What happened to Vashti after she was banished?
While hosting a celebration, King Ahasuerus drunkenly commanded for his wife to show herself to his male guests. Her refusal became the last thing that she would do in the palace. This also led to the king issuing a decree against all women who disobey their husbands. The story of Vashti, in Esther chapter one, is important to the Bible because it shows the relationship between men and women at this time. As the article on all-creatures.org put it, “the entire culture depended on the inequality of sexes.” She had not only angered her husband but also the kings who she had refused to show herself in front of. Memucan said, “Not only against the king has Vashti done wrong, but also against all the officials and all the peoples who are in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus.” (Esther 1:16) Vashti had gone against the way that the kings, and other men, expected things to work. Because of the importance of women’s obedience to men, this story served as an example for all other women who might think of disobeying men. I chose this question because after the king decided what Vashti’s punishment should be, the Bible never told of where she went or what happened to her. This also interested me because of how this story shows the difference in society today and how it was then.
Vashti’s punishment for disobeying King Ahasuerus was that she could never appear in front of him again. Many opinions of where she went assume that she was banished out of his empire to live in another land. A happier ending of her story could be that she returned to live with her family, like it was explained in an article on dawnmetcalf.com. This is a possible way that Vashti might have been banished from being able to appear in front of King Ahasuerus again, but a more likely explanation was that she was executed. The explanation from jwa.org is that a sentence the being banished often meant that the person would be killed. I believe this is what most likely happened because these men were drunk while making this decision. They wanted to carry out an extreme punishment for what she had done and to make an example of her to the other women.
http://www.all-creatures.org/hr/what-12.htm
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/vashti-midrash-and-aggadah
http://www.dawnmetcalf.com/heroine-addict-vashti/
Vashti’s punishment for disobeying King Ahasuerus was that she could never appear in front of him again. Many opinions of where she went assume that she was banished out of his empire to live in another land. A happier ending of her story could be that she returned to live with her family, like it was explained in an article on dawnmetcalf.com. This is a possible way that Vashti might have been banished from being able to appear in front of King Ahasuerus again, but a more likely explanation was that she was executed. The explanation from jwa.org is that a sentence the being banished often meant that the person would be killed. I believe this is what most likely happened because these men were drunk while making this decision. They wanted to carry out an extreme punishment for what she had done and to make an example of her to the other women.
http://www.all-creatures.org/hr/what-12.htm
http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/vashti-midrash-and-aggadah
http://www.dawnmetcalf.com/heroine-addict-vashti/