להיות כל איש שרר בביתו ומדבר כלשון עמו
“Every man should wield authority in his home and speak the language of his own people.” (Esther 1:22)
As a result of Vashti’s disrespectful behavior towards him, Achashveirosh had her killed. In order to ensure that nobody in his empire would emulate her, Achashveirosh sent out a royal proclamation decreeing that every man should be in charge of his house. This part of the edict makes logical sense, as it seems to be a direct consequence of the incident with Vashti.
However, Achashveirosh appended a second component to his decree - that every husband should speak in the language of his nation - which appears to be completely unrelated to Vashti’s conduct. The problem with her behavior was that she spoke to him in an insolent manner, which seems to be irrelevant to the language in which they conversed. Indeed, the Ibn Ezra writes that this second part of Achashveirosh’s declaration had nothing to do with Vashti’s actions and was included precisely to distract people from focusing on her disgrace of the king and the decree which resulted from it.
The Chasam Sofer suggests that the issue of language was in fact quite connected to the humiliation that Achashveirosh suffered at the hands of Vashti. He explains by posing a different question: Even if Vashti was willing to relate her embarrassing message to Achashveirosh’s servants, why were they willing to repeat it to him? Weren’t they afraid for their own lives to speak to the king in such a manner?
The Chasam Sofer explains that Achashveirosh and his servants spoke a language called Sursi, while Vashti spoke a different language called Kasdi. When the servants heard Vashti’s message, they didn't understand it because they didn’t speak her language. Due to the language barrier, all they understood was that Vashti was refusing to come with them as Achashveirosh had requested, and they assumed that the message was an explanation of her decision, so they returned to Achashveirosh and innocently repeated her words, oblivious to their true meaning.
In reality, the Gemara (Megillah 12b) teaches that not only did Vashti refuse to come, but she sent back a message saying that Achashveirosh was a lowly stable boy for her father, who was able to drink a large amount of wine without becoming intoxicated, while Achashveirosh had consumed only a small amount of wine but had clearly gotten drunk, as evidenced by the ridiculous request that he made of her to appear naked at his royal party.
When Achashveirosh heard the message, he was humiliated in front of the noblemen, many of whom also spoke and understood the Kasdi language. In other words, the entire embarrassing situation only came about because Vashti spoke her own language, which the servants didn’t understand and naively repeated. In order to prevent this from happening again in the future, Achashveirosh decreed that all wives must speak their husband’s language. (R’ Ozer Alport)
The Ribbono Shel Olam Is Always Makdim Refuah Lemakoh
Achashveirosh sent out a royal proclamation decreeing that every husband should speak in the language of his nation. R’ Tzvi Hirsch Ferber (Shvil HaTzvi on Megillas Esther) asks what relevance this decree had to the main miracle of Purim. He quotes b’shem godol echod that the way of kings was to enforce all those within the rulership of their kingdom to speak the native language of the kingdom and this would encompass any surrounding areas that they would conquer. Certainly, with the kingdom of Achashveirosh the Amalekites would have to speak only the king’s native tongue. When the evil decree of Haman was rescinded and the Yidden were given permission to take revenge on their enemies they first sought out those people from Amalek. The Medrash says that the 75,000 slain (9:16) were from Amalek. Now, if all those in the kingdom had spoken the same language it would not have been possible to discern and know whether they were from Amalek or not. Therefore, Hakodosh Boruch Hu was ‘makdim refua lemakoh’ – He proceeded the problem with the solution, by facilitating that everyone should speak their own native language thus ensuring that on the day of the miracle the Jews would easily recognize their arch enemies of Amalek and be able to destroy them. (Ovi Mori)
