Vashti

Vashti was the queen of the Persian king Ahasuerus (Xerxes I, reigned 486–465 BC) who was deposed from her royal position because she refused to display herself before the king's guests at a great banquet (Esther 1:10–12). The feast had lasted seven days, and on the final day the king, "merry with wine," commanded that Vashti be brought before the assembled nobles to display her beauty. Her refusal—the reasons for which the text does not explain—enraged the king and led his counselors to warn that her example would embolden women throughout the empire to defy their husbands.

As a result, Ahasuerus issued a royal decree deposing Vashti and decreeing that "every man should be master in his own household" (Esther 1:22). Her removal from the throne opened the way for Esther to be chosen as queen and ultimately to save the Jewish people. Vashti's name, meaning "beautiful" or "best" in Persian (Hitchcock: "that drinks; thread"), has made her a figure of considerable interpretive interest: some traditions censure her disobedience; others read her refusal as an act of courage. Her story sets the stage for the book of Esther's deeper drama of providence at work through unlikely instruments.