Esther 1 – The danger of pride and intemperance

Esther 1 introduces us to King Xerxes of the Persian Empire. He was the son of Darius.  His empire was vast, with 127 provinces stretching from India to Ethiopia. Verses 1-9 describe a lavish exhibition the king had set up. Officials and prominent figures from all parts of the Persian Empire were gathered for this lavish exhibition at his winter capital in Susa. Xerxes wanted to showcase the opulence and grandeur of His royal court.

The exhibition lasted six months and concluded with a magnificent seven-day banquet, a fitting finale to the display of wealth and magnificence. Meanwhile, verse 9 says that Queen Vashti also had a banquet for the women in the palace.

 

During the week-long celebration and drunken merriment, the king became inebriated and behaved recklessly. He mindlessly commanded his stewards to bring Vashti, his queen, to display her beauty to the crowd at the banquet. Vashti defied the king’s unreasonable demand and flatly turned it down. She would not lower her dignity to become the object of the king’s drunken revelry. This hurt the king’s pride and angered him.

 

Upon Queen Vashti’s insubordination, King Xerxes sought counsel from his seven trusted advisers, who were well-versed in the kingdom’s laws. Memucan, one of those counselors, recommended that Vashti be deposed and an unrepealable edict be issued to emphasize the consequences of disobedience.

 

Memucan also suggested the selection of a new queen to set an example for all the wives in the kingdom so that they would always honor their husbands.  The king and the other counselors found this advice favorable and promptly promulgated the decree throughout his vast kingdom.

 

There are many lessons we can take away from this Esther 1. Here are two of them. Firstly, we see the danger of overindulgence. The Bible warns much about excessive drinking. Overindulgence in wine dulls one's senses and causes one to make reckless, rash, and unreasonable decisions. Secondly, we learn the consequence of pride. Pride will deceive us and make us lose our wisdom. Pride always comes before destruction. The proud would be humble or, worse still, be humiliated.