The Pulpit Commentary — Esther — Section 28

Vers. 10-12.-A noble womanly refusal. We know from actual history literally nothing of Vashti, except her name, and what is written of her in the present con- nection. But it is evident that she could not have been me,rely one of the inferior wives of the Eastern Icing, although this has been suggested. She is not only emphatically called queen, but she acts as the queen," making a feast for the women," while Ahasuerus makes his for the princes and the general people ; and the choice and the bearing of her successor, Esther, point the same way. The name of Vashti appears to view a moment ; it then utterly disappears-and in disgrace. Yet not in shame; neither in the shame of sin or folly, nor in the shame even of error of judgment and want of true wisdom. No ; for "posterity approve her saying" and her doing. Our gaze was at first invited to her as one "very fair to look upon," a meteor of beauty. So her descending track, swift as it was, is one of real splendour; amid thick darkness around it marks a welcome line of light, and leaves a glory on our vision I This is all the more remarkable to be said of a heathen woman. Notice here a noble womanly refusal, and the womanly ground of i,t noble. We have here the spectacle of a woman who risked, who no doubt knew that she forfeited, a high position and all splendour of earthly prospects from that time forward, because she would not pre- judice the due of her own womanly nature ; because she would not be party to robbing herself of her feminine birthright; because she would not be minished in aught of her mode11ty's ultimate and indefeasible rights. When her affronted but determined voice and verdict were heard, as she "refused to come," thi8 was heard in them-to wit, the clear ring of true womanly instinct and of intelligent WQmanly feeling. L Tars WAS A NOBLE REFUSAL BECAUSE OF WHAT IT COST. That "cost" may be reckoned in several ways. For instance, there was present (1) the cost of effort, and effort of the most severely trying kind. There are many who stand at no cost except this, They will be liberal, and even wasteful in expenditure, i. e. in any other expendi- ture than that of effort. The prices of ease, luxury, they do not object to, but the price of effort frigl.Jtens them at once. There were several elements also in the effort made by Vashti. There wa.s the effort of resisting a husband's familiar authority. There was the .effort of resisting an Eastern husband's peremptory command. There was the effort of breaking through the national custom of centuries ingrained in the race, an.cl which made the wife a slave to passion and despotic rule. The severity of such effort must have been heightened by the consideration of the struggle being_ with a potentate of dominion unparalleled and of notorious unscrupulousness, sustamed on the part of that woman single-handed. We read of those who backed up the inRult- ing and licentious order of the king, but we do not read of one solitary voice according help and sympathy to the refusing queen. Now there are senses in which effort compels our admiration, even when the object of it fails to command our approval. Great is the inertia of human nature, held enmeshed in the toils of habit, of custom, of conventionality, of apprehended consequences, of jealous misconstruction, of envio111 CH. I. 10-22.) THE BOOK OF ESTTIER. 25