Bereansearching Bible Studies

Introduction

For the curious reader, it should be understood that this study is one of six “Character Profiles”, which in addition to this one include 1) King Ahasuerus, 2) Mordecai, 3) Esther, 4) Heggai/Hatach, and 5) Haman. These profiles are all excerpted from an in-depth, expositional commentary of The Book of Esther which shows, by many examples, how the Book of Esther was supernaturally crafted by God, through the orchestration of time and space along with God’s Holy Spirit inspired recording of it, to perfectly form an Historical Parable. More clearly stated, the Book of Esther has both an earthly/historical meaning and a heavenly/eternal spiritual meaning, which involves significant use of “allegories” and “types“. This study is one of many posted on this website to show that there are many such Hidden Treasures embedded within the various historical accounts that are recorded in the Bible. The Bible is a Spiritual Book, and the understanding of many of the key aspects of the Bible requires spiritual discernment. It should also be remembered that Jesus only spoke in parables to the multitude for the reasons explained here: “Why Did Jesus Speak in Parables?“.

Beautiful Queen Vashti Was the First Queen of King Ahasuerus

Queen Vashti: Whose name in Hebrew is וַשְׁתִּי (vaštî)^H2060 means “Beautiful” was, evidently, indeed a beautiful first queen. When she was bidden by the king (by his “commandment”) to a great feast, she refused to come while holding her own feast for the women; so the king decreed that she could never again come into his presence.  The king also decreed, at the advice of his wise men, that her royal estate be given “to another that is better than she.”  King Ahasuerus sent letters to all his provinces to be published “to every people after their language” to find a replacement for Queen Vashti.

King Ahasuerus replaced his first queen, Vashti, for her disobedience in not coming to the King’s feast at the middle of the year (180 days after the first feast) when bidden by his commandment, and then he gives her royal estate to Esther (the Jewish orphan raised up by her elder Benjamite kinsman, Mordecai) who has been properly anointed by the King’s Chamberlain, Hegai.

Vashti Was Disobedient to the King’s Commandment

Vashti was a beautiful first queen, but she rebelled against the King and refused to come to his feast, but rather held her own feast for the women in the royal palace that belonged to the King.  Deuteronomy 31:16-18 explains how this can be so, as does Jesus’ parable of the “Great Supper” in Luke 14:16-24, particularly the last verse Luke 14:24, “For I say unto you, That none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper.” And note that it was the “chief priests and Pharisees” who knew that Jesus was describing them through those parables as we read in Matthew 21:45, “¶And when the chief priests and Pharisees had heard his parables, they perceived that he spake of them.“

For the queen to be disobedient to the king’s commandment, is the same as a wife usurping the authority of her husband, rejecting subordination, which is rebellion and contrary to God’s word as we read in 1 Peter 3:1, “¶Likewise, ye wives, [be] in subjection to your own husbands;” and in 1 Peter 3:5, “For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands:“. (Please see more below regarding Esther 1:20) Moreover, if punishment for rebellion is not meted out quickly then the rebellion will spread as we read in Ecclesiastes 8:11, “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Esther 1:19, “If it please the king, let there go a royal commandment from him, and let it be written among the laws of the Persians and the Medes, that it be not altered, That Vashti come no more before king Ahasuerus; and let the king give her royal estate unto another that is better than she.“

God Rejected Old Testament National Israel but Remembers His Covenant

Remember also what we read in Amos 8:1-14 concerning National Israel, particularly Amos 8:2, “And he (God) said, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A basket of summer fruit. Then said the LORD unto me, The end is come upon my people of Israel; I will not again pass by them any more.“

In Esther 2:1, we read, “After these things, when the wrath (חֵמָה (ḥēmâ))^H2534 of king Ahasuerus was appeased, he remembered Vashti, and what she had done, and what was decreed against her.“ This verse CANNOT be interpreted as saying that king Ahasuerus changed his mind, and that later he intended to restore queen Vashti to her former estate, because Esther 2:4 and Esther 2:17 make it clear that Vashti is replaced by Esther. 

Queen Vashti Equates to National Israel of the Old Testament

How then are we to interpret this verse?  Well, we must realize that God had, in effect, been married to National Israel in the Old Testament as we read in Isaiah 50:1, “Thus saith the LORD, Where [is] the bill of your mother’s divorcement, whom I have put away? or which of my creditors [is it] to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away.”

We see this again in Jeremiah 31:31-34, “¶Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day [that] I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: But this [shall be] the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.“

Old Testament National Israel Became Estranged from God

Moreover, God did warn National Israel that He would put her away for her rebellion in Hosea 2:2, “Plead with your mother, plead: for she [is] not my wife, neither [am] I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts;“. We also know that God would betroth Himself to whom He had not been previously married, as we read in Hosea 2:23, “And I will sow her unto me in the earth; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to [them which were] not my people, Thou [art] my people; and they shall say, [Thou art] my God.”  We also know that this people who were “not my people” includes those chosen by Grace out of all the world (the Gentiles), but that it also includes “a remnant” from National Israel (Hosea 2:16-20).

Also in the Book of Hosea we read where God is referring to National Israel in Hosea 4:6, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.“

God Remembers His Covenant

Note also the similarity with what we read in Ezekiel Chapter 16. There God talks about how He took pity on National Israel, and how He loved and cared for her, and He raised her up and made her beautiful from Ezekiel 16:1-15. However, Ezekiel 16:15-59, beginning with the words, “But thou didst trust in thine own beauty” (just like queen Vashti), shows us God’s disdain and judgment upon National Israel (as a corporate body) for her spiritual adultery, but nonetheless, in the last four verses in Ezekiel 16:60-63, God says that he will remember His covenant and promises to establish a new and everlasting covenant (with the spiritual eternal Israel, the true believing Christians, out of all the world saved by grace and not by the works of the law). This is exactly what was said earlier in Jeremiah 31:31-34.

And what else does the Bible say on this issue?  With respect to “remembering” Vashti, we know that God never forgets His covenant with Israel for we read in Leviticus 26:42, “Then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land.”  This is also repeated in the last four verses in Isaiah 16:1-63, beginning with “Nevertheless I will remember my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth, and I will establish unto thee an everlasting covenant.”

Psalm 98:3, “He hath remembered his mercy and his truth toward the house of Israel: all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.“

Psalm 105:7-10, “He [is] the LORD our God: his judgments [are] in all the earth. He hath remembered his covenant for ever, the word [which] he commanded to a thousand generations. Which [covenant] he made with Abraham, and his oath unto Isaac; And confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law, [and] to Israel [for] an everlasting covenant:“

Psalm 111:5, “He hath given meat unto them that fear him: he will ever be mindful of his covenant.”

We also see this spelled out in Isaiah 65:8-10, “¶Thus saith the LORD, As the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, Destroy it not; for a blessing [is] in it: so will I do for my servants’ sakes, that I may not destroy them all. And I will bring forth a seed out of Jacob, and out of Judah an inheritor of my mountains: and mine elect shall inherit it,and my servants shall dwell there. And Sharon shall be a fold of flocks, and the valley of Achor a place for the herds to lie down in, for my people that have sought me.”

Romans 11:15, “For if the casting away of them [be] the reconciling of the world, what [shall] the receiving [of them be], but life from the dead?”

The Bride of Christ (Eternal Israel) Is Better Than Old Testament National Israel

We also know that the believers are referred to throughout the Bible as the Bride of Jesus Christ (and Jesus Christ is also God).  That Bride is described in the Bible with all the attributes ascribed to Esther.  The true believers replaced National Israel (pictured by Vashti), God’s former chosen people, whom He effectively divorced at the cross (We see this in Jeremiah 3:8 regarding the initial divorce by God of the first ten tribes of Israel, “And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.” as well as Isaiah 50:1, “¶Thus saith the LORD, Where [is] the bill of your mother’s divorcement, whom I have put away? or which of my creditors [is it] to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away.“) because they would not come when bidden to the final Passover Feast (they rejected Jesus as Messiah, the Perfect Passover Lamb of God and His Wedding Feast and Great Supper…see Matthew 22:1–14  and  Luke 14:15-24).

Esther 1:20, “And when the king’s decree which he shall make shall be published throughout all his empire, (for it is great,) all the wives shall give to their husbands honour, both to great and small.”

Note the consistency with God’s Word on this topic. God ordained that the marriage relationship between a man and a woman is unequivocally a spiritual ‘Type’ for the marriage relationship between Christ and His Church as we read in Ephesians 5:22-25, “¶Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so [let] the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. ¶Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;“

And reading a bit further on we find this additional admonition from God in His Word as we read in Ephesians 5:33, “Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence [her] husband.” 

Ephesians 6:2, “Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.” While this has temporal implications and hearkens us back to the Ten Commandments in Exodus, we should be aware of the spiritual implications interwoven within the text. In essence, we are to honor God our Father in Heaven and our mother the Church from where we heard the Word preached, and, once saved, by being an active part within it.

Colossians 3:18&19, “¶Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord. ¶ Husbands, love [your] wives, and be not bitter against them.“

1 Timothy 2:12, “But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve.“

Clearly Vashti did not render due reverence to her husband, king Ahasuerus per God’s directive. She served as the exact personification of what we read in Jeremiah 3:20, “Surely [as] a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith the LORD.” 

A Remnant of National Israel Will Nonetheless Still Be Saved

However, God tells us that there will still be a remnant of National Israel that will be saved when we look back a few verses to Jeremiah 3:14&15, “¶Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion: And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.” God is promising that The remnant of National Israel would be brought into the body of believers, the church, but only in an extremely small number. They would be taught by God’s “pastors” who would teach them the Truth about Jesus, the source of all knowledge and understanding, such that they would be saved.

God makes clear via the Apostle Paul writings in Galatians 3 that “eternal Israel” consists only of those who are in Christ Jesus, regardless of nationality (whether a remnant of the Jews or from the Gentiles (e.g., “Greeks”)) who are all saved by Grace alone, by faith alone, and not in any way based on either works of the law or ancestral lineage traced back to Abraham.

Conclusion

The takeaway is that God remembered and performed His covenant unto what was Old Testatment Israel with a new and everlasting covenant in the Person and Work of Jesus Christ, Who Is The Seed out of the remnant of Jacob. And God’s elect, His servants, are the “spiritual” “eternal” Israel. They are the true believing Christians, Jesus’ Church, out of all the world saved by grace, and not by the works of the law, through the fulfillment of God’s law by Jesus Christ His Beloved Son. That is why we also read in Luke 1:72, that Zacharias, under the inspiration of The Holy Spirit, said that in Jesus Christ, God was about, “To perform the mercy [promised] to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant;”

Note to the Reader: This post should be read in conjunction with the Book of Ruth. In that post, it is made clear that God does not completely abandon National Israel, as a remnant will still be saved. Naomi, Ruth’s widowed mother-in-law, is saved and blessed just like Ruth. Naomi represents the saved Jews of the world in Christ, and Ruth represents all the saved Gentiles of the world in Christ.

We should also remember that both Ruth and Esther are the only books in the Bible named for women as they also represents “widows” and “fatherless” respectively. For more on this please see this post: Widows and Orphans.

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