Esther 1-5

[wolfpurplemoon]

Queen Vashti rightly stands up to her drunken husband the King and refuses to dance and show herself off in front of him and his equally drunk buddies.

His ego is bruised and he's embarrassed in front of his buddies, so he declares that all wives should do what their husband says and disowns Vashti before working on replacing her with a virgin from his kingdom.

He likes Esther best of all the virgins paraded before him.

Then the King starts a vendetta against all the Jews in his kingdom, without knowing Esther herself is a Jew.

Comments

[jaronsjournal.livejournal.com]

First, I'd like to point out that just because the Bible recounts an event does not mean the actions of those people involved in the event were pleasing to God.
The actions of the king are not necessarily supposed to be assumed to be right. Vashti may well have been right to stand up to the king and refuse to appear. You make it sound as if the book portrays the king as doing what God wanted. All it is, is a report of what happened. God is not even mentioned in the entire book.

Second, I'd like to voice my opinion that this book is a good example of how God uses even bad things and wicked people to accomplish his purpose. People are free to be wicked, in disobedience to God, if they choose. But God will still use events to accomplish his purposes. Haman was soon to be plotting to trick the king into having the Jews killed, and the deposing of Vashti led to the choosing of Esther as queen. Esther, a Jew, put a stop to the planned killing of the Jews. It's amazing how God uses human events to put his people in the place they need to be.

[wolfpurplemoon]

I wasn't trying to make it sound like the King was doing what God wanted, and I was aware that God isn't even mentioned in this book.

But then you've gone and said that God can be seen in these events in a positive way, so that's not very consistent.

[jaronsjournal.livejournal.com]

God isn't mentioned by name, but I think you can see His hand in the events of the book in a positive way, yes. Would you say it wasn't positive?