Esther 1:16

And Memucan answered before the king and the princes,.... Who was the last, and perhaps the least and the youngest of the counsellors; it being appointed by the king, according to the latter Targum

Memucan, though last named, spake first, either because the king first asked him; or because he was the chief of them all, either in dignity or in reputation; or because it then was, as now it is in many places, the custom for the youngest counsellors or judges to deliver their opinion first. To all the people; by giving them an example and encouragement to contemn and disobey their husbands. It is a crime of a high nature, and therefore deserves an exemplary punishment.

Esther 1:16 And Memucan answered before the king and the princes, Vashti the queen hath not done wrong to the king only, but also to all the princes, and to all the people that [are] in all the provinces of the king Ahasuerus.Ver. 16. And Memucan answered before the king] Heb. Mumchan; the junior likely, and therefore spake first, the rest concurred, Esther 1:21. A bold man he was surely (whatever else he was) that durst deliver his mind so freely of such a business, and in such a presence, &c. What if the king and queen should have grown friends again, where had Memucan been? If his cause and his conscience had been as good as his courage was great, all had been as it ought to be. And the princes] Inter pocula de rebus arduis consultabant, saith Herodotus concerning the Persian princes. In the midst of their cups they use to consult of the greatest affairs. Here they accuse and condemn the queen unheard and unconvicted, which was against all law, divine and human. King Henry VIII, though a boisterous man, dealt more civilly with his first wife, Catherine of Spain, when he had a mind to rid his hands of her; her cause was heard before the two cardinals, Wolsey and Campaine, ere the divorce was pronounced, and she sent out of the kingdom. Vashti the queen hath not done wrong to the king only] That she had done wrong or dealt perversely against the king, he taketh for granted; because the king’ s commandment was not obeyed. But was that a sufficient reason? Was the king’ s bare word a law, or rule of right? and is not a wife in case of sin commanded by her husband, rather to obey God than men? Or say she had done wrong, must it needs be out of perverseness? might it not be out of fear, modesty, or for some other civil reason which she might allege for herself, if called to her trial? But, here you may see (saith one) when flattery and malice gives information, shadows are made substances, and improbabilities necessities; so deceitful is flattery, malice so unreasonable. And yet herein also the Lord is exceeding righteous, who meets hereby with other sins of this insolent queen; that whereas (no doubt) she was an example of pride and vanity more generally to other women than she was likely to be in this point, therefore is she hereby found out in her sin, and by this unlikely accusation, condemned of a true fault. But also to all the princes, and to all the people] Against the king she had offended by her disobedience, against all others by her example. And indeed the sins of great ones fly far upon those two wings, scandal and example; they prove both patterns and privileges to their interiors, for the like.

(16) Answered before the king.—Memuean, like a true courtier, gives palatable advice to his master, by counsel which is the true echo of the king’s angry question. Done wrong.—Literally, dealt unfairly.

Verse 16. Vashti - hath not done wrong to the king only] This reasoning or arguing was inconsequent and false. Vashti had not generally disobeyed the king, therefore she could be no precedent for the general conduct of the Persian women. She disobeyed only in one particular; and this, to serve a purpose, Memucan draws into a general consequence; and the rest came to the conclusion which he drew, being either too drunk to be able to discern right from wrong, or too intent on reducing the women to a state of vassalage, to neglect the present favourable opportunity.

16. And Memucan answered] From the terms of his answer it is evident that there was no existing law in Persia which would meet the case. Therefore, if it was to be dealt with, one must be enacted. In favour of passing such a law Memucan adduces two considerations; (a) that Vashti’s perversity constituted an offence against the whole of the king’s dominions, and (b) that it was inexpedient that such an offence should go unpunished, inasmuch as the natural consequence would be that this domestic insubordination would be widely imitated. Memucan thus shews the worst side of an Oriental courtier by the servility with which he overlooks the fact that it was the outrageous conduct of the king which brought about the difficulty, as well as by the somewhat Macchiavellian attempt to cloak the jealousy which he and his companions felt at the queen’s influence under the pretext of regard for social welfare throughout the Empire. peoples] See note on Esther 1:11.

16. Memucan answered — In this address of Memucan we have a genuine specimen of an ingenious Persian courtier.