Est 1:1 . From India even to Ethiopia. Darius the Mede appointed one hundred and twenty governors. Hence it appears that this Ahasuérus, the Xerxes Longimanus of Herodotus, had enlarged his conquests, and made the Ganges and the Nile his boundaries.
Est 1:2 . Sat on the throne. He seems to have been employed till now in some conquest, which made him the terror both of the Grecian and the eastern world. Consequently this was a grand coronation, or a military fête, which continued six months. Here he displayed all his wealth and spoil, which surpassed conception for abundance.
Est 1:9 . Vashti. Perhaps a surname given her for her beauty, which was inferior to her virtue. The ladies about her were high in rank, but alas, in a moment their queen was thrown from her throne, without either help or hope.
Est 1:10 . The seven chamberlains. The Chaldaic reads “satraps.” The Vulgate reads, “eunuchs.” They are all Persic names, though perhaps changed a little in the Hebrew.
Est 1:12 . Vashti refused to come. She relied on the law of custom to hide herself from the eyes of men; so far she was virtuous. Yet the pleasure of the monarch was the greatest of all the Persian laws.
Est 1:22 . That every man should bear rule in his own house. Very just; but he must not expose his wife, almost naked, to an intoxicated court. He becomes a tyrant who rules above the laws.
REFLECTIONS.
We now leave the land of Israel to tread on Persian ground, and to trace the hand of God among the heathen. The first object which presents itself is the king, seated on a high throne, with all his spoils and wealth displayed throughout his gardens, his temples, and treasuries. We next see all the princes and nobles of the east fall prostrate at his feet, and little less than worship him as a god: and it is probable that men of various rank and nations succeeded one another during the whole of that time. What a wearisome task! We see also that all excess of passion is attended with mortification and misery. This king, burthened, not blessed, by the homage of nations, sought at the end of one week relief in wine; and exhausted with boasting of his regal glory, he proceeded to boast of the incomparable beauty of his queen, and was resolved to expose her to the admiration of his princes. To this Vashti would not submit, nor did she stoop to put her refusal in the form of a request. So while the world bowed, a woman rebelled. The king was confounded before his nobles; his happiness vanished in a moment, and every indignant passion agitated his breast. How happy is the poor cottager, whose eyes, by the sight of a palace, were never tempted to think meanly of his family hut.
From Memucan’s advice we learn, that men in the most critical cases will advocate the cause of justice, when it associates with their interest. Vashti had indeed committed a fault, for the pleasure of her lord was to her a greater law than custom; but this counseller, seeking the ruin of an unsuspecting woman, never once tried the efforts of repentance and reconciliation; on the contrary, he recommended the severest justice, because it was consonant to the royal passion, and popular in the ears of the princes, who loved a domestic sovereignty. Had the king, after the storm of passion, become reconciled to the queen, Memucan, by his counsel, would have placed himself in a critical situation. But after the king had sent letters to the provinces, his sense of honour was stronger than his love for Vashti.—How short and transient are the joys of the wicked: how many the calamities which find their way to palaces and courts! Let the christian wait in hope, and Christ will display a glory far superior to that of kings, and to any thing we can now conceive. He will call his servants to feast them at his court, and no unholy passions, no vain affections shall disturb their joy. The homage shall be divine, the peace permanent, and the glory everlasting. Wait awhile, oh my soul, and thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty, and thy heart shall love him for ever.
After all, there was one custom in Persian courts which should not pass without applause, being intimately connected with the morals of the christian world. The drinking was according to law, no one compelled another. If a christian dine with his friends, this law he has a full right to plead. It is in fact the law of nature and of conscience, and he cannot break it without honouring men more than God, and sinning against his own soul.
Est 1:1. In the days of Ahasuerus- Archbishop Usher is of opinion, that Darius Hystaspes was the king Ahasuerus who married Esther, that Atossa was the Vashti, and Artystona the Esther, of the Holy Scriptures; but Herodotus positively tells us, that Artystona was the daughter of Cyrus, and therefore could not be Esther; and that Atossa had four sons by Darius, besides daughters, all born to him after he was king; and therefore she could not be that queen Vashti who was divorced from the king her husband in the third year of his reign, (Est 1:3.) nor he the Ahasuerus who divorced her. Joseph Scaliger is of opinion, that Xerxes is the Ahasuerus, and Hamestris, his queen, the Esther of the Holy Scriptures; but, whatever seeming similitude there may be in the names, (and this is the whole foundation of his conjecture,) it is plain, from Herodotus, that Xerxes had a son by Hamestris, who was marriageable in the seventh year of his reign; and therefore it is impossible that he should have been Esther's son, because Esther was not married to Ahasuerus till the seventh year of his reign, chap. Est 2:16. And, considering that the choice of virgins was made for him in the fourth of his reign, and a whole year employed in their purifications, the soonest that she could have a son by him must be in the sixth; and therefore we may conclude with Josephus, the Septuagint, and the apocryphal additions to the book of Esther, that the Ahasuerus of Scripture was Artaxerxes Longimanus, and Esther a Hebrew virgin, as she is all along represented. See Prideaux and Calmet.
Est 1:2. When the king Ahasuerus sat on the throne- That is, enjoying peace and tranquillity through his large dominions; for the history of his accession to the throne is this: Xexres, his father, was privately murdered by Artabanes, captain of his guard. He coming to him, who was then but the third son, made him believe that Darius, his eldest brother, had done it to make his way to the throne, and that he had a design likewise to cut him off to make himself secure in it. Ahasuerus, believing this, went immediately to his brother's apartment, and with the assistance of Artabanes and his guards slew him; thinking all the while that he acted but in his own defence. The drift of Artabanes was, to seize on the throne himself; but for the present he took Ahasuerus and placed him thereon, with a design to pull him down as soon as matters were ripe for his own ascent; but when Ahasuerus understood this from Megabysus, who had married one of his sisters, he took care to counter-plot Artabanes, and to cut off him and his whole party before his treason came to maturity; and for this, very probably, and some other successes against his brother Hystaspes, which settled him in an agreeable possession of the whole Persian empire, it was, that a festival season of above one hundred and fourscore days' continuance was appointed, which even to the present time, according to some travellers, is no uncommon thing in those parts of the world. This feast was held at Shushan, which, after the conquest of the Medes, was made by Cyrus and the rest of the Persian kings the royal seat, that they might not be too far from Babylon. It stood upon the river Ulai, and was a place of such renown, that Strabo calls it "a city most worthy to be praised," informing us, that the whole country about it was amazingly fruitful, producing a hundred, and sometimes two hundred fold. Darius Hystaspes enlarged and beautified it with a most magnificent palace; which Aristotle calls "a wonderful royal palace, shining with gold, amber, and ivory." It will not be altogether foreign to our purpose, just to remark from Dr. Lightfoot, that the outer gate of the eastern wall of the temple was called the gate of Shushan, and had the figure of that city carved on it, in honour of the decree which Darius granted at that palace for the rebuilding of Jerusalem.
Est 1:6. Where were white, green, and blue hangings- See Exo 24:10. Dr. Shaw, after having said that the floors in the Levant are laid with painted tiles or plaister of terras, informs us in a note, that a pavement like this is mentioned in Esther, a pavement of red, and blue, and white, and black marble. But this is not the happiest of the Doctor's illustrations, since floors of different-coloured marble are common now in the east. Dr. Russel tells us, that they pave their courts at Aleppo with marble, and often with a mixture of yellow and white, red and black, by way of ornament; this of Ahasuerus is generally supposed to have been of that kind; since there is a great difference in point of magnificence between a pavement of marble, and one of painted tiles; and consequently the palace of so mighty a monarch as Ahasuerus is rather to be supposed paved with marble; besides, the historian is giving an account of the pavement of a court-yard, not of a room. See 1Ki 7:7. Dr. Shaw refers to this passage in the same page on another account. He says, the eastern chambers, in houses of better fashion, are covered and adorned from the middle of the wall downwards, "with velvet or damask hangings, of white, blue, red, green, or other colours, (Est 1:6.) suspended upon hooks, or taken down at pleasure." Here again this ingenious author seems to have been less exact, and should rather, I imagine, have referred to the present passage, when he told us, that "the courts or quadrangles of their houses, when a large company is to be received into them, are commonly sheltered from the heat and inclemency of the weather, by a velum, umbrella, or veil, which, being expanded upon ropes from one side of the parapet-wall to the other, maybe folded or unfolded at pleasure." See Travels, p. 209. Though there are some things in this passage which cannot be determined without difficulty, yet it is extremely plain that the company were entertained in a court of the palace of Ahasuerus; which agrees with Dr. Shaw's account, that when much company is to be admitted to a feast the court is the place of their reception. Now, though their chambers are hung with velvet or damask hangings, it does not appear that on such occasions their courts are thus adorned; but there is a veil stretched out over-head to shelter them from the inclemency of the weather; and, indeed, to something of this sort it is commonly supposed these words refer, though no one has given a better illustration of this piece of ancient history than Dr. Shaw has undesignedly done in his account of their receiving company, when the number is large, in these courts, and covering them with veils expanded on ropes. See Observations, p. 102 and Scheuchzer, tom. 6: p. 12.
Est 1:7. Royal wine in abundance- See on Joe 1:5.
Est 1:9. Vashti the queen made a feast, &c.- Dr. Shaw observes, that, as in former ages, so at present, it is the custom in the eastern countries, at all their festivals and entertainments, for the men to be treated in separate apartments from the women, not the least intercourse or communication being ever allowed between the sexes. See Travels, p. 232.
Est 1:12. Therefore was the king very wroth- His anger was the more immoderate because his blood was heated with wine, which made his passion too strong for his reason; otherwise he would not have thought it decent for the queen to have her beauty, which was very great, exposed in this unusual manner. See Bishop Patrick.
Est 1:13. The wise men, which knew the times- Some have inferred from hence, that, as the Persian kings did nothing without their magi or wise men, who were great pretenders to astrology, men of this sort were called to know whether it was a proper time to set about the thing which the king had in his mind; for, such was the superstition of the eastern people, that, as the satirist remarks.
Such credit to astrologers is given, What they foretel is deem'd a voice from heaven. DRYDEN.
The explication, however, which Vitringa gives of the original is far from being improbable; namely, that these were men well versed in ancient histories, and in the laws and customs of their country, and were therefore able to give the king counsel in all extraordinary and perplexed cases. Houbigant renders the passage thus: then the king, speaking to the wise men, who knew the law and judgment (for the royal decrees were then established, when they were laid before those who knew the law and judgment; Est 1:13 and for that reason he had by his side seven princes of Persia, Carshena, &c.) said, Est 1:15. What shall we do, &c. See Le Clerc, and 1Ch 12:32.
