if King Ahasuerus had only asked her to show her face. When King Ahasuerus is informed of Vashti's refusal, he is furious. He asks several noblemen at his party how he should punish the queen for her disobedience, and one of them, one of the eunuchs named Memucan, suggests that she should be punished severely.

After all, if the king does not deal with her harshly other wives in the kingdom might get ideas and refuse to obey their own husbands. Memucan then suggests that Vashti should be banished and the title of queen be given to another woman who is "more worthy" of the honor.

King Ahasuerus likes this idea, so the punishment is carried out, and soon, a massive, kingdom-wide search is launched for a beautiful woman to replace Vashti as queen. Eventually, Esther is selected, and her experiences in the court of King Ahasuerus are the basis for the Purim story. Interestingly, Vashti is never mentioned again -- and neither are the eunuchs.

Although Esther and Mordecai are the heroes of the Purim story, some see Vashti has a heroine in her own right. Vashti appears in the opening chapter of the book of Esther just to be deposed as Queen, paving the way for Esther, the heroine of the book, to become the new Queen.

We rightly see Esther as pivotal in saving the Jewish people from extinction. Since Esther was virtuous and Vashti was deposed, we assume that Vashti must have been "bad.

We know from the book of Esther that to approach the king without being summoned meant a death sentence — even to his wife — unless he extended his scepter. He had every reason to believe that Vashti would obey his summons, as she probably always had. Why did Vashti refuse to come? We read that she was hosting her own party for the ladies of the land, an act of being a dutiful consort.

But wives were expected to drop less important commitments for more important ones. This was Day Seven of a seven-day-long banquet for all the men in the capital city, with unlimited wine for all.

We are given the reason why the king wants Vashti brought in. An immature whim of a drunken ruler! Most likely Vashti did not want to expose herself to the gaping and lust of a roomful of inebriated men. They would not have dared to touch her nor made wolf whistles or cat calls, but they could easily undress her with their eyes. She did not want to flaunt her sexuality. The king reacts in anger at such public loss of face.

He is embarrassed that he is shown as unable to command his wife when he commands a vast empire. He asks his counsellors for a just punishment for her disobedience.