Esther 1:11

On the last day of the feast, Ahasuerus had no doubt drunk too much wine. He ordered seven eunuchs to go and bring Vashti back with them, to display her beauty before all the people (vv. 10-11). Why did he need to do this? Because a beautiful wife was to his credit, just as all the glory of the kingdom was to his credit. Such is the pride of the natural man.

Ahasuerus is a strange mixture of pride and weakness... His pride drives him to put on the most extravagant show of splendour, to dazzle the great men and the people of his empire.

The seven officers were eunuchs who held important posts. Mehuman was the chief officer; Biztha, judging by the meaning of his name, the treasurer; Harbona, the chief of the bodyguard... She refused to obey the king's command. Commentators have explained her refusal in different ways... Was it defiance of the king's order, or self-respect? She may have refused so as to show that a drunken husband could not order her about, and that she was not willing to appear in the middle of a drunken party. Perhaps she did not want to come because she had a feast of her own.

But one jarring note spoiled this celebration. Vashti refused to come (v.12). We are not told what her reason was. The king had not expected any such refusal, and he became furious. The one person he expected to cooperate fully had challenged his authority.

If the king's demand was unusual, the queen's refusal was an insult that could not be passed over. The seven officers were properly sent to escort her. But she rebelled, when obeying would have done her no real harm, and would have laid any blame there was on her husband instead. In the picture this points to, how true it is that the Gentile has been unfaithful and stubborn, seeking his own will and completely failing to show the world the beauty of one so favoured! The result will be, as it was here, the call of Zion to be a crown of beauty in the hand of the LORD and a royal diadem in the hand of her God.

Chapter 1 describes the glory of the king (who stands for God), and his generosity and grace. He invites people to a feast that runs for an extremely long time (180 days!), and he uses it to display the full splendour of his greatness. Read as a picture, the king's feast can be taken as the gospel feast (cf. Luke 14). But Vashti has no sympathy with the king in this and no share in it with him. She even dishonours him deeply by disobeying and refusing to acknowledge this great feast – and after that she is set aside.

A weak woman resists Ahasuerus and holds his limitless power in check. A grain of sand humbles all the pride of this huge, tightly organized empire. Vashti may be divorced, but what she did stands, and the humiliated king has no power to force her to appear in public... Man is full of grand schemes. A feast lasting seven days, the high point of these long celebrations, ends in Vashti's revolt against the king's decision.