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 on.
Ver. 11. To bring Vashti the queen before the king] This was their errand, and they went readily about it (though it beseemed not their state, as being chief about the king), whether they envied the queen, and so sought occasion against her (as the bishops did against Queen Catharine Parr), or were in the king's predicament, and therefore desired fuel to their fire.
With the crown royal] In all her best, that nest of pride, as one calleth it, and incentive of lust.
To shew the princes and the people her beauty] And thereby to show them all his own imprudence and impudence; this he would not have done, if sober, for any good. Quid non ebrietas designat? "Wine is a mocker, and strong drink is raging." Could he not consider what he had oft read befell Candaules, king of the Sardians, for showing his fair wife to Gyges in a vain glorious humour? (Herodot., Justin.) Knew he not that those well whittled courtiers would soon be inflamed with the sight of such a peerless beauty, and that her gay attire would not make her more comely than common?
For she was fair to look on] Xenophon testifieth of the Persian and Median women, that they are proper and beautiful beyond all other nations. Vashti, we must needs think, then, was a choice beauty; and if she were (as Aspasia Milesia, wife to king Cyrus) fair and wise, it was no small commendation, καλλει τας γυναικας απασας υτερβαλλουσα (Joseph.); καλη και σοφη (Aelian.). But if (as Aurelia Orestilla in Sallust) she had nothing in her praise worthy but her beauty, it was ill bestowed on her. The Jews give a very ill character of her. They say she was daughter to Belshazzar (that notable quaffer, who might therefore call her Vashti, that is, a drinker), that she hated the Jews extremely, and abused various of their daughters (her slaves), making them work on the sabbath day, and putting them every day to the basest offices, not affording them rags to hide their nakedness, &c. This perhaps is but a Jewish fable.