The verse that I believe summarizes the whole book is : Esther 4:14 "Who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this"
Chapter one begins with the great feast Xerxes throws for all his noblemen. Then the last 7 days he invites everyone from Susa, every one! Can you imagine the pageantry that went on! In the book Hadassah, it describes what the palace may have looked like. It's amazing the wealth that the Persian empire had! Also if you read this chapter you will note that wine flowed quite generously. The bible speaks of "in keeping with the king's liberality" - Xerxes appears to be a generous guy! Of course he partook generously as well. So after many days of drinking, in the bible it says Xerxes was in "high spirits" - can you say drunk, he comes up with the bright idea of parading his beautiful wife around! How many rash decisions are made when not in the right frame of mind? Now it doesn't say why Vashti didn't come, there could have been several reason, including not wanting to be gawked at by a bunch of drunken people. She doesn't come, Xerxes encouraged by his advisers banishes her from his sight forever! Can you imagine waking up the next day and realizing what you did (Xerxes does this in Chapter two). Now I know that God has ordained and set this up as a tool of rescuing His people, I just find it fascinating!
So my questions to you are?
- Should Vashti have come in to Xerxes? Do you feel the Wisemen were correct in their advise?
- How are we today in our everyday life to act toward our husbands? Now hopefully no husband would ask us to do something like this, but where do you draw the line? Was it right of Vashti to deny the King? Was it right of him to demand?
I have something to say about the Kings advisers, but I will wait for another post!
May God bless you REAL good!
4 comments:
That's so funny that you posted about this. I just put a poll up on my blog the other day about favorite Bible Stories and Esther is one of the answers. I've always thought she was fascinting and very brave.
I have always been interested in Esther too and will have to read those books. Your questions are hard - If I was Vashti I wouldn't have wanted to come. I think in her time, it was considered much worse than it would be today. I think the wisemen may have been "yes men" and said to banish Vashti to make the King feel like he wasn't wrong to call for her.
As far as how we are today - I think we often don't give our husbands the respect and authority that they should have. The social pendulam has swung too far the other way.
I'll be interested to hear what others have to say!
I like the book of Esther. I taught it to fourth graders for several years. We didn't get into some of the adult issues here, but we did talk about the fact that Esther was chosen "for such a time as this." So God has put each one of us here "for such a time as this."
I don't remember the other points, but we did have a good time making wooden spoon puppets of Queen Esther and her court.
I also remember on the last day of the study, reading an overview and every time I mentioned Haman, the students would spit (act like it),and stomp their foot. I think that that is what the Jews do to this day at Purim.
I will be interested in reading more posts on this subject.
I just started reading A voice in the Wind two weeks ago. It's now my second fiction book and I've enjoyed it. Redeeming Love was amazing! Your blog is very encouraging.
Laura
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