CRITICAL NOTES.]
Esther 2:1. After these things] How long after the divorce of Vashti is uncertain. It may have been only a few months, or it may have been a year or more after. He remembered Vashti] And along with the remembrance came a desire to have her restored to favour again, and probably, also, a feeling that she had been too severely dealt with.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH. Esther 2:1
REGRETS—NATURAL, USELESS, AND WHOLESOME
Vashti was banished, but she was still a queen, for she reigned in the halls of the monarch’s sad memory. The jewelled turban may be placed on the head of another, but a royal soul cannot be stripped of queenly prerogatives by a monarch’s power. The king bowed to her greatness, and practically confessed her royalty, though kingly pride and Persian law might prevent a revocation of the edict. He remembered Vashti in fond but sad regrets.
I. Regrets are natural. The sweet vision of Vashti’s grace and beauty pleased the fancy of Ahasuerus while it troubled his soul. Her refusal to violate her modesty unconsciously called forth his admiration. And if he had any nobility in his nature, her marvellous daring must have commanded his esteem. How sad the reflection that in an evil and thoughtless moment of undue merriment and boasting he had been the cause of her fall and her banishment! Thus there would be a mixture of gloom and of light, of joy and of sorrow, of fond regrets and of painful upbraidings, as he remembered Vashti. It is natural for us to look back to the past, and indulge in grief over our losses and our follies. Man is a creature looking both before and behind. One sign of his greatness. He recalls the past, and he tries to picture the future. It was, then, natural for Ahasuerus, when his wrath was appeased, to remember Vashti, and what was decreed against her. Natural for all to regret their losses, and especially those that have been the result of their own folly.
II. Regrets and nothing more are useless. Tears will flow, but tears cannot save. They may excite pity, but cannot work out deliverance, nor undo the past. Regrets cannot suck up the water that has been spilt upon the ground. In this instance regrets cannot restore the deposed Vashti. If she knew of the monarch’s remembrance it might afford her some gratification, but this was all the good it would do her. Regrets cannot bring to life the dead which the past has entombed. Let us then so strive to live, to control our passions, that the remembrance of the past may not haunt us with reproaching misdeeds.
III. Regrets and something more may be wholesome. Regrets that issue in repentance are wholesome. It is well to remember the past when by it we are brought to true repentance. It would have been pleasant if we had been permitted to read that Ahasuerus repented as he remembered his folly. Regrets that lead to honest effort are wholesome. Wise is the man who, as he regrets the past, seeks to put forth every effort to repair the wrongs of the past, and be himself a better man for the future. Surely Ahasuerus might have done something more to repair the wrong done to Vashti in spite of the rigour of Persian law. Regrets that prompt the desire for forgiveness are wholesome. If it were not seemly for Ahasuerus to seek forgiveness from Vashti, yet he ought to have sought forgiveness from God. Have we no wrongs that need to be righted? Have we no sins that require forgiveness? We regret our sins when they expose us to temporal evils. Let us regret our sins as committed against God. Let us pray God for Christ’s sake to be merciful unto us. He is ready to forgive. Let us learn that self-pleasing is the highway to self-loathing. Our greatest sorrows are often the harvest of the seed our own hands have scattered. Remorse is a bitter cup to drink, and we prepare the repellent ingredients. Memory can be a great tormentor, and the sinner makes the lash with which memory inflicts its painful strokes. And those who injure the just will find that they injure themselves much more. The just may perish, but their memory is ever blessed. The fragrance of correct thinking, of truthful speaking, and of right doing comes from the tombs of the martyrs, and blesses the world. Oh, whatever may come of worldly honours, let men and women be true to principle, and so live that truth-loving men will pleasantly remember their names, and, in a not distant future, even persecutors will assist in decorating their tombs!
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Esther 2:1
All that he could do was to indulge in vain regrets; mingled, perhaps, with self-upbraidings. It is the usual penalty of rashness, especially the rashness of temporarily inflamed passion. To bring down the things of court and fashion to every-day life, how many of our police reports, attended with fines and imprisonments, are to be attributed to the very same causes as led to the deposition of Vashti, and the subsequent regrets of the king. When passion is allowed to get the reins of reason, violence is almost sure to follow, and after-reflection to administer the lash of self-censure and remorse. The seat of those domestic feuds and dastard assaults on the weak and defenceless which are brought to light in our criminal courts, and excite our indignation and horror, is just the anger, malice, and reckless speech with which we may be ourselves chargeable. It is not that we should censure them the less who have been carried into these outward acts of personal injury and brutality, but that we should be incited the more to guard our own hearts. For whether the injustice and cruel wrong be done by kings surrounded by their councillors, and defended by their rank from civil penalties, or by the meanest subjects who are lodged in our jails, the Judge of all the earth deals equitably, and in his final allotments will show that he is no respecter of persons. He brings our feelings and motives and secret passions to the same tribunal as actions, and pronounces sentence accordingly. With the fear of God upon us, let us be jealous of unbridled passion, and stamp out wrath, and we shall be saved from many of those remembrances and regrets which rob life of much happiness. “Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.”
O memory! thou art a bitter avenger. Vashti might weep, but Artaxerxes had to repent. In the heat of passion, the one small offence, which had not been of her own making, had bulked so largely in his eyes as to shut out her many excellencies, kindnesses, and devotion; but when passion had subsided, these came prominently into view, and made that one offence seem as a very mote on a ground which was generally good and praiseworthy. But he could now do nothing to remedy the evil which had been done. In this view there is something terrible in the two words which Abraham is represented as addressing to the rich man in the New Testament historical parable, “Son, remember!” Recall the past! Think on the former unrequited, unacknowledged, and abused goodness of God! Think of how thou didst despise the poor, ulcerated, dog-licked beggar at thy gate! Ah! these bitter memories of earth will be ingredients in the future cup of the penal suffering of the lost! May God in his mercy deliver us from them all, and give us in their stead the blessed memory of an accepted Saviour, and “a life of faith on the Son of God, who loved us, and gave himself for us!”—McEwen.
I. Sin and punishment are inseparable companions. They go together with chains of adamant. Like individual twins, they are born together, live together, are attended the one by the other, as the body by the shadow.
II. When sin is in the saddle then punishment is on the crupper. Isidore, the monk, was one that vaunted he had felt in himself no motive to sin for forty years together. The Hebrews have but one and the same word for both; and blind nature prompted those mariners to demand of the obnoxious prophet Jonah, What evil hast thou done (Jonah 1:7), that the hand of thy God doth follow thee so close? and those barbarians to censure St. Paul for some murder, whom, though he had escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffered not to live (Acts 28:4).—Trapp.
1. He thought upon the happy days he had spent in her society.
2. He remembered the proofs of affection she had formerly given.
3. He remembered her punishment. How sad and heavy! Now that his wrath is appeased, and his judgment again balanced, he can see his weakness. The wrong which he thinks he has experienced from her he now sees to be of a very doubtful kind. “He must even confess to himself that, though he had consulted his counsellors, he still had acted in a passionate manner, and given too free a rein to his wrath.” This should have taught him to control his passions.
4. He remembered Vashti, but she was now lost to him. Lost for ever as his queen. Lost by his own act. The result of his own passion and wrath. And now the folly of his own act, like a serpent, stings him. Ahasuerus, amid all his wealth and splendour, now feels an oppressive want. He suffered a loss which could not be made good by any other possession, however precious. He may have more wives, and many of them, but they are not Vashti. David may have another son, but not a fair Absalom.
In speaking of the king’s sorrow, it should be distinguished from repentance, or godly sorrow. From what we know of the character of Ahasuerus, we may safely conclude that the remorse he felt would be of a selfish character. He was no doubt troubled, but was it—
1. Because of the injustice he had done to a virtuous, yet helpless woman? or
2. Because he felt that he had sinned against the law of right? or
3. Because he had lost his beautiful queen? Doubtless the latter chiefly, if not entirely. It was, therefore, only selfish sorrow. The kind of repentance or sorrow which a thief has when he finds himself in prison, deprived of liberty. He grieves, not because he is a thief, and wrongs his fellows, but because he has lost the chance to steal. Had Ahasuerus not lost Vashti, he would probably have never felt a pang. This feeling is as different as possible from repentance. Real repentance begins in humiliation of heart, and ends in reformation of life; it consists in the heart being broken for sin, and by sin. If we ever enjoy that peace which comes from God, our repentance must be that which is not to be repented of.
The nature of true repentance is well set forth in the following outline, by a wise old writer:—
There seems to be an hysterosis in the words, “Repent thee of thy remissness, laziness, lukewarmness, and learn by that thou sufferest to be zealous of good works,” “fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.” Be zealous and repent; that is, be in earnest and thorough in thy repentance, and each part thereof, contrition, or humiliation, and conversion, or reformation.
1. Know that God will never leave pursuing thee until the traitor’s head be thrown over the wall, till thou humble thyself, and walk with God. As one cloud follows another, until the sun consumes them, so one judgment after another, till godly sorrow dispels them. Let the glory be to him, taking the shame and blame of it ourselves, submitting to anything that he shall see good to inflict. Say, Here I am, let him do to me as seemeth him best. If God will have my life, here it is; if my goods, here they are; if my children or any other dear pledge of his former favour, I resign them freely into his hands. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; not your hands only, with Pilate, but your hearts also, with David (Psalms 51). Make use of all means, improve all occasions, turn all the streams into this one channel, for the driving of that mill may grind the heart.
2. Our sorrow must be unto a transmutation, or inward change. Our contrition must be joined with conversion, else all is lost; for this latter is the consummation of the former, and the seal of its sincerity. Here, then, you must set to work again, and be zealous in it. Let your crosses teach you to cast away all your transgressions, to turn from all your wickedness, repent of all your dead works, and put off all the fruits of the flesh. Spare no sin, but least of all thy beloved sin—thy familiar devil; pitch thy hatred chiefly upon that, fight neither against small nor great in comparison of that; say of it, as Haman of Mordecai, What avails me anything so long as that liveth? But that once dead, the rest will soon follow, as all the servants attend the master’s funeral.—Trapp.
When the wrath of Ahasuerus was cooled, did he not, think you, envy persons of a less powerful position than himself?
Remorse now punished the king almost as severely as his imperious and unjust decree had punished the unhappy queen.
Man is not so wise that his decrees are perfect, and his enactments incapable of improvement.
He ought to have felt grief and shame, that, in his wine and rage, he had so severely punished, and in such an irrevocable manner rejected, so fair and desirable a woman.
Time assuageth the heat of anger, but time does not always fill up the gaps which human wrath makes.
Man has wants which no wealth can meet. There is a want which the best social arrangements cannot supply.
There is a craving in the human heart which no earthly power can satisfy.
Guilty man needs to be placed in a right relation towards God.
“Ahasuerus was as poor as the humblest slave in his dominions in this respect, and far poorer than the poorest of the children of Judah, dispersed through his empire as exiles, but knowing Jehovah.” When the soul can rest on God, as the God of redemption, when it can claim Jesus Christ as its portion, then all outward inequalities of rank and fortune become subordinate; the Christian possessor of a large inheritance feels that his chief good is in Christ, the poor believer feels that he has a share of the same exhaustless fulness. There is nothing that a man is more ready to keep than his wrath. But Ahasuerus’s against Vashti was after a time assuaged. He remembered Vashti not without some remorse, but without all true repentance. He forsook not his rash anger as a sin, but regretted it for a time, and laid it asleep, to be raked up again on as slight an occasion. In graceless persons vices may be barbed or benumbed, not mastered and mortified. A merchant may part with his goods, and yet not hate them. A man may part with his sins for self-respects, and yet retain his affection for them; he may remember his Vashti, his bosom sins, from which he seemeth divorced, and, by such a sinful remembering of them, recommit them.—Trapp.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 2
Discipline of the passions. The passions may be humoured until they become our master, as a horse may be pampered till he gets the better of his rider; but early discipline will prevent mutiny, and keep the helm in the hands of reason. Properly controlled, the passions may, like a horse with the bit in his mouth, or a ship with the helm in the hand of a skilful mariner, be managed and made useful.
A rich landlord once cruelly oppressed a poor widow. Her son, a little boy of eight years, saw it. He afterwards became a painter, and painted a life likeness of the dark scene. Years afterwards, he placed it where the man saw it. He turned pale, trembled in every joint, and offered any sum to purchase it, that he might put it out of sight. Thus there is an invisible painter drawing on the canvas of the soul a life likeness, reflecting correctly all the passions and actions of our spiritual history on earth. Now and again we should be compelled to look at them, and the folly of our acts will sting us, as it did the landlord, and also Ahasuerus.
Control of anger. Socrates, finding himself in emotion against a slave, said: “I would beat you if I were not angry.” Having received a box on the ears, he contented himself by only saying, with a smile, “It is a pity we do not know when to put on the helmet.” Socrates, meeting a gentleman of rank in the streets, saluted him; but the gentleman took no notice of it. His friends in company, observing what passed, told the philosopher “That they were so exasperated at the man’s incivility, that they had a good mind to resent it.” He very calmly replied, “If you met any person in the road in a worse habit of body than yourself, would you think you had reason to be enraged with him on that account? Pray, then, what greater reason can you have for being incensed at a man for a worse habit of mind than any of yourselves?” That was a brave, strong man.
Impressions of sin. The great stone book of nature reveals many records of the past. In the red sandstone there are found, in some places, marks which are clearly the impression of showers of rain, and these are so perfect that it can even be detected in which direction the shower inclined, and from what quarter it proceeded—and this ages ago. Even so sin leaves its track behind it, and God keeps a faithful record of all our sins.—Biblical Treasury.
“If you cut a gash in a man’s head, you may heal it; but you can never rub out, nor wash out, nor cut out the scar. It may be a witness against you in his corpse; still it may be covered by the coffin, or hidden in the grave; but then it is not till decomposition shall take place, that it shall entirely disappear. But, if you smite your soul by sin, you make a scar that will remain; no coffin or grave shall hide it; no fire, not even the eternal flames, shall burn out sin’s stains.”
Counterfeit repentance. Beware that you make no mistake about the nature of true repentance. The devil knows too well the value of the precious grace not to dress up spurious imitations of it. Wherever there is good coin there will always be bad money.—Ryle.
Repentance before pardon. The first physic to recover our souls is not cordials, but corrosives; not an immediate stepping into heaven by a present assurance, but mourning, and lamentations, and a little bewailing of our former transgressions. With Mary Magdalene we must wash Christ’s feet with our tears of sorrow, before we may anoint his head with “the oil of gladness.”—Browning.
In all parts of the East, women are spoken of as being much inferior to men in wisdom; and nearly all their sages have proudly descanted on the ignorance of women. In the Hindoo book called the ‘Kurral,’ it is declared, “All women are ignorant.” In other works similar remarks are found: “Ignorance is a woman’s jewel. The feminine qualities are four—ignorance, fear, shame, and impurity. To a woman disclose not a secret. Talk not to me in that way; it is all female wisdom.”—Roberts.
Degradation of woman. The farmers of the upper Alps, though by no means wealthy, live like lords in their houses, while the heaviest portion of agricultural labour devolves on the wife. It is no uncommon thing to see a woman yoked to the plough along with an ass, while the husband guides it. A farmer of the upper Alps accounts it an act of politeness to lend his wife to a neighbour who is too much oppressed with work; and the neighbour, in his turn, lends his wife for a few day’s work, whenever the favour is requested.—Percy.
Radical reform. A small bite from a serpent will affect the whole body. There is no way to calm the sea but by excommunicating Jonah from the ship. If the root be killed, the branches will soon be withered. If the spring be diminished, there is no doubt that the streams will soon fail. When the fuel of corruption is removed, then the fire of affliction is extinguished.—Secker.
Individual responsibility. Daniel Webster was once asked, “What is the most important thought you ever entertained?” He replied, after a moment’s reflection, “the most important thought I ever had was my individual responsibility to God.” There is no royal road, either to wealth or learning. Princes and kings, poor men, peasants, all alike must attend to the wants of their own bodies, and their own minds. No man can eat, drink, or sleep by proxy. No man can get the alphabet learned for him by another. All these are things which everybody must do for himself, or they will not be done at all. Just as it is with the mind and body, so it is with the soul. There are certain things absolutely needful to the soul’s health and well-being. Each must repent for himself. Each must apply to Christ for himself. And for himself each must speak to God and pray.—Ryle.