The emperor Xerxes was the most powerful man in the world. Ruler of (at the time) the largest empire the world had ever seen, he could command massive armies and the destiny of every one of his subjects was his to command. Yet he could not command his Queen to come when ordered.

The King is feasting and so is his Queen, Vashti. By verse 9 of the first chapter we’re already on our third feast. A king sits on a royal throne (2) showing off royal glory (4), drinking royal wine (7), and now he wants to show off one more possession, his queen wearing a royal crown (11) to come before him and the princes. Some ancient Rabbinic sources think Vashti who was ‘lovely to look at’ refuses to come because the King wanted her to come wearing the crown, and just the crown, which is why she refuses. Perhaps she saw this as a humiliation or perhaps she was as drunk as the King, we don’t know – the text doesn’t say.

In the New Testament we see Salome dance before King Herod and so inflames him with desire that he would give her the head of John the Baptist. Drunk kings are bad, drunk and lusty kings are worse. What we do know is that the less than sober king is furious at this refusal. And that’s a very familiar story. Women have always been vulnerable to men who get drunk and then get angry. And Vashti is now extremely vulnerable. 

But there’s another dimension to this and that is honour and shame. Honour is everything. And Vashti’s refusal to the king insults his honour in front of all his most important rulers. So he’s insulted, he’s angry and he’s drunk. Not a great combo, Vashti is in trouble.

He calls his advisers and asks them what he should do. One of them says, ‘You know what the real problem is here. Vashti has just set a terrible example to all the women. What is going to happen once women hear that she has defied the King? Well, they’ll copy her of course. And then they’ll defy & dishonour their husbands. There will be chaos in every home and we can’t have that’.

So these men proposed a law, that says, ‘Firstly, Vashti is to be banished from the King’s presence, and her place given to another.’ That should serve as a warning to women everywhere to mind their place. But what gets sent out goes a little further. The implicit becomes explicit and so the King sends out this decree to the whole empire that ‘every man be master in his own household’ (Esther 1:22). Some interpreters have taken Vashti as an example of the bad wife but that only really works if you take Xerxes as a good husband. Xerxes is not a good role model for us guys!

The Persian King is making a series of blunders. He is drunk. He objectifies women. He gets angry. He seeks retribution to salve his wounded ego. He tries to solve the problem with a law. Too many husbands and too many men make the same set of mistakes.

What is worse are Christian men making those same mistakes. Now Christian husbands also have a decree that might at first sound a bit similar. In at least two places the New Testament says quite clearly that wives are to submit to their husbands (Ephesians 5:22, Colossians 3:18, ). It talks about Christ the husband, presenting the bride (the church) in splendour.

The text also says husbands, ‘love your wives, nourish & cherish them as your own body, love her as yourself, give yourself up for her.  As Jon Tyson says, “As husbands, we should be judged by how sacrificial we are in private, not how well we perform in public.”

That’s what a wife is called to submit to – self-sacrificing, nourishing, cherishing, cleansing love that values her as much as he values himself. And a man who loves like that is worthy of respect, and it should not be withheld. That’s NOT what Xerxes is doing. He’s parading his wife, he’s using his wife not to cherish her but to glorify himself. Sure he may be an emperor who is never disobeyed but he’s no Christ figure here. There’s no self-sacrifice. There’s no giving of himself. There’s no cherishing. There’s no nourishing. There’s no cleansing. And as a result there’s no respect. 

Husbands you don’t deserve honour and respect by virtue of being a husband, you deserve honour and respect by virtue of being like Christ.

The decree we send out is not that ‘every man be master in their own household’ but that ‘every man be a Christlike servant in their own household.’