CRITICAL NOTES.]
Esther 2:2.] The youths, or male domestics, without regard to age, that served before the king, sought to avert the danger that threatened. They advised that maidens, virgins, be brought to the king, and that these should be beautiful to look upon.
Esther 2:3. The house of the women] The harem was always an essential part of an Oriental palace. In the Persian palaces it was very extensive, since the Persian monarchs maintained, besides their legitimate wives, as many as three hundred or four hundred concubines. Hege, strictly speaking, seems to have been “keeper of the virgins” only, since the concubines were under the care of Shaashgaz.—Rawlinson. Things of purification] Cleansing and anointing with precious oils.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH. Esther 2:2-4
THE SERVILITY OF THE KING’S SERVANTS
It is to be expected that servants should obey, and should seek to study the desires and wishes of those whom they serve. But even servants should exercise discretion, and not sacrifice principle at the shrine of policy. It does not appear that these servants set themselves to consider the claims of principle. Policy was their rule. By policy were they governed, and by policy were they at last undone.
I. These servants studied the king’s weakness. But this did not require much study. It was patent to the dullest observer. Those who are constantly about a man may understand the man better than he understands himself. These servants evidently understood the monarch’s weakness. Ultimately safe is it for the man to be surrounded by those who can be, and will be, faithful. We may not like faithful men, but at the last we shall find them to serve our highest welfare.
II. These servants pandered to the king’s weakness. Base pandering to the sinful weaknesses of men and women has been the bane of every age. It is at work in this enlightened age. While we rightly consider the corruption of a Persian court let us seek to have our eyes open to the corruptions of English society; and faithfully endeavour to stem the torrent of iniquity. Are we still to pursue the system of pandering to the worst passions of our fellows? Are there no faithful ones to be found in modern society?
III. These servants unscrupulously provided for the king’s weakness. The barbarous nature of their proposition could not be so evident to them as it is to us who live in these more blessed days. But surely even to them a passing thought might come as to the cruel nature of their proposition. Did they never and for one moment think of the cruelty of the proceeding by which the fairest flowers were to be plucked with ruthless hand from the choicest home-gardens of the land? Did they not consider the woes and tears of mothers and fathers weeping for the loss of the fair young virgins taken to be imprisoned in the king’s harem? But self-interest blinds our eyes to the interests of others, and to the claims of truth and of duty. It would be so then, as it is now on too large a scale. Men are still unscrupulous. We bow at the shrines of fashion, of custom, and of wealth. Oh, in these days Mammon is the great monarch, at whose behests fair young virgins are deflowered and strong young men are slaughtered. Mammon is exalted. Humanity is trampled beneath the feet. Mammon is the modern Ahasuerus, at whose commands homes must be decimated and true nobility thrown to the winds.
IV. These servants were for the present successful. Their proposition pleased the king, and measures were carried out for its accomplishment. Yet the success was not according to their wish. True, Vashti was banished and the measures were carried out to prevent her recall; yet those measures tended to the promotion of Esther, who was God’s instrument for the salvation of her people, and the destruction of the Lord’s enemies. The benefits, then, of a time-serving policy are not of the most lasting nature. If we would reap permanent good we must sow Divine seed. If we would build permanent structures of glory we must use Divine materials.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Esther 2:2-4
It is said the king’s servants suggested this to him. But kings’ servants know pretty well what to suggest. No doubt, however, the policy of having another queen-royal had the approbation of the wise men, else it could not have been carried out successfully.
And then began the preparation, the narrative of which needs no illustration of ours. It is perfectly plain: and it is not edifying. And yet it is. Rightly read—under due emotions and reflections, it is edifying (and especially to the female part of the world), in the highest degree. That ought to be edifying which shows much cause for gratitude. Now just look at that picture of Persian female life of the highest kind. Persia—the mistress of civilization at the time: the seat of wealth and splendour: the land of the brave and the wise. And this is how it treats its noblest women! Could female degradation be more complete? All the more complete that none wondered: none protested: none resisted—unless we may take Vashti’s rebellion as a kind of moral insurrection against the whole treatment and state of woman. If it was so, it spent itself. For here they come from far and near—the young, the fair, the nobly-born—as well as those of humbler condition in their miserable darkness, thinking that an honour (without a thought of wrong about it), which would now be esteemed, in any Christian country, the deepest disgrace. To use the words of an English bishop on this chapter, “It is,” he says, “of priceless worth, as showing the need under which the human race then lay, of that deliverance which has been wrought by the incarnation of the Son of God, the seed of the woman, who raised womanhood to a high and holy dignity, and by that spiritual espousal of a Church universal, by which he had sanctified marriage, and made it a great mystery. And it may remind the world of the inestimable benefits it owes to Christianity.” Also, one ought to say, that the narrative of this chapter, although we pass it over lightly, is quite purely written. Now this matter ought to be faced, plainly. Sceptics and enemies of the faith are in the habit of alleging or insinuating that there are not a few passages in Holy Writ not fit to be read in families and congregations—hardly in closets. A considerable number of passages certainly are not suitable for public reading or exposition. Therefore they are not read; and they are not expounded, except for some special ends. But impure passages, indelicate corrupting passages? Not one. The breath of God has passed through this chapter, and it is clear and clean, so that no one of simple mind will get harm by reading it. Would any one say the same regarding some of our fashionable novels and tales?—many of them, softly be it spoken, and sorrowfully, and with shame, written by women!!—by women calling themselves Christians, who, at any rate, have received the benefit of the Christian civilization so far, who therefore have been elevated—away beyond heathen female life. And this is the way they behave themselves, and show their gratitude. They spend their energy and their genius, such as it is, in corrupting their fellow-creatures, filling the minds of the young with evil suggestions, which either distress them, or pollute and deprave them: working up disgusting situations, and horrible scenes; making light of the holiest ties of human life, and apologizing for some of its deepest evils and crimes.
I am not speaking at random, although I do not profess to be speaking from any extensive personal knowledge; but on reliable authority, by consensus of judgment of the most impartial description, I believe this matter needs the attention of good people far more urgently than some other things which secure that attention. At any rate, I feel quite sure that I am but doing my duty in thus testifying and warning. One thing we can all do, we can refuse to read. Happily there is enough good literature of every kind—not heavy, dull, solemn, but fresh, bright, humorous, pathetic, comic, tragic—all kinds of the really good, by writers both alive and dead. So that there is no excuse for going down into the slough. “Keep thyself pure.”—Raleigh.
Esther 2:3-4.—This was an extravagant course.
1. All the provinces of the kingdom must be searched for fair young virgins.
2. Officers were appointed to choose them.
3. A house was prepared for them, and a person appointed to have charge of them, to see that they were well provided for.
4. No less than twelve months was allowed them for their purification, some of them at least, who were brought out of the country, that they might be very clean and purified. Even those who were the masterpieces of nature must yet have all this help from art to recommend them to a vain and carnal mind.
5. After the king had once taken them to his bed, they were made recluses ever after, except the king pleased at any time to send for them; they were looked upon as secondary wives, were maintained by the king accordingly, and might not marry.—Matthew Henry.
A true representation of what we should be without the Gospel.
Without Divine revelation man sinks very low.
Learn how much we are indebted to the Bible for present as well as for future happiness.
We enjoy the inestimable advantage of knowing the Lord’s will. We are unworthy of it if we follow the promptings and suggestions of our own hearts in order to please ourselves.
The first question with us should be, How are we to walk so as to please God?
Nothing is a surer sign of our depravity than to prefer the pleasing of our flesh to the pleasing of him who made us, of him by whom we must be judged at the last day.
If we make it our grand business to fulfil the desires of the flesh and of the mind, we walk according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air.—Dr. Lawson.
It is not possible that great princes should want soothing up in all their inclinations—in all their actions. Nothing could sound more pleasing to a carnal ear, than that all the fair young virgins, throughout all his dominions, should be gathered into his palace at Shushan for his assay and choice. The decree is soon published; the charge is committed to Hegai, the king’s chamberlain, both of their purification and ornaments.—Bishop Hall.
The marriages of princes are commonly made by policy and interest, for the enlarging of their dominions and the strengthening of their alliances; but this must be made partly by the agreeableness of the person to the king’s fancy, whether she be rich or poor, noble or ignoble.
What ado was made here to humour the king; as if his power and wealth were given him for no other end but that he might have all the delights of sense wound up to the height of pleasureableness and exquisitely refined, though at the best they are but dross and dregs in comparison with Divine and spiritual pleasure.
The higher men are advanced in authority, the lower they sink in slavery to their sensual appetites. How low is humanity sunk when such as these are the leading pursuits and highest happiness of men! when every consideration of decency, equity, and conscience, even health, life, and the immortal soul itself, are sacrificed; disappointment and vexation must ensue; and he most wisely consults his enjoyment, even in this present life, who most exactly obeys the precept of the Divine law.—Scott.
Esther 2:2. They knew him to be a sensualist and effeminate; they therefore agree to feed his humour, to drown him again in pleasure, so to drive away his melancholy. Such miserable comforters are carnal physicians; so wretched is our nature, to endure no other physic; so justly doth God fit the physician to the patient, the helve to the hatchet; so do the wicked help each other forward to their deserved destruction. Ahasuerus’ counsellors became brokers to his lust, neither is this anything unusual with such.—Trapp.
The whole passage affords us displays of human character, the contemplation of which is highly useful; but the chief thing which it is intended to exhibit to us is the wonderful working of God for the accomplishment of his purposes, especially in relation to his Church and his people. The divorce of Vashti was intended to prepare the way for the exaltation of Esther, and she was raised to the kingdom that, by her influence with the king, she might prevent a plot for the extermination of the Jewish race. And how wonderfully was this brought about. None of the agents dreamed of such a thing. It was brought about by means of heathens.—Dr. M‘Crie.
In this second chapter we are permitted to see the consequences which resulted from the banquet described in the first chapter. In the present lecture we shall state and enforce one or two general principles. “After these things,” etc. (Esther 2:1-4).
I. We have here to notice the regret of the king for his rash and unwarrantable act. It is very obvious from the narrative, that when he came to himself, and had time to reflect on all that had taken place, he was sensible that he had committed injury; and that he had not only wronged Vashti, but also made himself a sufferer.
(1) He could not devise a remedy. There are wishes which even the most powerful despots cannot get gratified, and limits to their will which even they cannot pass over. It seemed to be by a simple exercise of supreme authority that Ahasuerus triumphed over the helpless, and had his desire carried into effect. But when he would have retraced his steps, he could not.
(2) The law of the Medes and Persians must stand. Yet the enactment which did wrong to the innocent queen, at the same time recoiled upon the head of the king himself.
II. But again we have to notice the expedient which his counsellors suggested to free him from his difficulty. Probably he would be moody and harsh toward them, when he saw to what issue their advice had brought him. Despotism, like spoilt children, must be soothed and flattered. He had degraded his queen; but another might be found to occupy the place from which she had been removed. The humour of the king fell in with the suggestion. He consented; it led to the promotion of Esther, a Jewess, to the high dignity of being Queen of Persia. These things are worthy of our attention in the way of practical application. They suggest several lessons.
1. In the first place we may draw from them the lesson, that when men suffer themselves to be carried away by the impulse of any violent passions, they may commit acts which cannot afterwards be remedied, and which they themselves may have especially to lament. We think it is plain from the words, “the king remembered Vashti, what she had done, and what had been decreed against her,” that when he was able to reflect calmly upon the decree which had been issued for the degradation of Vashti, he was conscious that she had been faithful to her place and character, while he himself had forgotten what was due to both. All the past he would gladly have cancelled, but it was beyond his power. His will could work evil, but it could not undo the evil which had been wrought.
2. It forms no excuse for sin committed, that the transgressor had reduced himself to a condition in which he ceased to retain his full consciousness of the distinction between right and wrong. It is with his own consent that he passes the boundary line between reason and folly; and although, in one aspect of the case, he may not be precisely answerable for all his acts when the power of self-government is gone, yet obviously he is to be called to account for reducing himself to that state. Let us take an illustration from the history of Saul. Furnished with the gifts of the Spirit, counselled by Samuel, he might have been a model to the sovereigns who were to come after him. He failed to improve his privileges, the Spirit of the Lord departed, and the evil spirit took possession of him—slew prophets, etc. He was held responsible, although the evil spirit prompted him, because he had laid his heart open for the reception of the evil spirit. Just so in all cases. When a man has perpetrated a criminal act, having wilfully deprived himself of the power that would have restrained him from it, he has no right to claim immunity from the consequences of his miserable self-will, or to complain that he is unrighteously dealt with when he is visited with punishment.
3. But there is another general application which may be legitimately made of this part of our subject, viz., that repentance may come too late. There is many a cry for mercy raised when the time for the exercise of mercy has passed away. By the law of the Medes and Persians the king found himself in a condition from which he would gladly have been extricated, but could not devise the means. By the unalterable law of heaven it is ordained that except we repent we must perish. And by the same law it is required that repentance be immediate. “Wherefore, my brethren, take heed lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God.” But notice—
III. The whole case furnishes such evidence of the power of an overruling Providence, that I would take this opportunity of referring to the subject. The lesson which the text teaches is, in one sentence, this—that, amid all the workings of human passion and folly, there is a power exercised which brings order out of confusion, and good out of evil.
1. We present the case briefly as the text brings it before us. Revelry had produced disorder. It had led to most unjust measures towards the queen. The advisers of these measures, finding it necessary to soothe the feelings of their despotic sovereign, recommended to him a certain mode of procedure. The result of this was Esther’s advancement. In all this we have a special Providence, overruling the sins of men for the promotion of the interests of the people of God.
2. We see a specimen of the absolute and unrestrained will of man put forth to accomplish ends which had no apparent connection whatever with the will of God, or with what would be pleasing to him. When the curtain which conceals the movements of Providence is withdrawn, we can manifestly trace the connection between the follies and passions of men and the production of important results which they could not have dreamt of. We can perceive the hand of the Lord working where we would not have looked for it, and understand how the very wrath of men is made to praise him. But observe, the sin of the monarch was not one whit diminished because it was overruled for good; but neither is the good to be regarded as evil because it was the undesigned fruit of man’s unholy passions.—Dr. Davidson.
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.