Today, I am reading and commenting on  Esther 1-3.

There are multiple lessons we can take away from this passage.  I am going to start with the lessons on relationships we can learn from the account of the interactions between King Xerxes and Queen Vashti.  I am going to make some assumptions about the motivations of those involved which are not spelled out in the passage, but which I think likely.  King Xerxes and Queen Vashti threw joint parties: King Xerxes threw a party for all of the men of significance in his kingdom and Queen Vashti threw one for all of the women.  When both parties were in full swing and King Xerxes was rather drunk, he decided to show off how beautiful his wife was.  So, King Xerxes sent for Vashti to come to him.  I think it is safe to assume that Queen Vashti was probably having a rather good time herself at her party and she didn’t want to leave her party to go be made a spectacle of in front of a bunch of men.  King Xerxes summons to Vashti was likely intended as a compliment to her beauty, but it did not come across that way to Vashti.  Instead, she interpreted it as being objectified, being seen by Xerxes as another one of his possessions (and that might indeed have played a role in his thinking).  So, she refused to come to Xerxes summons.  At this point, from a relationship perspective, both Xerxes and Vashti have made mistakes.  Xerxes mistake was that he summoned Vashti, rather than telling her that he wanted his “friends” to see how lucky he was to have such a beautiful wife and asking her to join him (and perhaps bringing some of her guests with her).  Vashti’s mistake was in angrily rejecting Xerxes summons, rather than coming to him and telling him in person why he had angered her, and thus giving him a chance to correct her misunderstanding of his motivation, or correct his behavior if she was correct.  Xerxes then compounded his mistake by angrily asking his, also drunk, “friends” what he should do about her rejection.  Instead of doing that, and, worse, acting on their advice, Xerxes should have gone to Vashti and talked to her about why he was angry and why she had refused his request.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.