For Such a Time as This // Jared Thurmon

For Such a Time as This
Adairsvillesda.org
February 9, 2019

The Bible and Historians like the Greek Historian Herodotus, and the Jewish Midrash give us details to one of the greatest stories ever told. A story about risk. A story about the power of a woman’s influence. A story about the power of one man’s courage. A story that warns of the dangers of restricting religious freedom and mingling church and state.... A story for such a time as this...

Our story begins on the night of the overthrow of Babylon. King Belshazzar is having a party, everyone is drunk, and in fiery letters written on the wall everyone is terrified to hear from Daniel the prophet that the Kingdom of Babylon has been weighed in the balance...and will be overthrown. It has failed it’s calling, and it is the fault of the king who should have known better and not lowered himself to a drunken festival to the downfall of his empire. At the same time, the Medo-Persian army has diverted the river Euphrates and is marching under the wall to overthrow the metropolis of the greatest empire the world had known. Belshazzar the king is slain. Terror seizes everyone and all are running for their lives. Darius, the future king of this empire, and soon to be a friend of Daniel the prophet, sees something that catches his eye and..........................................that’s the beginning of our story. Fast forward – where we pick up our story in Esther Chapter 1:1

Xerxes the Great

• Ahasueras, also known as Xerxes – the Grandson of King Cyrus the Great – the son of King Darius – Ruled Media and Persia at its apex.
  -He becomes King. Xerxes began to be known as a ruthless, cruel, arrogant man. The multiple assassination attempts show that those closest to him didn’t respect him.

Verses 3-5

There was drinking of wine and reveling. It was similar to that last night in Babylon at Belshazzar’s feast with a thousand of his lords.
Truly Medo-Persia was the daughter of Babylon.

Esther 1:10, 11 - When the heart of the king was drunk with wine, he commanded ... to bring Vashti the queen before the king with the crown royal, to shew the people and the princes her beauty: for she was fair to look upon.

Vashti
Although the Talmudic rabbis never say explicitly that they read Esther 1:11 as Ahasuerus’ attempt to mock Vashti’s royalty, this may be inferred from the way the rabbinic reading of the command as meaning that Vashti should wear only the diadem (Midrash Abba Gurion 1):
אמר ר’ אבא שלא יהיה עליה כלום אלא הכתר וערומה. R. Abba said: “That she should appear with nothing on her but the crown, that is, naked.”

According to the Midrash – The ancient Jewish commentary on the Hebrew Scriptures – Vashti was the daughter of King Belshazzar. Great granddaughter of Nebuchadnezzar. Taken captive by King Darius the night of the overthrow, he took pity on her and eventually had her marry his son – Xerxes/Ahasueras. Vashti’s name means (The Beautiful – The Best)
She was known as a savvy politician. The idea is proposed that the ladies banquet held at the same time as Ahasueras/Xerxes festivities was a strategic political maneuver. With all of the noble wives of the empire present, she would have control of a key group of hostages in the event of a coup d’etat at the King’s feast. She had learned her lesson from her father Belshazzar’s feast.

Harriet Beecher Stowe called Vashti's disobedience the "first stand for woman's rights.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote that Vashti "added new glory to [her] day and generation...by her disobedience; for 'Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.'"

Ellen White states - When this command came from the king, Vashti did not carry out his orders, because she knew that wine had been freely used, and that Ahasuerus was under the influence of the intoxicating liquor. For her husband's sake as well as her own, she decided not to leave her position at the head of the women of the court.
She acted in harmony with a pure conscience. -CC 243. 37 The S.D.A. Bible Commentary 3:1139. CC 243.2

Xerxes commanded her to appear before his half-drunken company, wearing only her crown and she refused to be humiliated like that.

The men around Xerxes argued this would set a terrible precedent. She hadn’t just wronged him but this would alter the state of society. It would be a power given to woman that would be to her injury (Manuscript 29, 1911)

So Xerxes banished Queen Vashti (Esther 1:3).

There is no queen in the empire...what now?
Mordecai and Esther – Chapter 2

Hadassah was an orphan – of the royal line of Saul. Her parents had both died when she was a baby. She was raised by her cousin Mordecai as his own child. She was simple-hearted and unassuming, requiring little and demanding nothing. SDP 171.2

Mordecai called her Esther to hide her lineage – and at the age of 16 she went t...