Esther 2:1
After these things, when the wrath of king Ahasuerus was appeased, he remembered Vashti, and what she had done, and what was decreed against her.
After these things, when the wrath of King Ahasuerus was appeased,.... Which went off with his wine, and so was quickly after, a few days at most, unless this can be understood as after the expedition of Xerxes into Greece, from whence he returned to Shushan, in the seventh year of his reign; and if he is the Ahasuerus here meant, he married Esther that year, Esther 2:16 and it seems certain, that after his expedition he gave himself up to his amours, and in his way to Sardis he fell in love with his brother's wife, and then with his daughter {b}:
he remembered Vashti; her beauty, and was grieved, as Jarchi observes, that she was removed from him; and so Josephus says {c}, that he passionately loved her, and could not bear parting with her, and therefore was grieved that he had brought himself into such difficulties: the Targumists carry it further, and say that he was wroth with those that advised him to it, and ordered them to be put to death, and that they were:
and what she had done; that it was a trivial thing, and not deserving of such a sentence as he had passed upon her; that it was not done from contempt of him, but from modesty, and a strict regard to the laws of the Persians:
and what was decreed against her; that she should come no more before him, but be divorced from him; the thought of which gave him great pain and uneasiness.
{b} Herodot. Calliope, sive, l. 9. c. 107.
{c} Antiqu. l. 11. c. 6. sect. 2.