The Tough Stuff: Modesty Lessons Learned from Queen Vashti

Hello friends,

Today’s topic was inspired by a recent women’s bible study I attended. The subject of the class was presented as “Women of old from the Bible”. The content however was surprisingly not that of Sarah, or Ruth, but of Queen Vashti, Wife of King Ahasuerus.

If you’re not familiar with the book of Esther, Queen Vashti is acutally who Esther replaced as Queen. But why? What drove these events to unfold in the first place and led Esther to save her people? It’s because Queen Vashti stood for modesty.

It came in the days of King Ahasuerus, that he threw a six month feast for all of the nobles and commanders of all the 127 provinces that he was King over. And after that 6 month feast came to an end, he gave another seven day feast for all of the people in the citadel in his courtyard.

Now in that time, it was customary for the women to have a separate feast in another part of the palace than the men, where King Ahasuerus was. And during this seven day feast, the king commanded that every man be allowed to drink as much as he wanted (Esther 1:8).

On the last day of the feast, the King was drunk with wine, and he asked his eunuchs to bring his wife, Queen Vashti with her royal crown, before him and his guests, to show off her beauty to them.

What exactly this command meant, we’re not sure, but whatever it did entail, obviously put Queen Vashti in a very bad position, a position where she would be gazed upon lustfully by men that were NOT her husband. As you can probably guess, Vashti refused to obey the King’s command (Esther 1:12). As a result, she lost her crown.

While I truly believe that all of the above was part of God’s plan for Esther to save the Jews, we can we glean so much from this powerful story.

Modesty Lessons Learned from Queen Vashti:

#1: The cost of modesty

I’m sure we’ve all felt out of place at some point in our stance for modesty. But what real cost did we pay in that moment? A few odd stares from the guy on the treadmill next to you at the gym, or the bewildered pointing at the beach; Queen Vashti lost her throne, her power, prestige, and her husband!

Personally, as a fashion blogger, I have to be careful not to get caught up in my following and being envious of all of the other very successful bloggers out there. Many of them are showing everything they’ve got, and as a result have tens of thousands of followers. I know that I can’t compromise my standards for this (and if I do, my heart is not right anyways). Standing for modesty may not make me popular or give me any sort of prestige in this world. But I must treat my body with respect.

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:19,20)

Today’s society tells you to “flaunt it if you’ve got it”, and Queen Vashti could have had this mentality. But our bodies are temples, created by God. Covering our bodies is not to say that we are ashamed of them, but that we respect them.

I pray that your self-confidence is not affected negatively by choosing to dress your body modestly for yourself and for others! Because the cost of modesty is so much less, than the cost of losing our respect and dignity in God’s eyes.

#2: Wine is not modest, wine is a mocker

I think we can all agree that, in his right mind, King Ahasuerus would have never asked his own wife to come in front of his drunken associates and reveal her beauty to them.

Sadly, the King’s request put Vashti in a position, that even if she had obeyed his command, may have still gotten her kicked out of the kingdom. All of this being a result of the fact that King Ahasuerus was drunk and not of sound mind.

Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler and whoever is led astray by it is not wise. (Proverbs 20:1)

Sadly, alcohol seems to be a part of many people’s every day life, but I can assure you, that at some point or another, it has caused bad judgement, and heartache. Queen Vashti did not compromise her modesty in spite of the King’s poor judgement. And it’s so important that we as well do not allow something like alcohol to cloud our sound minds and cause us to compromise our modesty.

We can learn from this that compromising our beliefs or modesty to get the attention of man will end in vain.

#3: Modesty starts with the heart

It’s so important that we do not allow the way we present ourselves cause others to stumble.

Modesty begins in the heart. I think that we can really learn from Queen Vashti, especially because she was not even a believer in the God of Israel, but she knew that the request made of her was not acceptable.

Had she chosen to yield to the King’s request, surely much worse fate would have come of her and possibly of some of the King’s guests. Likewise, we can never know the hearts of men and women, but we can control our own actions and avoid putting a stumbling block in front of them!

I hope this was helpful in some small way. I’d love to hear what you learned from the example of Queen Vashti.

keep on keeping on…

-Taylor