Esther 1:9

Also Vashti the queen made a feast for the women.... For it was not customary with the Persians, nor other eastern nations, to admit of women to their festivals (m), but they feasted by themselves.

Also Vashti the queen made a feast for the women in the royal house which belonged to king Ahasuerus. Also Vashti the queen made a feast for the women.

Whilst the king entertained the men; for this was the common custom of the Persians, that men and women did not feast together, but in several places.

Esther 1:9 Also Vashti the queen made a feast for the women [in] the royal house which [belonged] to king Ahasuerus.Ver. 9. Also Vashti the queen made a feast for the women] Heb. A feast, or a compotation of women. This was better yet than Heliogabalus’ s senate of women, with their ordinances correspondent; as what attire each woman should use, how they should take place, when salute, &c. The Romans decreed in senate that no women should drink wine. What Vashti’ s practice was I know not; but by her name she should be a meribibula, a wine bibber, as was noted, Esther 1:1. Conveniunt rebus nomina saepe suis. The notables came together often with their own matters. Josephus, and after him Lyra, give her the commendation of a modest woman. ‘ Tis probable she had the king’ s consent to feast the women, because it was in the royal house; and it added much to the king’ s munificence. But then she should have subdued her husband by obeying him, as Livia (as great an empress) did Augustus. Dio reporteth of her, that being asked how she got such a power over her husband, she answered, Multa modestia, By my much modesty (Dio in Tiberio). It is remarkable in this third feast, that, first, the women feasted within doors, not in the open court, as their husbands did, and, next, apart from the men. Which whether it were of pride, because Vashti would keep state by herself; or, of necessity, because either the custom of the country or the king’ s jealousy would not allow her presence among so many of the other sex, yet surely this may condemn (as one well saith) our most lascivious mingling of both sexes together in dancing, and such like meetings; where nothing is more usual than lustful looks, filthy speeches, unclean touches. Apage omnem hanc impudentiam, shun all occasions of sin that doth so easily beset us. Lot, feasting and drinking wine with his own daughters, fell into the sin of incest. The Israelites doing the like with the daughters of Moab, were ensnared, and subverted. The dancing damsel so inflamed that old goat Herod, that, like a mad man, he sweareth to give her her desire to the half of his kingdom. In all mixed meetings of both sexes, let the husband’ s eyes be eyes of adamant, which will turn only to one point; lest some Circe enchant him, having faculty attractive with the jet, and retentive with the adamant. Let the wives also be like that Persian lady, who being at the marriage of Cyrus, and asked how she liked the bridegroom? How? saith she; I know not; I saw nobody but my husband. In Greek and Latin mythology the name of an enchantress who dwelt in the island of Aea, and transformed all who drank of her cup into swine; often used allusively.

(9) Vashti.—According to Gesenius, the name Vashti means beautiful. Among the Persians it was customary that one wife of the sovereign should be supreme over the rest, and her we sometimes find exercising an authority which contrasts strangely with the degraded position of women generally. Such a one was Atossa, the mother of Xerxes. Vashti, too, before her deposition, was evidently the queen par excel. lence. We find, however, that the name given by the Greek writers to the queen of Xerxes was Amestris, of whose cruelty and dissolute life numerous details are given us by Herodotus and others. There seem good grounds for believing that she was the wife of Xerxes before he became king, which if established would of itself be sufficient to disprove the theory of some who would identify Esther and Amestris. Moreover, Herodotus tells us (7:61. 82) that Amestris was the cousin of Xerxes, the daughter of his father’s brother; and although we cannot view Esther as of a specially high type of womanhood, still it would be most unjust to identify her with one whose character is presented to us in most unlovely guise. Bishop Wordsworth suggests that Amestris was a wife who had great influence with Xerxes between the fall of Vashti and the rise of Esther. If, however, Amestris was really the chief wife before Xerxes came to the throne, this could hardly be, and the time allowed seems much too scanty, seeing that in it falls the invasion of Greece. Or, lastly, we may with Canon Rawlinson say that Vashti is Amestris (the two names being different reproductions of the Persian, or Vashti being a sort of title) and that the deposition was a temporary one. The women.—There should be no article.

Verse 9. Also Vashti the queen] [Persian] Vashti is a mere Persian word; and signifies a beautiful or excellent woman. Made a feast for the women] The king, having subdued all his enemies, left no competitor for the kingdom; and being thus quietly and firmly seated on the throne, made this a time of general festivity. As the women of the East never mingle with the men in public, Vashti made a feast for the Persian ladies by themselves; and while the men were in the court of the garden, the women were in the royal house.

9. Vashti the queen] If we identify Ahasuerus with Xerxes, the queen here mentioned must have been Amestris, his only wife known to secular history. She was daughter of Otanes (Herod. vii. 61), one of the seven who conspired against Pseudo-Smerdis (b.c. 522). The name Vashti has been explained as another form of Amestris, the letters m and v readily interchanging as labials. It may, however, be a modification of the Old Persian vahista, excellent. made a feast for the women] The sexes were separated in the case of all public meals, although the Persian custom seems to have been that the queen was as a rule admitted to the king’s table.[60][60] See Herod. ix. 110, who tells us that at the annual banquet in celebration of the king’s birthday Amestris the queen ‘made request of Xerxes that he would please to give her as her present the wife of Masistes’ (the king’s brother) as it was her cruel desire to torture her.in the royal house] The harem was probably on the south side of the above-mentioned hall of pillars.

Vashti - If Ahasuerus is Xerxes, Vashti would be Amestris, whom the Greeks regarded as the only legitimate wife of that monarch, and who was certainly married to him before he ascended the throne.

9. Vashti the queen — Rawlinson is inclined to identify this queen with Amestris, and supposes that her divorce and disgrace, recorded in this chapter, may have been only temporary, and that she was