Esther 1:3
In the third year of his reign, Xerxes held a feast for all his officials and servants. The military leaders of Persia and Media were there, along with the nobles and princes of the provinces.
Sermons
A Great FeastW. Dinwiddle Esther 1:1-4
A Great Want in the Soul of ManA. B. Davidson, D. D.Esther 1:1-4
ArtaxerxesA. B. Davidson, D. D.Esther 1:1-4
Character of AhasuerusMark Guy Pearse.Esther 1:1-4
God Liberal to SinnersG. Lawson, D. D.Esther 1:1-4
Prosperity CursedG. Lawson, D. D.Esther 1:1-4
The Palace At ShushanT. McEwan.Esther 1:1-4
The Royal FeastW. Clarkson Esther 1:1-9
The Hospitality of VaingloryD. Rowlands Esther 1:3, 4














The reign of Ahasuerus, or Xerxes, had now reached its third year. His sway was very wide, and other history lends valuable confirmation of the contents of the former of these verses. Herodotus, far enough removed in his general tone from a Scripture historian, fixes this year as the year in which Xerxes summoned the rulers of his provinces to Susa, or Shushan, preparatory to his expedition against Greece. Although no mention is made here of this circumstance as the occasion of the feast, or as connected with it, yet the two intimations are not inconsistent with one another, and in fact are well fitted to one another. Each historian keeps the object of his own work in view. The thing which had no significance with Herodotus would be the consideration of primary significance in our present history; and we get as the result a consent of two widely differing authorities to testify to the fact of special doings in Shushan this year. The passage offers us a typical instance of a feast such as to answer correctly to the motto, "Self first, hospitality second." This is evidently the character of it. Yet let us take into account what may be said for it.

1. It was confessedly an Eastern feast, and as such it would have been considered essentially wanting if it had been wanting in the matter of display.

2. It was not a feast given by one of those people who had "received the oracles;" who had been long time under a course of higher instruction; who had heard, ]earned, pondered "the Proverbs of Solomon," or "the words of the Preacher, son of David, king of Jerusalem." Much less was it possible in the nature of things to have been the feast of one, who had had the opportunity of knowing the doctrine of Christ in such a matter.

3. Yet nevertheless it answered in one respect to one of the prescriptions of Jesus Christ himself; for it was a feast which could not be returned to its giver - not in kind, at all events. The feast of a great king, who drew on enormous wealth, - "made to" a whole multitude of princes, subordinate to him, and prolonged over months, - this could not be returned to him.

4. It was a feast of unstinted plenty - the thought of a nature that had some sort of largeness about it, and the distributing of a hand that dropt more than the uncared-for crumbs of its own table. On the other hand -

I. IT IS INCONTESTABLE THAT THIS FEAST VISITS UPON ITS GIVER THE CONDEMNATION OF VAINGLORIOUS DISPLAY AS REGARDS HIS "KINGDOM," AND SELF-SEEKING DISPLAY AS REGARDS HIS OWN "EXCELLENT MAJESTY." The greater the scale on which it was made, the more profuse its abundance, the longer its continuance, so much the more impressive and convincing evidence does it furnish of vanity insatiable, of selfishness deep-seated, of the presence of the hand of one who not only sought the praise of men rather than that of God, but who sought to influence even those men by the lower kinds of appeal - those of sense and the eye, rather than by any of a higher kind.

II. THERE WAS BEYOND DOUBT A DISTINCTLY AND DECIDEDLY UTILITARIAN DESIGN ABOUT THE FEAST. Though it could not be returned in kind, it could be recompensed. At recompense it aimed, and without the prospect of such recompense it would never have been "made." It was pre-eminently a banquet of policy, unwarmed by one simple genuine feeling of the heart, unhonoured by any noble object for its motive, fragrant with no philanthropic beneficence. It was simply a device of an inferior type, first, for flashing to all the extremities of the kingdom the envious tidings of the central wealth, luxury, splendour, and power, and thereby riveting the tyrannous hold and the ghastly fascination of an Eastern arbitrary despot; and, secondly, for ingratiating that central authority with the numerous helpless, subordinate powers who were to send contingents and contributions to a disastrous expedition into Greece. It was very different from an English banquet in celebration of some accomplished fact, or in honour of some worthy hero or distinguished benefactor of the people, though oftentimes it is not very much that can be justly said in commendation of even these.

III. THE GIVING ITSELF - WHAT WAS IT? It happens to be well termed "making" a feast, in the undesigned idiom of the language. Did it cost much to make? It cost lavish silver and gold very likely; but whence were these drawn? Were they not already drawn from those for whom the feast was "made"? and probably absolutely wrung by these again from the oppressed subjects of their grinding rule. Did it cost Ahasuerus himself much? Did it cost him anything at all? Was it drawn from the honourably-earned and diligently-acquired results of his own past labour? No; it speaks plenty without bounty, liberality without generosity, profuse bestow-ment the fruit of no kindliness of soul, a lavish hand moving to the dictate of a selfish heart.

Conclusion. -

1. These are just some of the hard facts of human nature, tried in such a position as that of this king.

2. There is a great deal to explain and account for such exhibitions of human nature in Ahasuerus, to be found in his time of day, in his antecedents, etc., but these things do not justify them. They do impressively help illustrate to what human nature's time of day and antecedents bring us.

3. We could plead no extenuations whatever if our own conduct or our own principles were detected sinking to the level of those before us, and all the less for the beacon of this very history. - B.

All the wives shall give to their husbands honour, both to great and small.
All the wives too are included, for they are all "to give honour to their husbands, both to the great and small." Well, the great, the really great, will get the honour easily, and could do very well probably without the helpful edict. Where there is real greatness, which, in Christian speech, we may translate into real goodness, it is the wife's joy to render what it is the husband's pride to wear. But the honour is to be given "both to the great and small!" "Ay, there's the rub." If this insurrectionary torch should go through the land, what will become of the small ones? — the selfish, the spiteful, the meddlesome, the rude, the mean, the silly, the helpless, the good-for-nothing? They are all to have honour! As if a decree could really get it, or keep it from them. Wouldn't the better plan be, in that case, and in many a case besides, that the small shall try to grow larger? Let them be ashamed of their littleness, and rise out of it into something like nobleness. Let them love and help their wives, and care for their children, and honour will come as harvest follows sowing. But unless they do something like that, one fears that all the edicts that can be devised and promulgated will leave them as it finds them — "small."

(A. Raleigh, D. D.)

1. And does not this history teach us that the great law of domestic happiness is love? No Persian decrees are required to execute the mandates of love, nor can any royal commandment make a household happy without it. The true way for all queens to rule is to "stoop to conquer." Let their husbands call themselves as much as they please "the lords of creation," and let them seem to hold the reins, but it is theirs to tell them how to drive. This is the more excellent way. The dispute about the sphere of the sexes is as unphilosophical as it is unscriptural. It is God's will that man should be the head and woman the heart of society. If he is its strength, she is its solace. If he is its wisdom, she is its grace and consolation. Domestic strife is always a great evil, but it becomes doubly so when it occurs before company, as happened with the king of Persia, and when professed friends come in and make bad worse. It is then the wound becomes incurable.

2. Let us learn to guard against all excesses, not only in feasting and in the loss of time, but of feeling and passion. How inconsiderate, how rash, how sinful was Herod's oath and terrible decree against John the Baptist! And scarcely less wicked were the king's unjust and cruel proceedings against his wife. It was a maxim with General Jackson to take much time to deliberate — to think out the right resolution — but when once the resolution was taken, then to think only of executing it.

3. How emphatic a lesson is here of human vanity! The great monarch of such a vast empire is not able to govern himself. And all the grandeur of half a year's feasting is spoiled by the disobedience of his queen. This was the dead fly in his pot of ointment.

4. Alas! that so lovely a place as a garden should have been the scene of such revelry and sinning. A garden is associated with some of our holiest and saddest thoughts. Sin fastened on our race in a garden. It was in a garden the curse was pronounced, and there too the great promise of a Redeemer was given. And it was in a garden the Messiah entered the lists of mortal combat to bruise the old serpent's head. Instead, then, of making our gardens the scenes of sinful mirth and dissipation, as did the Persian king, let us make them oratories for pious breathings to heaven — let them give us thoughts of God and of the love and sufferings of His Son Jesus Christ. It is to Him we owe all our pleasures in the creatures and gifts of providence, as well as the hope of eternal life. And so also let the garden be a preacher to us of our frailty.

(W. A. Scott, D. D.)

This is truly a Divine appointment, but it is not made in an arbitrary manner, like, for instance, a positive institution of the Jews, which might be this way or that way with equal propriety — the thing deriving its sacred character chiefly from the fact of the appointment. Even a Divine appointment could not make the wife supreme, human nature continuing what it is. For one thing, woman is weaker than man physically, and supremacy goes with strength. All kinds of force have their ultimate source in God, and when He makes man permanently stronger than woman, no doubt He means some corresponding authority to rest where the permanent strength does. No doubt strength may be abused, is most shamefully abused in some instances, by the husband. But the way to prevent the abuse of strength is not, surely, to attempt to transfer its proper responsibilities to weakness? Weakness may be abused as much as strength, and in some ways even more. Again, there are many things of less or more importance which come to require a single ultimate decision. One must say how this thing is to be. Practical action must be taken one way or other. Who shall decide? Is the husband to submit to the wife? He decides with whom God has lodged the responsibility. But the truth is that in a properly regulated, or rather a properly inspired home, the question of authority in its bald form never arises. The husband's rule and the wife's obedience are alike unconscious, and alike easy. The sweet laws of nature, the good laws of God, make them one. This leads us to say, on the other hand, with equal emphasis, that the authority of the husband is clearly a limited authority. Common sense ought to teach a man that there is a large sphere of the practical family life where he ought to leave the wife and mother practically supreme. His interference at all (whatever may be the abstract right) will not help the industry, the order, the peace of the household. But, rising higher, look at the grand fact that the authority of the husband over the wife has, and must have, clear and strong, and altogether impassable limits.

(A. Raleigh, D. D.)

Bear rule in his own house
"In his own house" — who has a house of his own? The house is a prison until somebody else shares it. The house belongs to all the people that are in it — part to the husband, part to the wife, part to the children, part to the servants, right through all the household line. Develop the notion of partnery, co-responsibility; let every one feel a living interest in the place: then the house shall be built of living stones, pillared with righteousness, roofed with love. It is here that Christianity shines out with unique lustre. Obedience is right for all parties, but the obedience has to be in the Lord; it is to be the obedience of righteousness, a concession to wisdom, a toll paid to honour, which is to be returned in love and gratitude. Christianity has made our houses homes. We owe everything that is socially beneficent to Christianity.

(J. Parker,D. D.)

A man living at a hotel is like a grape-vine in a flower-pot — movable, carried around from place to place, docked at the root and short at the top. Nowhere can a man get real root-room, and spread out his branches till they touch the morning and the evening, but in his own house.

The important thing, in order to our understanding the story, is that we should keep these first links in our hand, and should mark the working of "another King." Into the administration of our Lord Jesus Christ no mistake can creep, and so perfect is His grasp that mosaic pavements, golden couches, throngs of noblemen, fawning courtiers, excess of wine, swelling vanity, and a woman's firmness, are all, without the slightest knowledge on the part of any actor in the drama, made to bring about a purpose of His, the execution of which is more than four years distant. Had Ahasuerus not been the proud voluptuary he was; had he not made his great feast; had he not in the last day of it let slip or thrown away the reins of sound reason and run his head against a first law of nature; had his vanity taken any other direction than that of wishing to parade the queen's beauty; had Vashti been less of a true woman; had the courtiers been honester than they were — then there would have been no vacant place for Esther to fill, and the plot of Haman might have thriven. But we have this song, "Surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee: the remainder of wrath shalt Thou restrain."

(A. M. Symington, B. A.).

People
Abagtha, Admatha, Ahasuerus, Bigtha, Biztha, Carcas, Carshena, Harbona, Marsena, Mehuman, Memucan, Meres, Persians, Shethar, Tarshish, Vashti, Zethar
Places
Ethiopia, India, Media, Persia, Susa
Topics
Army, Attendants, Banquet, Captains, Chiefs, Divisions, Feast, Force, Governors, Heads, Kingdom, Leaders, Media, Military, Nobles, Officers, Officials, Persia, Power, Presence, Present, Princes, Provinces, Reign, Rule, Rulers, Servants, Third
Outline
1. Xerxes makes royal feasts.
10. Vashti, sent for, refuses to come.
13. Xerxes, by the counsel of Memucan, puts away Vashti, and decrees men's sovereignty.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Esther 1:3

     4410   banquets
     5459   prince
     5489   rank
     5723   nobles

Esther 1:1-12

     4476   meals

Library
Whether Boasting is Opposed to the virtue of Truth?
Objection 1: It seems that boasting is not opposed to the virtue of truth. For lying is opposed to truth. But it is possible to boast even without lying, as when a man makes a show of his own excellence. Thus it is written (Esther 1:3,4) that Assuerus "made a great feast . . . that he might show the riches of the glory" and "of his kingdom, and the greatness and boasting of his power." Therefore boasting is not opposed to the virtue of truth. Objection 2: Further, boasting is reckoned by Gregory
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica

In Judaea
If Galilee could boast of the beauty of its scenery and the fruitfulness of its soil; of being the mart of a busy life, and the highway of intercourse with the great world outside Palestine, Judaea would neither covet nor envy such advantages. Hers was quite another and a peculiar claim. Galilee might be the outer court, but Judaea was like the inner sanctuary of Israel. True, its landscapes were comparatively barren, its hills bare and rocky, its wilderness lonely; but around those grey limestone
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life

Esther
The spirit of the book of Esther is anything but attractive. It is never quoted or referred to by Jesus or His apostles, and it is a satisfaction to think that in very early times, and even among Jewish scholars, its right to a place in the canon was hotly contested. Its aggressive fanaticism and fierce hatred of all that lay outside of Judaism were felt by the finer spirits to be false to the more generous instincts that lay at the heart of the Hebrew religion; but by virtue of its very intensity
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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