He sent letters to all the royal provinces, to every province in its own script and to every people in its own language, that every man be master in his own household and speak according to the language of his people.
The chapter closes not with a private quarrel but with a piece of legislation. Letters go out to every province, each in its own script and language. They settle one question: who is master at home?
The decree and its reach
Memucan proposed it, and the king and his princes agreed. One commentator weighs the letter against what Scripture tells husbands.
Leslie M. GrantThe king and the princes all liked Memucan's solution to the problem (v. 21). So the king sent letters to all the provinces under his rule, saying that every man should be master in his own house. So in practice the letter agreed with the Christian principle that the husband is head of the wife (Eph. 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" (Eph. 5:25, 28).
The empire had the machinery to deliver such a letter. Tradition also records why Memucan wanted Vashti gone.
Arno C. GaebeleinPersia had an excellent postal service, according to the historian Herodotus, and the letters went out through it. Memucan had brought about the downfall of the queen; she disappears completely. Jewish tradition gives several reasons why Memucan was so hostile to Vashti. One is that Vashti had not invited his own wife to her feast. Another is that he wanted his own daughter promoted and made queen.
What a law cannot produce
An empire can publish a command in every language it governs. It cannot make hearts obey it.
Arno C. GaebeleinThe Persian kings were great autocrats and ruled with an iron hand. No one could cancel their laws. "The story told of Xerxes is certainly no fable. When flooding in the Hellespont destroyed all the bridges, he had the sea beaten with rods for disobedience (Herodotus 7:35). But it was easier for him to beat the sea than to get what his edict demanded."
A personal slight turned into state business
The decree covers the empire, yet the injury was to one man. The king did not settle it himself.
H. L. RossierAhasuerus was proud of his own unlimited power. He also had a fiercely violent character whenever an obstacle or any resistance appeared in his path. Again and again in this account the king bursts into anger (Esther 1:12; 2:1; 7:7, 10). Violence is never a sign of strength. It shows the weakness of a man who cannot govern himself... And let us add this. 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 whole organisation of the state.
For all the letters, the one thing the king wanted never happened.
H. L. RossierA weak woman resists Ahasuerus and holds his limitless power in check. A grain of sand humbles all the pride of this huge, well-organised empire. The king may divorce Vashti, but her act remains. He is humiliated, and powerless to force her to appear in public.
What Scripture tells husbands
Scripture gives husbands a different instruction from the one the couriers carried.
W. W. FeredayHusbands are not urged to rule, since that is not a point where they are likely to fail, but to love. The wives are not addressed in this way: love in them is not so likely to be weak as submission. And what is set before the husband? "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her." Once we understand this, it lifts us above merely natural ground. Divine love is our heavenly pattern.
That changes the method. Love produces order; a decree cannot.
Julius A. Von PoseckConsider the Christian husband whose heart has rested on Christ's love through a day that may have been cloudy and stormy, warming itself in that love. He does not come home and frown his wife into silence, submission and obedience. He loves her into it. The only force he uses is his own example: submission and dependence on Christ the Head, and obedience to His Word.
The first move of a hidden hand
The letters close a domestic scandal and open the whole book. What looks like a banquet gone wrong is the opening of a chain no one in the story can see.
William KellyLetters were sent accordingly, that someone better than Vashti should take her place, and that family order should stand in the honour of the head in his own house throughout all the kingdom.
William KellyThe consequence was that the king seeks counsel with his nobles, and one of them ventures on very bold advice — namely, the dismissal of Vashti. This, then, is the first great step in the providence of God brought before us in the book, and all the remarkable results follow.
Summary
- Decree — Letters go to every province in its own language: every man is to be master in his own house. Scripture does say the husband is head. But the decree leaves out the command to love.
- Limit — The empire could have the sea beaten for disobedience, yet it could not get what its edict demanded. A law can reach every province and change nothing.
- Weakness — The king rages, then lets counsellors turn a private slight into a state matter. That is a man who cannot govern himself, and one woman's refusal humbles the whole empire.
- Contrast — Husbands are told to love, not to rule. Christ's love for the church is the pattern. Love wins a home; frowning a wife into submission never will.
- Providence — Vashti's dismissal is the first great step of God's hidden working in this book. Every later result follows from it.