Are all the ‘bad women’ of the Bible really bad?

Study passage: Esther 1

Stories of the legendary ‘bad women’ in the Bible have been passed down through history. Most of the women are famous for sabotaging the lives of innocent men. Potiphar’s wife (Genesis 39) falsely accused Joseph when he refused her sexual advances, resulting in his unjust imprisonment. Delilah (Judges 16) betrayed her lover, Samson, having discovered that the secret of his strength was in his long hair. She cut it off, handing him over to his Philistine enemies. Queen Jezebel (1 Kings 16-22 and 2 Kings 9), wife of Ahab, encouraged idolatry and built temples to Baal, persecuting God’s prophets and plotting the death of Naboth. In the New Testament, Herodias (Matthew 14) used her dancing daughter to have John the Baptist beheaded, getting her revenge after he denounced her unlawful marriage to Herod Antipas. Warnings about the dangers of bad women are not just found in the biblical narratives. The book of Proverbs cautions young men about women seducers, adulterers and flatterers who would destroy their lives (Proverbs 7). 

There are other women in the Bible, however, whose stories are very brief, and about whom we know next to nothing, but who also become the subject of legends. Some of these secondary legends are built on fragments of historical evidence; sometimes they’re built on no evidence at all. For even when the biblical references are brief, and historical data scant, characters and motives have been interpreted by later commentators in a different light. In at least one case this happened to a woman whose own story ended with rather unfair treatment, common in patriarchal societies. Later in history, writers reinterpreted her story in a way that blamed the victim and justified the injustice. I want to show how this happened to Vashti, the former Queen of Persia who features in the book of Esther. 

A story rewritten

We don’t have a precise date for when Esther was written, but its description of Persian court life, its language and reference to customs suggest to scholars that it was probably written during the 4th century BC. This view is reinforced by the fact that the king named in the text – King Ahasuerus, usually identified with Xerxes 1 – ruled Persia from 486 to his assassination in 465. 

Queen Vashti is mentioned in the first chapter of the book, in what is quite a graphic incident. King Xerxes had been displaying the opulence of his kingdom to his nobles and neighbours for six months, at the end of which he threw a huge banquet that lasted for days. His wife, Queen Vashti threw her own banquet for the women. On the seventh day the king, by now very full of wine, commanded his queen to go to him in her regal splendour so he could display her beauty to his guests. The text implies he had boasted of her magnificence and set her up as the crowning glory of his kingdom. However, Vashti refused to attend. Xerxes was absolutely livid, so took advice from his counsellors on what to do next. They pointed out that the implications of doing nothing would be formidable. If the queen were allowed to disobey her husband, she would set a precedence for wifely disrespect which would affect all the men in Persia. So they suggested Vashti should be banned from the king’s presence, deposed as queen and replaced by another. This other, of course, would eventually be Esther. 

The biblical text gives us no backstory to Vashti, makes no moral judgement about her character and provides no explanation of her refusal. It merely reports her response and the judgement given by the king and his advisers. However, centuries later, (almost a millennium in fact – between 5th and 7th centuries AD) we find that the Vashti in the book of Esther underwent a very negative makeover in the Babylonian Talmud and the Palestinian Midrash written during those years. She became a cruel, vindictive oppressor. 

The Talmud identifies Vashti as a granddaughter of Belshazzer, King of Babylon and links her with Babylon’s downfall (Megillah 10b-12a). The writers in the Talmud and Midrash heap incriminations on to her behaviour, citing incidents of harshness, cruelty and racial oppression. Her victims, however, were not men but Jewish women. We read, for example: “Vashti would take the daughters of Israel, strip them naked, and force them to work for her on Shabbat.” As a punishment for her treatment of these ‘daughters of Israel’ we’re told that she was stricken with leprosy, and cursed by the angel Gabriel with a tail (Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 12b). This latter addition now suggests a reason for her refusal to come to the feast; she was no longer beautiful; her wicked behaviour had led to her disfigurement and she was shamed. The Midrash tells the same story of cruelty, sadism and retribution – she degraded Jewish women; she herself became degraded. But the Midrash account has another reason for her refusal to attend the banquet, her arrogance and pride in her Babylonian ancestry. They report her lofty retort delivered to the king: “She herself, when summoned by the king, refused, saying: ‘You are my father’s stable-boy, unfit to command me’” (Esther Rabbah 2:1, 3:14).

These Jewish interpretations see Vashti’s inevitable downfall as divine retribution for her cruelty towards Jewish women. In a curious way, she almost becomes identified with Haman, who in the biblical text persecutes the Jews and plots the death of Mordecai (Esther 3, 5). Judgement is also heaped on her for lack of submission to her husband. Centuries later, other rabbinic commentators toned down Vashti’s alleged cruelty and persecution, and instead focused on her as a foil for Esther, who rightly emerges as the heroine of the book. Yet even in this interpretation, the patriarchal norms for women remain evident. Vashti’s pride and arrogance is set against Esther’s humility and modesty; Vashti’s scorn for the king’s authority is set against Esther’s submission; Vashti’s recklessness against Esther’s courage. 

Rejecting the legends 

These legends are a clear distortion of the Vashti in the Bible. The biblical text itself gives us no evidence of any sadism from her, or victimisation of Jewish women. It gives us no reason either as to why Vashti refused to go to the king’s banquet. In fact, the text subtly suggests that Vashti herself gave us a foretaste of Esther’s courage. She knew the king’s power but wouldn’t appear as an exhibit to a huge assembly of drunken noblemen! And for that refusal, she suffered the consequences. 

Jewish interpretations see Vashti’s inevitable downfall as divine retribution for her cruelty towards Jewish women

That’s why many modern commentators today, including Jewish ones, reject the legends and see Vashti as a heroic woman, unwilling to compromise her own values and intrinsic worth to become a spectacle. She holds on to her integrity, refusing to be a commodity, paraded for her looks to titillate the appetite of leering men. The Bible story indicates how she and Esther were both vulnerable as wives of a powerful king. Both were brave and driven by principle. Esther’s battle was on behalf of her people, and her actions were guided always by concern for their safety and justice. But we could also claim that Vashti’s battle was on behalf of women, to reject the demands and entitlement of powerful men. The 19th-century abolitionist, Harriet Beecher Stowe (author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin) even called Vashti’s disobedience “the first stand for woman’s rights”. I think the biblical text supports that claim. 

What can we learn from this today? 

Firstly, we must recognise our need to learn from the biblical text direct, and not from unsupported myths and legends. This applies to so many other areas of life. The underlying biblical perspective is that women and men are equally significant before God and should be respected and treated with justice. Wherever this does not happen, it is our Christian responsibility to maintain the biblical principle and support those working for truth and justice.

We live in an era where powerful men still hold sway over the lives of others, especially women. Lack of transparency by authorities in some countries means that atrocities to women are covered over and exposure never takes place. For example, long-standing claims about the four Saudi princesses, confined and medicated against their will after their mother fled the country in 2003, are still unresolved. According to relatives, whistleblowers and an October 2024 New Yorker report* Princesses Hala and Maha died, probably in 2021, having suffered years of medical abuse, neglect and hunger. 

Human rights groups, including the Christian group Open Doors (opendoorsuk.org), regularly document areas of the world where women are treated without justice, sometimes by powerful leaders who maintain a benevolent public profile. Many of those women live in countries where the Church is persecuted and the courage of these Christian sisters is enormous**. Those who work in the organisations that support them often risk their own lives in exposing the atrocities. The very least we can do is pray, read the Open Doors World Watch List and wholeheartedly support initiatives which challenge infringements and campaign for justice and change. 

*newyorker.com/news/a-reporter-at-large/the-texan-doctor-and-the-disappeared-saudi-princesses