VASHTI

(Vashʹti).

The queen of Ahasuerus (Xerxes I) the king of Persia. In the third year of his reign, Ahasuerus called in all the nobles, princes, and servants from the jurisdictional districts. At the end of the conference, he held a seven-day banquet. Similarly, Vashti held a banquet for the women at the royal house. On the seventh day, Ahasuerus ordered his court officials to bring in Vashti in royal headdress, that all might see her loveliness. (It seems that the queen would ordinarily eat meals at the king’s table, but history does not give proof of this as being the case at great banquets. Besides, at the time, Vashti was holding a banquet with the women.) For some unstated reason, Vashti persistently refused. Ahasuerus turned to his wise men who knew the law, and he was advised by Memucan, a prince, that it was not the king alone that Vashti had wronged but also all the princes and people in the jurisdictional districts. He said that when the princesses should hear what the queen had done (which news would quickly be spread in the castle), they would follow Vashti’s action as a precedent for contemptuous action on their own part. (Es 1:1-22) Vashti was deposed, and about four years later, Esther the Jewess was selected to become the wife of Ahasuerus and to take the royal office of Vashti.​—Es 2:1-17.