So when the decree made by the king is proclaimed throughout all his kingdom, for it is vast, all women will give honor to their husbands, high and low alike.”
The king's adviser Memucan ends his advice with a law for every province. One insult at a banquet becomes an order that every wife, rich or poor, must honour her husband. Can a law create respect? And why does the Bible record a palace quarrel at all?
From a private quarrel to state policy
The king had one decision to make about his wife. His advisers turned it into a matter for the whole empire. One writer traces this back to the king's own weakness.
H. L. RossierHis weakness shows itself again here. He had to make a decision about queen Vashti that concerned only himself. Yet he surrounds himself with counsellors, and they persuade him that the queen's act touches the very organisation of the state.
The councillors were not only protecting a husband's pride. They argued that the kingdom itself was at stake.
Leslie M. GrantMemucan appealed not only to the king's authority in his own house, but also to his authority over the kingdom. Quick action here would have the good effect of moving wives to honour their husbands (v. 20)... The king and the princes thought such action was needed to keep the kingdom from corruption and collapse from within.
The reach of the decree
The verse gives the size of the empire as the reason the decree will work. One writer tells a story about a Persian king that suggests otherwise.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinThe king approves it, and at the same time issues a decree for his whole great kingdom: all wives are to honour their husbands. The Persian kings held absolute power and ruled with an iron hand. Their laws could not be changed. "The story told of Xerxes is certainly no fable. When the flooding of the Hellespont had destroyed all the bridges, he ordered the water to be beaten with rods for disobedience. But it was easier for him to beat the sea than to get what his edict demanded."
What all that power could not do
The king published this decree because one woman had said no. No amount of law could undo her refusal.
H. L. RossierA weak woman resists Ahasuerus, and his limitless power is stopped. A grain of sand humbles all the pride of this huge, well-organised empire. The king may divorce Vashti, but her act remains, and he is left humiliated and powerless to force her to appear in public.
Half a truth
The decree is not simply wrong. It is one-sided: it commands the wife and says nothing to the husband about love.
Leslie M. GrantLetters were sent to all the provinces under the king's rule to the effect that every man should be master in his own house. So the letter in effect agreed with the Christian principle that the husband is head of the wife (Ephesians 5:23). But it did not agree with what the same chapter tells husbands: "Husbands, love your wives" and "husbands should love their wives as their own bodies" (Ephesians 5:25, 28).
A small thing God was using
The whole affair was small and shabby. One writer says God was working through it anyway.
J. G. BellettIt was a small beginning, poor and shabby in its nature and its material. Vashti's temper drove her to act in a way that put her life at risk. That temper was the small fire that kindled this great blaze. It is a miserable, despicable thing. What could be lower? The temper, we may say, of a domineering woman! And yet God uses it to work out results known then to Himself in His plan, and their fulfilment will appear in the coming day of Jewish glory.
Why the queen was removed
The advisers wanted order restored across the empire. One writer gives their reason for removing the queen, a Gentile (non-Jewish) wife, for good.
H. L. RossierThe wise men around Ahasuerus judged that Vashti's revolt, if allowed to stand, would give approval to individual independence throughout the kingdom. So order had to be restored: the Gentile wife is put away completely.
Summary
- The decree begins in anger. Advisers turned a private insult into a threat to the state, because a weak king let others decide for him.
- The decree spreads by size. The advisers trusted the size of the empire and the unchangeable laws of Persia to make honour reach every home, high and low alike.
- The decree meets a limit. The king could divorce Vashti, but he could not make her obey. One refusal showed the limit of absolute power.
- The decree is half right. It matched the truth that the husband is head, but left out the command that husbands love their wives.
- The decree serves a hidden purpose. A queen's temper was the small fire that kindled a great blaze, and God used this shabby beginning to work out results He had already planned — results the coming day of Jewish glory will show.