CRITICAL NOTES.]
Esther 2:11. Mordecai … before the court of the women’s house] This leads us to suppose that he was an eunuch. It is not probable that be would, otherwise, have such access to the house of the women as it appears he had. It is the opinion of many that he was a royal porter having charge of one of the principal gates.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH. Esther 2:11
MORDECAI’S LOVING SOLICITUDE
THE histories of Mordecai and Esther are very closely interblended. They run side by side, like the two differently-coloured rivers—the Arve and the Rhone. But the course of one is from time to time being crossed and coloured by the course of the other. Esther played a leading part in the deliverance of the Jewish nation from threatened destruction, but she owed very much to the teaching, the influence, and the wise directions of Mordecai. To Esther belonged the glory of pleading with King Ahasuerus, and securing the rights of the oppressed; but to Mordecai belonged the glory of directing her movements. She was the seen, and he the unseen worker. And these latter often do the most important work, though they are sometimes left to pine away in obscurity. The skilful workman invents and gains little advantage; while the cunning capitalist uses the invention and flourishes. The poor wise man saves the city, but his services are not requited. The thinker creates in secret, and receives small rewards; while the talker uses the thinker’s materials, and reaps a harvest of applause and material benefits. However, Mordecai was not unrewarded, for Esther was neither ungrateful nor unmindful of her obligations. These two work and reap together. They sow in tears, in fasting, and in prayers; but they reap in victory, in light, in gladness, and in honour. Let us believe this for our consolation, that work done for God cannot die. Workers in the dark and workers in the light will meet together in the rewarding presence of infinite mercy.
I. Mordecai’s loving solicitude. The title by which Mordecai was designated was “the Just.” This is a better title than that of earl or noble, of king or prince. What a blessing to a nation when men that are just in the broadest sense of that word direct its affairs, or even dwell near its palace gates! Just men are required to save nations from decline and from final overthrow. Mordecai, however, was no stern embodiment of justice. In him it was tempered by mercy. Kindness was also his characteristic. There was in him a wonderful tenderness which made him adored of his own people. He was true to the claims of relationship, and he adopted Esther as his own child. The orphan’s helpless state appealed to his manhood, and he practically said, I will be thy protector. In protecting her he benefited both himself and his whole nation. There is beautiful humanness in the record—“He brought up Hadassah.” Mordecai loved the child, and his affection grew as he watched her developing loveliness. And when she was parted from him he followed her with loving solicitude. Space separated, but love united. Mordecai showed the loving anxiety of a true father for an absent child.
II. This loving solicitude was of Divine origin. It is true indeed that all our good is Divine. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights.” But we may here note a special endowment. God intervenes in human affairs. He makes use of human passions for the promotion of his merciful purposes. And this was part of the Divine plan that Mordecai and Esther should be closely knitted together; for both had important work to do, and for both a great destiny was assigned. Human reasons may be given to account for Mordecai’s love for Esther, but there were also Divine reasons. The Divine is ever working in and by the human. One man is attracted to another by an unknown force. That attraction is heaven-implanted: God’s agents are not as solitary as they seem. The reformer is the outcome of the thoughts and feelings of his time, working it may be in secret. Mordecai is essential to Esther. His loving solicitude was a vital force in her wondrous career.
III. This loving solicitude quickened Mordecai’s discernment. True love is not blind, as sometimes it is represented. It is a quickener of the discerning faculty. It is sharp to apprehend danger. The mother’s ear is quick and her eye is keen to detect the approach of evil to her offspring. Mordecai at once perceived the danger to which Esther was exposed by the new position to which she had been taken. We have good reason for anxiety when our children are lifted to the heights of prosperity. Many sons and daughters have been ruined in palaces who, humanly speaking, would have remained virtuous in cottages.
IV. This loving solicitude taught Mordecai a true creed. Love is light. He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in a clear apprehension of Divine truth and of Divine methods. The heart and the head must be clarified by love’s indwelling, as well as enlightened by knowledge, if there is to be the possession of sound doctrine. Mordecai might believe in predestination. He might feel assured that his niece or cousin was God’s “chosen vessel.” But love taught him better than to let the mysteries of Divine decrees interfere with the practical duties of life. “Although he trusted God with his niece, yet he knew that an honest care of her might well stand with faith in God’s providence. God must be trusted, but not tempted by the neglect of careful means.”—Trapp.
V. Thus Mordecai’s love made him watchful. How Mordecai came to possess the privilege of walking every day before the court of the women’s house—whether he was one of the king’s eunuchs, or whether he secured the privilege by purchase—we cannot tell. But there he was, watching with intense interest the maiden’s career. The sentinel at his post. The sailor at the helm. So Mordecai walked every day before the court of the women’s house. His love grew by the withdrawal of its object. His anxiety increased as the danger enlarged. We should be watchful for the welfare of others. Mordecai symbolizes the love of the eternal Father. God watches to know how his people do. Esther could not see Mordecai in his daily walks, but he was watching. We cannot see God, but he too is watching. We cannot feel God, but he is protecting. Our vision is not as the Divine vision. Ours cannot pierce the clouds and the darkness which shroud and conceal the infinite. But the Divine vision knows no obstruction. God knows all, and ever watches. Trust ever in the abiding love and continued watchfulness of an unchanging God.
VI. Mordecai’s love rendered him self-forgetful. He did not stop to think that his conduct might appear unseemly as he walked every day before the court of the women’s house. Love is unconscious of self. It goes out in supreme regard towards the object of attachment. We fancy Mordecai faithful at his post in spite of the frowns of stately courtiers or the ridicule of fawning menials. This speaks of the nobler self-forgetfulness of a mightier love. Even Jesus pleased not himself. He walked every day before the courts of men’s and women’s hearts, though they rejected his love and despised his beneficent ministry. He still walks. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. At the door of many hearts he is knocking now.
VII. Mordecai’s love concerned itself about Esther’s highest welfare. It is a suggestive expression—To know the peace of Esther. True peace is not possible where the soul is not in a right condition. There is no peace to the wicked. That love is poor which does not seek the welfare of the whole nature. How many fathers would feel that their children were all right if they saw them only in the outer courts of a palace! But oh, there was danger in the palace of Ahasuerus. And there is danger in the palace even of our gracious queen. Right parental love asks how the child is doing both temporally and spiritually, and what is to become of him or her both in time and in eternity. How are you doing? Are you on the way to the palace of heaven?
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Esther 2:11
1. Mordecai was so deeply interested in the fate of Esther, that day after day he was found watching any opportunity that might occur to learn from some eunuchs passing in or out how Esther fared, and what her prospects were. Perhaps there may have been others in similar circumstances with himself, solicitous about their daughters or friends; and if so, his conduct would attract the less notice. But what we have principally to remark is the paternal interest which all along he took in the orphan whom he had reared. She was evidently his chief earthly care; and now, when she was, as it were, taken out of his hand, and no longer dependent upon his bounty and his kindness, he was as much concerned about her as when in her childhood she had sat upon his knee and returned his affectionate embrace. And so parental love is always exhibited. Although the grown-up youth is treated differently from the mere child, and there may be fewer of the words and outward tokens of endearment than there were, the heart of the parent has not become colder; but there are now deep anxieties connected with the progress of the youth, with his settlement in life, and his whole future career, which were not felt before; and though it may not outwardly appear, the most solicitous and intense affection is experienced by the parent at the time when the objects of it are beginning to feel that they can do something for themselves in the world.—Davidson.
2. Parents and guardians might take an example from Mordecai. There was danger in the palace of a heathen king, but there is danger also in a great city. Let there be solicitude for those who are exposed to its temptations—the solicitude which leads to watchfulness, and finds its expression in prayer. If there is the oppression of conscious weakness and separation, the more reason for laying the case before him who can keep “the feet from falling, the eyes from tears, and the soul from death.”—McEwan.
3. Mordecai had taken Esther for his child, and was curious of her welfare, though she was now grown up, and preferred at court. The court, he knew, was an ill air for godliness to breathe in. His care was, therefore, that she might have Gaius’s prosperity, even mentem sanam in corpore sans, a sound mind in a sound body. The Turks wonder to see a man walk to and fro, and use to ask such an one what he meaneth? and whether he be out of his way, or out of his wits?—Trapp.
Mordecai was so much older than Esther as to make it natural for him to assume toward her the position of a father. What he was in the matter of occupation we can only guess, when we see him take easily to the place of a porter at the palace gate, and when we find him turn as easily to the business of a scribe. But there is no guess-work as to what Mordecai was in the matter of character. He showed “piety at home.” When his uncle died, leaving on the world a fair girl, who, it would seem, had never known a mother’s care, he took his cousin for his own daughter, and brought her up. How wisely and piously he did so Esther’s conduct will prove. We shall presently see how he proved himself a faithful, sharp-eyed servant, and fearless in the right; and the issue of the story will reveal his heroic public spirit. This Mordecai is altogether an admirable man; of good natural powers, enlarged and applied by religion; wise, sterling, a man who can afford to wait; worth a thousand Ahasueruses.—A. M. Symington, B.A.
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.