A very warm welcome back! Hope you’re ready for a truly interesting story
that we’re about to study called The Book of Esther.
The story starts off with a grand celebration that the king of Media and
Persia was throwing. King Ahasuerus reigned over more than 127 provinces
from India to Ethiopia.
First a little bit of background, to bring you more information about the
setting of the story and to acquaint you with the king. As you may know, the
Bible is not all in chronological order, however, if you research some
things, you can usually figure out the general time frame of a story by some
clues given. Here are some things that give us a fairly good idea of when
the story of Esther took place.
In the Book of Ezra 4:6, Ahasuerus was king during the rebuilding of the
temple in Jerusalem. That would make it somewhere between five and six
hundred years before Christ. In the Book of Daniel, it says that
Nebuchadnezzar ruled in Babylon in the 3rd year of king Jehoiakim,
which was 644 years before Christ. Then Nebuchadnezzar’s son Belshazzar
reigned as king of the Chaldans after that, then Darius the Median who was
the son of Ahasuerus, took the kingdom after that, so that puts us in the
same general time frame. It’s interesting to notice that the book of Ezra
and the book of Daniel are 12 books apart in the Bible, yet they cover the
same era!
The palace where king Ahasuerus’ throne was located, was in a place
called Shushan, or on some maps it was called Susa. That pretty well covers
the setting, as for the people, I’ll be introducing you to them as the story
goes on.
Now, in the third year of his reign, king Ahasuerus held a feast for all
his princes, nobles and servants. He showed off the riches of his glorious
kingdom and the honor of his excellent majesty for 180 days (that’s 6 months
to you and me)! That was quite a long party!
After that, the king held another feast for all the people who
were present in Shushan the palace, both great and small, for 7 days in the
court of the garden of the king’s palace. The palace was very elaborate with
fancy linens and furnishings and the guests were served royal wine
generously, in all different kinds of golden cups, as the king commanded. No
one contested the drinking because the king told all the officers of his
house to serve every man as much as they wanted.
In addition to the festivities that the king held, Vashti, the queen,
held a feast for the women in the royal house that belonged to Ahasuerus.
On the 7th day, when the heart of the king was merry with
wine, he ordered his seven chamberlains to bring Vashti before the king,
wearing the royal crown, to show the people and the princes her beauty,
because she was pretty. But Vashti refused to come at the king’s commandment
by his chamberlains. This made Ahasuerus mad and his anger burned inside
him.
He consulted with his scholars who knew law and the times, and his seven
princes of the kingdom asking them, What should we do to queen Vashti
according to the law, because she disobeyed the order of the king by the
chamberlains?
One of the princes answered, Vashti hasn’t only done wrong to the king,
but also to all the princes and all the people of the provinces. What she’s
done will become known to women everywhere. They’ll despise their husbands
when they hear the news that the king commanded Vashti the queen to be
brought in before him, but she didn’t obey. It’ll cause too much contempt
and anger. If it please the king, let a law be written that can’t be
changed, that Vashti never be seen again in the presence of king Ahasuerus,
and let the king give her royal position to another woman, better than her.
When the kings order is proclaimed throughout all his great empire, all the
wives will give their husbands honor, both great and small.
The king was happy with the idea and the law was written. The king sent
letters to every province in their own language that every man should rule
in his own house.
So, the contentious ways of queen Vashti caused her to be divorced from
the king and expelled from his presence forever. Next in our story, we’ll
find out all about how Esther became queen in Vashti’s place and about a
situation that arose when her cousin Mordecai stood up for his beliefs. See
you again for more of this story next time, right here at Daily Bread.
