CRITICAL NOTES.]
Esther 5:3. What wilt thou, queen Esther?] Rather, what ails thee? According to Herodotus (ix. 109), Xerxes, when pleased with one of his wives, offered to grant her any request whatever, without hesitation.—Rawlinson.
Esther 5:4.] For the present she requests nothing further than that the king and Haman should come to the banquet she had prepared. She desired Haman to be present, in order, as Calov remarks, that she might charge him by name in the presence of the king with the decree surreptitiously obtained against the people, and to his very face cut off every possibility of cavil; perhaps also in order to make his confusion the more complete.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH. Esther 5:3-5
A LARGE OFFER AND SOME OF ITS CONSEQUENCES
I. A sympathetic inquiry. The king’s heart was touched by the aspect of beauty saddened, and he asks, “What wilt thou, Queen Esther? What ails thee? What has brought that sadness on to thy lovely countenance? What has given thee that mournful look? Thou art more attractive in thy sadness; but still I would know the cause of thy grief, that I may remove it if possible.” The young and the beautiful in sadness are especially touching. Why should the young suffer? Why should the beautiful have the glory of their loveliness eclipsed by sorrow? Why the tears and groans of infant life? Why the merry laughter of youth so soon turned into the wail of mourning? Why, because Haman and others have sinned. The curse of Haman has visited and pained the innocent heart of Esther. Sin is far-reaching. The first sin has reached from creation’s dawn to the present hour, and will go on working to creation’s final doom. Oh! we do not rightly consider the mischief we do, the pain we may cause, when we sin. By sin pain and injury are caused both to the sinner himself and to those who are seemingly far removed from the sphere of his influence. Esther’s sorrow was the consequence of Haman’s sin. Esther’s sorrow touched the nature of Ahasuerus. Sympathy was evoked, and this sympathy found vent in the gracious inquiry and in the large offer. In the presence of sorrow, silence may be profound sympathy. If the heart is moved to utterance the words should be few and well-chosen. A truly sympathetic nature will suggest the right words, if indeed the nature be not so overcharged with sympathy as to be divested of the power of utterance. The better part of Ahasuerus comes out in this inquiry which he put to Esther, and is an illustration of the saying, There is good in all, while none are all good.
II. A large offer. Some people put the seemingly sympathetic inquiry, and yet do not follow it up with promises of help. Ahasuerus felt, which was good. Ahasuerus promised to help, which was better. “What is thy request? It shall be even given thee to the half of the kingdom.” A large offer truly if it be only regarded as a mere proverbial expression. Proverbs have their deep meaning. A proverbial expression used as a promise must intend much on the part of the promiser. (a) A large offer may be made at the prompting of mere feeling, and when the feeling evaporates the promise is forgotten, or not considered binding. However, if the promise be legitimate and capable of fulfilment it ought to be performed, though it was made at the dictate of feeling. Be careful not to let feeling over-ride judgment. The man without feeling is not a properly developed man. The man all feeling loses the glory of his manhood. (b) A large offer may be made without a due consideration of the limiting nature of our circumstances. Ahasuerus might promise the half of his kingdom, but could he have granted it? Esther could not really have herself monopolized the half of that vast kingdom. We forget the limits of our circumstances and of our capacities sometimes in the largeness of our offers. Infinitude is not our attribute. Man is but a creature. There is truth in one view of the statement that man is the creature of circumstances. (c) A large offer may be made without a due consideration of the benefit of the promisee. If any one was likely to be benefited by large material possessions that person was Esther. Even she, however, might have suffered had she received what was thus offered. The deceitfulness of riches might have choked the good seed. Earthly love, as a mere sentiment, is sometimes blind both in its promises and in its bestowals. The blind passion of a mother has done much injury to her offspring. Heavenly love is never blind. Judgment and feeling shape the fashion of Divine promises. There are no limitations to the heavenly promiser. What he has promised he is able to perform. Divine promises always purpose; are intended to promote the highest welfare of the promisee. Let us receive Divine promises in all their fulness. Let us judge him who has promised to be both faithful and all-powerful.
III. A small request. For the present Esther simply contented herself with the small request, “If it seem good unto the king, let the king and Haman come this day unto the banquet that I have prepared for him.” (a) Our requests should be shaped with a view to the character and ability of the promiser. Esther was wise. She had a woman’s sharp wit, and a woman’s keen penetrating power. She saw that for the present this was all which she could likely secure from the hand of Ahasuerus. She must wait for the perfecting of the good work already begun in Ahasuerus. God’s ability and willingness to give are large. But we too may have to wait. His purpose for us may not be ripe. At first he may give small blessings, the harbinger of yet greater blessings. His best things he gives last. The ruler of the feast said more than he meant, ‘Thou hast kept the good wine till now.” Let our askings be in harmony with Divine purposes, so far as we can understand them. (b) Our requests should be shaped with a view to our wants and to our circumstances. This was how Esther shaped her request. This was all she wanted for the present, and this was all that her circumstances would now allow her to obtain. We do not always know our true wants. The complexity of our circumstances baffle. Our first prayer is—“Lord, show us what we need; teach what our circumstances require. Adapt thy gifts to our necessities. Arrange thy blessings to meet the exigencies of our circumstances.” Definite requests may be prompted by presumption as well as faith.
IV. A speedy fulfilment. Some promises are rashly made. After-consideration may reveal their folly. Yea, after-consideration may show that they are neither lawful nor binding. Herod made a foolish promise to the daughter of Herodias. Had it been his own head that was required, he would at once have seen the folly of his conduct, and refused the request. Neither the oath nor the company would have induced him to yield. When the promise, however, is legitimate it ought to be speedily performed even at the cost of the promiser. It was an easy thing for Ahasuerus to grant Esther her small request. “Then the king said, Cause Haman to make haste, that he may do as Esther has said.” The weak king was capable of promptness. This is also a good trait in his character. Love induces zeal. Zeal is prompt in its actions. What zeal should possess the lovers of Jesus! And yet what laggards we are in attending the banquets of heaven. Let us make haste to the heavenly banquet. Let us earnestly bid others to the feast.
V. A consequent incongruous assembly. The king’s great offer has a seemingly insignificant result. The king and Haman and Esther appeared together at the banquet. So far this is illustrative of human proceedings. Pretentious beginnings, small results. Look a little further, and we shall see that this is one of the links in the chain of circumstances leading on to the Divinely-purposed result. Very small are the links in the chain of Divine purposes. Small, but strong as adamant. What an incongruous assembly! The weak and mighty monarch. The wily and wicked Haman. The beautiful and virtuous and strong-souled Esther. The intended victim entertaining the victimizer. The victim will soon become the conqueror. She is now on the high road to victory. The victimizer will soon be caught in his own toils. Thus the banquets of earth bring together very opposite characters, and are fraught with unlooked-for results. There are not only social and intellectual, but moral, differences at earthly banquets. There is a banquet coming where there will be no disunion. In heaven there will doubtless be intellectual differences, but there will be no moral incongruities. The music of heaven is harmonious. Moral natures in heaven will be rightly adjusted. Heart will respond to heart in perfect unison, as harp answers to harp in the hands of angel performers. The wicked Hamans will not be summoned to the great and final feast. Whatsoever defileth shall not pass the pearly gates. Only the redeemed shall there be allowed entrance. Let us seek to be justified by faith in Jesus Christ, and sanctified by the Divine Spirit, and keep in constant view the abundant entrance to heaven’s glorious banquet.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Esther 5:3-5
It is not good to swallow favours too greedily, lest they either choke us in the passage, or prove hard of digestion. The wise queen, however she might seem to have a fair opportunity offered to her suit, finds it not good to apprehend it too suddenly, as desiring, by this small dilation, to prepare the ear and heart of the king for so important a request.—Bishop Hall.
And what is thy request?—q. d. “Fear not to utter it; I am very earnest to know it, and fully resolved to grant it.” It was more troublesome to Severus the emperor to be asked nothing than to give much. When any of his courtiers had not made bold with him, he would call them and say, “What meanest thou to ask me nothing?” “Hitherto ye have asked me nothing (saith the King of Saints to his beloved Esther); ask, that your joy may be full.” He is worthily miserable that will not make himself happy by asking.
It shall be given thee, to the half of the kingdom.—A proverbial rather than a prodigal speech, and much in this king’s mouth. If some ambitious Semiramis had had such an offer, what ill use might she soon have made of it! The dancing damsel made no good use of the like from Herod. But a bee can suck honey out of a flower, that a fly cannot skill to do. Esther prudently and modestly improveth the immoderate offer of the king, and conceiveth good hope. How much more may we (upon those exceeding great and precious promises given us by God), of an exuberancy of love, and a confluence of all comforts for this life and a better; especially since God doth not pay his promises with words, as Sertorius is said to have done; neither is he off and on with his people, but performeth all with the better; as Naaman pressed the prophet’s man to take two talents when he asked but one. The widow of Sarepta had more than she could tell what to do with; her cruse never ceased running till she had no room. The Shunammite would ask nothing of the prophet, nor make use of his offered courtesy. He sends for her again, and makes her a free promise of that which she most wanted and desired—a son. God’s kindness is beyond all this. He giveth his servants what they forget or presume not to ask; and sends his Spirit to help them, and to form their prayers for them, and thereby to seal them up to the day of redemption, to assure them of the kingdom.
If it were policy in Esther to invite Haman whom she hated, was it likewise piety? did she not dissemble? R. Solomon saith, she invited Haman alone with the king, that other courtiers might envy him, and so undermine him. But that is but a sorry excuse, neither doth Syra’s allegation of her good intentions mend the matter. They answer better who say, that she invited him that she might accuse him to his face; and so cut off all matter of his excuse or escape. Hereby also she would show, saith Lavater, that she accused him, not out of wrath or revenge; but that she was drawn to it, and, as it were, driven by mere necessity.—Trapp.
To promise much is the universal custom of great men, but those keeping promises are few in number. It is far easier to obtain favours by an humble and modest behaviour than by sullenness and a boasting manner.—Starke.
Those two great monarchs made great grants and largesses, the one to Esther, the other to Herodias’s daughter; but yet they were limited only to the half of their kingdoms; and the royal power in their kingdoms they meant still to retain and reserve wholly to themselves. But God, having placed Christ on his throne, bids him ask men to the whole of his kingdom, for God hath made him a king, sitting on his throne with him, not to share halves, but to have all power in heaven and earth.—Goodwin.
Oh the wonderful love of Christ! the wonderful bounty of his love! It was a royal offer of Ahasuerus to Esther, and a sign of great love! “What is thy request? it shall be given thee to the half of the kingdom.” Ay; but Christ not only offers, but gives, not half, but whole, kingdoms; yea, whole worlds. But you will say, This is but a chimera, an empty notion; for we see there are none enjoy less of the world than those whom you say Christ loves. I answer, The world is not able to judge of true enjoyments. There are none that have a more real, and advantageous, and a less troublesome and dangerous enjoyment of the world than saints. And I prove it thus. We may be most truly said to enjoy that which we reap the greatest emolument from, and get the greatest benefit by, that can be imagined; but there are none that improve the world to such a real advantage as the saints; for the love of Christ has so ordered the world, and everything in it, as it tends to their happiness. And what greater benefit imaginable than happiness?—Clarkson.
In the country Carniensis of Spain, there is a river that shows all the fish in it to be like gold; but take them into your hand, they appear in their natural kind and colour. Such are promises and specious pretences of love in his mouth that would obtain his purpose; bring them to the touch, and thou shalt find all is not gold that glitters. Great boast and small roast will never fill the belly; he therefore that will engage himself into any great action, upon promise of great assistance, if he be not as sure of his friend’s ability in power as readiness in will, he reckons without his host, and sits down with the loss.—Spencer.
But let us now make a brief improvement of the verses which have been considered. And here the train of thought suggested to us will have already occurred to the minds of some. It embraces two particulars: the largeness of the king’s offer, and Esther’s hesitancy at once to avail herself of it.
1. With respect to the largeness of the offer. “Even to the half of my kingdom,” the king said, “will thy request be granted.” This, we have remarked, was the language of exaggeration. But we have it declared, in the words of truth addressed by our heavenly Lord to his people: “Verily, verily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.” Here there is no limitation, but whatever is needed to the completion of our true spiritual joy we are invited to ask in the name of Christ; and if we ask in faith, as we are elsewhere told, it will be given, “that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” “All things are yours,” it is said to believers; and it may well be said, since Jehovah gives himself to them as their God, and Christ is theirs, and the Spirit dwells in them.
2. But then, secondly, as Esther was afraid all at once to ask what she most desired, so God’s people are often slow or afraid to avail themselves to the full of their privilege of asking. Many are contented to live from year to year, with little more to uphold them than an indistinct hope that they shall reach heaven at last, when, if they would but take home God’s promises in all their freeness and richness, they might be able to rejoice in him as their portion. Many even seem to think that it would be presumptuous in them to expect such comfort and enlargement of heart as they read that others have enjoyed; whereas the Scripture tells them that the Spirit of the Lord is not straitened, and that they are only straitened in themselves.
But perhaps it may be, that as Esther did not feel herself in a condition all at once to close with the king’s most liberal offer, so some among us, for other reasons than the feeling that it would be presumptuous, may be exercised in the same way with respect to spiritual privileges. This point deserves a moment’s notice. There are some professed followers of Christ who are not altogether prepared either to ask or to receive the full measure of privilege which he offers to his people. They have still some lingering desires after the world and its pleasures which they are unwilling all at once to renounce; and though they seem to have cast in their lot with the redeemed, they would rather have the process of self-renunciation and of sanctification to be gradual than summary. In a word, with their present feelings, they would be, I must say, unwilling, or at least afraid, to receive the large communications of grace which Christ has promised to bestow. Now this is a most dangerous state of mind, and cannot be otherwise designated than as a grieving of the Spirit of God. And if there be any here to whom the above remarks are applicable, I would beseech them no longer to sport with offered blessings—no longer to imagine that they can serve Christ and the world together. Esther only deferred craving all she wished, because that was the best way to obtain it in the end. But if you are unwilling to take all that you might have, because in that case you must bid adieu to certain pleasures which you desire to retain, then you provoke the Lord to withdraw from you altogether the sense of his favour, and to leave you in utter darkness.—Davidson.
“What wilt thou, queen Esther? And what is thy request? It shall be even given thee to the half of the kingdom.”—What encouragement is here presented to those who are called to venture their lives, or their reputation, or their substance, in the cause of God! They shall not only have these preserved, but in one way or another increased. How often has God prevented the fears, and outdone the hopes, of his servants! It is the cowardice of Christians that spoils their fortune. Their fears kill them, and benumb, and palsy, and deaden their exertions for God and his Church. If we had more faith, and “added to our faith fortitude,” our trials would be less, and our success greater. “Said I not unto thee, that if thou wouldst believe, thou shouldst see the glory of God?”*
From the story of the unjust judge our Saviour took occasion to teach that “men ought always to pray and not to faint;” and, without wandering from the subject, I may surely take opportunity from this portion of history to inculcate the same duty. Did this haughty monarch hold out the sceptre, and say, What wilt thou, and what is thy request? and shall not God hear his own elect—his chosen spouse, crying to him day and night? Esther had to go into the presence of a proud imperious man, we to go into the presence of a God of love and condescension. She was not called; we are invited. She went in against the law; we have both precept and promise in our favour—yea, precept upon precept, and promise upon promise. “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” She had no friend at court on whom she could rely, and the great favourite was the accuser of her brethren, the mortal foe of her name and race; we, even when we have sinned, and sinned after light and pardon, have an advocate with the Father, his beloved Son in whom he is well pleased, who also is the propitiation for our sins. Esther was encouraged to ask to the extent of the half of the kingdom of Persia; we are encouraged to ask to the whole of the kingdom of heaven, with a life-rent on earth of all that is needful for us. Ought we not then to “come boldly to the throne of grace”?—McCrie.
She would act with calmness and deliberation, as one who waited and relied upon the leading of providence. The king broke the silence by encouraging her to speak, and promising to grant her petition whatever it was, even “to the half of the kingdom.” There seems to be more implied in this promise than the loose language of exaggeration. It has been usual to interpret it in this way, but inquiry into the custom of ancient Persian kings presents it in a different aspect. It was customary for them, we are informed, to bestow grants or pensions to their favourites, “not by payments from the treasury, but by charges upon the revenues of particular provinces or cities.” One province or city was charged with providing the particular favourite’s clothes, another his meat, another his wine, another his jewellery, and so on, thereby enabling the person to live in great luxury and magnificence. Because of this charge laid upon special districts, they were called by the article which they had to supply, such as “The queen’s girdle,” “The queen’s headdress,” et cætera. And if we take into account this old custom, it is probable that the promise of the king to Esther amounted to this, that he would even lay the half of his kingdom under some burden or tribute for her special benefit. Perhaps this also was an exaggeration, but it gives to the words a significance which we should not otherwise have understood. “Then said the king unto her, What wilt thou, queen Esther? and what is thy request? it shall be even given thee to the half of the kingdom.”
Without branching out upon farfetched analogies, and remotely suggested themes, we would, for the sake of the comfort which it may afford, refer to ourselves as suppliants in the presence of our King. The Church is “the Lamb’s wife.” She has free access to the throne of the King of kings. O how timidly and doubtfully do believers sometimes draw near to him! It is as though they feared his royal sceptre, forgetting that it is the sceptre of mercy; as though they were apprehensive that he had taken away his love from them, forgetting that “having loved his own who were in the world, he loves them unto the end.” He has no half-measures—no half-kingdoms to offer. He promises you the kingdom—wholly, willing, unreservedly,—and even chides you for having “hitherto asked nothing in his name,” and encourages you to “ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.” King Ahasuerus could not anticipate the request of Esther; after his own carnal heart he thought that it must be some additional temporal good. But our King knows all beforehand, and has provided for, and is ready to bestow upon, us all that we can need upon the earth, and all that we can desire to prepare us for heaven. And surely, if we require to be stirred to earnestness and importunity by the presence of a great cause, we all have it in the condition of our own hearts, the souls of others, and the salvation of the world. There are spiritual as well as natural laws, according to which God works—a law which requires that the husbandman should sow the seed if he would reap a harvest, and a law which requires that we should pray if we would obtain the blessing. By our own large spiritual necessities and the wants of the world around, as well as by the unstinted generosity and beneficence of our King, are we urged on all hands to abound more in prayer—“Then shall the earth yield her increase, and God, even our own God, shall bless us; God shall bless us, and all the ends of the earth shall fear Him.”—McEwan.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 5
Esther 5:3; Esther 5:5. Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great had a famous but indigent philosopher in his Court, who, on one occasion, being particularly straitened in his circumstances, applied to his patron for aid. Alexander at once gave him a commission to receive of his treasurer whatever he wanted. He immediately demanded, in his sovereign’s name, ten thousand pounds. The treasurer, before complying, waited upon the king, and told him how exorbitant he thought the sum. Alexander heard him with patience, and then replied: “Let the money be instantly paid; I am delighted with this philosopher’s way of thinking; by the largeness of his request, he shows the high idea he has conceived both of my superior wealth and my royal munificence.
Esther 5:3; Esther 5:5. Theodosius and Sigismund. Theodosius, Archbishop of Cologne, when the Emperor Sigismund demanded of him the directest and most compendious way how to obtain true happiness, made answer in brief thus: “Perform when thou art well what thou promisedst when thou wast sick.” David did so; he made vows in war, and paid them in peace. And thus should all good men do, not like the cunning devil, of whom the epigrammist thus writeth:
“Ægrotat dæmon, monachus tune esse volebat;
Convaluit dæmon, monachus tune esse nolebat.”
Well Englished—
“The devil was sick, the devil a monk would be;
The devil got well, the devil a monk was he.”
Nor like unto many now-a-days, that if God’s hand do but lie somewhat heavy upon them, oh! what promises, what engagements are there for amendment of life! How like unto marble against rain do they seem to sweat and melt, but still retain their hardness; let but the rod be taken off their backs, or health restored, then as their bodies live their vows die, all is forgotten; nay, many times it so falleth out, that they are far worse than ever they were before.—Spencer.
Ingratitude to God.—The English proverb says, “The river past and God forgotten,” to express with how mournful a frequency, he whose assistance was invoked—it may have been earnestly in the moment of peril—is remembered no more so soon as by his help the danger has been surmounted. And the Italian form of it sounds a still sadder depth of ingratitude: “The peril passed, the saint mocked,” the vows made to him in peril remaining unperformed in safety, and he treated somewhat as in Greek story Juno was treated by Mandrabulus the Samian, who having, under her auspices and through her direction, discovered a gold mine, in his instant gratitude vowed to her a golden ram, which he presently exchanged in intention for a silver one, and again this for a very small brass one, and this for nothing at all.—Trench.
Esther 5:3. God’s promises conditional. A proclamation is read, wherein a Christian king grants honour and wealth to certain of his subjects, with assurance of donation on their just demand. One amongst the multitude leaps at the news, springs away, and stays not to hear it out; there is a condition following, provided first, that they put on arms, and expel the Turk which infests some part of his dominions. This man comes one of the foremost to demand the promised honours; he is asked for a testimony of his valour and service in the wars. Alas, he never tarried to hear that condition, and therefore lost the retribution. Thus it is that God promiseth eternal life to men; withal chargeth them to believe in Christ, and to do their faithful service against the world, the flesh, and the devil; but so it is, that many are quite lost, for not staying to hear the proclamation of the Gospel out, they run away with opinion of sufficient belief, and never think of obedience; whereas the promises of God are conditional. As there is a reward promised, so there is a condition promised; it must be our obedience first, and then comes in God’s recompence; our devotion goes before, and his retribution follows after.—Spencer.