CRITICAL NOTES.]
Esther 6:12-14.] It is quite consonant with Oriental notions that Mordecai, after receiving the extraordinary honours assigned him, should return to the palace and resume his former humble employment, Ahasuerus regarding him as sufficiently rewarded, and not yet intending to do anything more for him.—Rawlinson. Haman, with covered head and sorrowful heart, hastens home to his friends and wife only to hear the discouraging prophecy that the unfortunate occurrence will be the beginning of his end. To cover the head was a sign of deep shame and distress. His friends are now called wise men] at least some of them, because they undertook to forecast his future.—Lange. His diviners now hesitate not to predict his fall. If his enemy is of the seed of the Jews] a new and startling fact that seems suddenly to have impressed these wise men; then it is certain that the providence which has ever been such a wondrous power in the Jewish nation, and which has now so strangely elevated Mordecai at the very moment when Haman thought to have slain him, will cause the Jew to triumph. Hasted to bring Haman] The avenging Fates seem to hurry him to his doom.—Whedon’s Com.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH. Esther 6:12-14
A SMALL MAN IN ADVERSITY
MEN are to be judged so as to form an estimate of their greatness or their littleness, not by their surroundings, but by the manner in which they conduct themselves in the trying changes, in the ups and downs, of life. We must consider their conduct. “By their fruits shall ye know them.” Does a man carry himself with calmness in prosperity and with fortitude in adversity, then we may pronounce him great. Is a man unduly elated by prosperity and brokenhearted by adversity, then we pronounce him a small man. Tried thus the despised Mordecai is the truly great man, and the haughty Haman is the little man. In one sense we are the creatures of circumstances. We cannot help being more or less affected by them. In another sense we ought to be the masters of circumstances. They must not be permitted to unman our natures. In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider. Adversity so acts upon some people that all power of consideration is removed. Oh, to be masters of ourselves! This can only be done by the help of Divine grace. “I can do all things through Christ strengthening me.”
I. A great man in prosperity. Are there no great men that meet with no prosperity, as the world accounts prosperity? Has God no hidden heroes in quiet walks? We may believe that he has. Up to this time Mordecai had been a great man in obscurity. Really Mordecai was no greater when riding on the king’s horse in triumphal procession through the city than when sitting at the king’s gate. We are slow to learn and believe the truth, that not circumstances, but character makes a man great. Mordecai’s mind was so great that he rose above the state of things and men. He dwelt in a higher sphere than that formed by the pomp of circumstances, by the parade of royalty. We can imagine Mordecai with calm majesty riding through the city Susa. He took the thing naturally; he penetrated to the heart of things. When the little show was over he went calmly to his obscure place at the city gate. In some degree he is a type of him who rode forth amid the hosannas of the multitude, and then listened, as one not astonished, to the cry, Crucify him, crucify him. A great soul had Mordecai. He had food to eat of which Haman had no conception. Seek high conceptions of duty. Sit at thy post, even at the city gate, and wait only for the opening of heaven’s gate.
II. A small man in adversity. Oh, when adversity really comes are we not all small men? The Bechuanas sit and talk as if they felt nothing when under going a painful surgical operation. But most men wince beneath the sharp knife of adversity. Most are but bruised reeds when the blasts of sorrow blow keenly and sharply, and they give forth dismal wailings. Therefore we must temper our judgment with much mercy as we consider Haman in adversity. “Our grief is but our grandeur in disguise;” but our grief also tells of our littleness. Most are brothers to Haman in the time of their adversity. The dreaded blow of trouble sends them to their houses mourning. Adversity makes us acquainted with strange bed-fellows. How many despise the guilty Haman, and yet are by trouble reduced to his miserable level. Haman was a small man. He was fretting like a little child because the coveted toy had been grasped out of his hand. For we do not suppose that Haman as yet knew that this honour rendered to Mordecai was but the beginning of his own awful end. So far Haman’s troubles were in great measure of an ideal character. A great many of our troubles are of this character. But ideal troubles cause us real misery. If we could only act out the lesson, man wants but little here below, nor wants that little long, we should not have many troubles. Small are most men in the nature of their desires and their disappointments. They strive and fight for childish toys, and when they get them they are not satisfied, and ask for more. When these toys are wrested from them they haste to their houses mourning, and have their heads covered for grief.
III. A small man in adversity seeks for counsellors. He went to his wife and his friends. Where should a man go in the time of trouble if not to his wife and his friends? A good wife should be a help-meet. Like the ivy plant, she should cling the faster the greater the ruin, and be a helping support and a graceful ornament even to that ruin. Where can a man in sorrow go if not to his friends? where Haman little thought of going. Friends are not always glad to see humiliated Hamans. Even the wife may turn round upon the husband and say, Curse God and die. There is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.
IV. A man in adversity obtains poor consolation. One thing is certain, Haman’s wife and his friends told him the truth now, but they had not told him the truth before. They had not warned him of his danger, nor showed him the way out of his difficulty. Even now they have nothing in the way of really helpful advice to offer. They simply predict his further downfall. Friends too often have the fatal capacity of plunging a drowning man deeper into the water. Very sad sometimes is the errand on which the man goes when he consults his friends as to the best thing to be done in his trial. He comes back a sadder, but not always a wiser, man from the visit. They glibly show him his faults; they tell him where he has made a slip; they too often appear as if they were taking pleasure in making him look contemptible. We compassionate Haman from the bottom of our hearts. He has sown the wind, and is now reaping the whirlwind. He is now deserted by all, left to his own bitter fate. Heaven’s consolations even then might have been obtained. Rich are the consolations that Jesus brings. He never upbraids on account of our faults. If he does not deliver us from our distresses, he gives us strength that we may bear them manfully.
V. A man in adversity receives an ominous summons. And while they were yet talking with him came the king’s chamberlains. Trouble upon trouble; but Haman did not understand the worst. He did not foresee the future. He little dreamt that Esther’s banquet was but the way to the gallows. We sometimes say, If I had only known! Well, we all know, or might know, that wrong-doing will lead to trouble, and yet we go on doing wrong things. Had Haman known, perhaps, like too many, he would simply have done another wrong thing to prevent the mischief likely to come from past wrong-doing. No need for prophetic sight. We know that sin worketh death; let us then forsake all evil. From all blindness of heart; from pride, vainglory, and hypocrisy; from envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness, Good Lord, deliver us.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Esther 6:12-14
In prosperity he is highly insolent and cruel, but in adversity he is so broken and dejected that he knows not which way to turn. But his counsellors are no better off than himself. His friends do not console him, nor show him any plan for escaping his danger, which nevertheless was then the most needful help for Haman; but they throw him, just hesitating between hope and fear, into despair. “Thou wilt surely fall in his sight,” say they. Had they admonished him indeed of his many and heinous sins toward God and his servants, of his duty of recognizing the inevitable judgment of God, of repentance, of reconciliation, then perchance it may have turned out better with him. The power and efficacy of truth is so great that even its enemies and all the ungodly bear testimony to it. So the magicians of Pharaoh are compelled to explain, This is the finger of God; and the Egyptians’ cry, Let us flee before Israel, for the Lord fighteth for them.—Feuardent.
Men find no difference in themselves. The face of a Jew looks so like other men’s that Esther and Mordecai were not, for long, taken for what they were. He that made them makes the distinction betwixt them; so as a Jew may fall before a Persian and get up and prevail; but if a Persian, or whosoever of the Gentiles, begin to fall before a Jew he can neither stay nor rise. There is an invisible hand of omnipotency that strikes in from his own and confounds their opposites. O God, neither is thy hand shortened, nor thy bowels straitened in thee: thou art still and ever thyself. If we be thy true spiritual Israel, neither earth nor hell shall prevail against us; we shall either stand sure or surely rise, while our enemies shall lick the dust.—Bishop Hall.
The chief reason why the enemies of the Church gnash their teeth at the sight of God’s gracious dealings is, that they take the rising of the Church to be a presage of their ruin: a lesson which Haman’s wife had learned.
Haman’s wife had learned this, that if her husband began once to fall before the Jews he should surely fall. Wicked men have an hour, and they will be sure to take it; and God hath his hour too, and will be as sure to take that. The judgments of the wicked are mercies to the Church. So saith David, “He slew mighty kings, Og, king of Bashan, for his mercy endureth for ever.”—Sibbes.
In the narrative which follows we have an example of that decency and propriety with respect to circumstances which is always observed in Scripture, and which may be traced in what is omitted as well as what is introduced. Nothing is said of what passed between Mordecai and Haman, either at the beginning or close of the ceremony. The inspired writer gives us no account of the acclamations of the multitude whom the spectacle drew together. They would no doubt act, poor souls, as they are always accustomed to do, hail the favourite of the day, and echo back the voice of the herald. Let them alone—they would have done the same for Haman. We are even left to conjecture what were the thoughts of the judicious few, both Jews and natives, who might be led by this strange event to augur the approaching fall of the arrogant prime minister, and the rising fortunes of the object of his hatred. The sacred narrative passes over these things, and hastens to the crisis.
The pageant is now over, and we see, issuing from the dispersing crowd, the two principal persons, moving in different directions, and in opposite moods of mind.
Mordecai came again to the king’s gate. But Haman hasted to his house mourning, and having his head covered. There is a double portrait drawn with one stroke, but it is by the hand of a master! “We see the hearts of the two men depicted in their looks and gait;—the composure and humility of the one, and the confusion and bitter mortification of the other. These two lines give us a deeper insight into the characters of the men than a would-be painter could have conveyed by the most elaborate representation.
Mordecai came again to the king’s gate. He did not remain to prolong his triumph, and to drink in the incense offered by the crowd. He did not go to his own house, and gather together his friends and countrymen to tell them of his high honours, and to receive their congratulations. He did not hurry back to the palace in expectation of receiving some more substantial mark of the royal favour. He did not seek an audience of the king to bring an accusation against his mortal enemy. But he came again to the king’s gate from which he had been taken, and resumed his former place as a servant. He was not elated—he was not even discomposed by his honours. “He stood not up, nor moved,” for all that Haman had done to him.
“If the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee” (saith the wise man), “leave not thy place.” But it is still more difficult to keep our place when we are visited with the favour of the ruler. Few can bear honours and dignities with equanimity, even when they come upon them gradually; but such sudden and high advancement was enough to make any ordinary person giddy, to cause him to forget himself, and behave unseemly. What fatal effects upon the head and heart do we often witness in persons who have all at once been raised from poverty to riches and rank. Even good men are not always proof against the intoxicating influence of such transitions. How incoherently did the disciples talk on the Mount of Transfiguration! That vessel needs to be well ballasted, which, after being long becalmed, has all its sails at once filled with a favourable gust of wind.
But Mordecai kept his place; like a gallant ship, firmly moored in a bay, which during a flood-tide heaves, and seems for a time borne along with the lighter craft, but, obeying its anchor, comes round and resumes its former position. The pageantry of an hour could not unsettle his mind; he regarded it in its true light—a vain show. Had he had a choice, he would have declined it; as it was, he suffered rather than enjoyed it. It may be difficult to determine which of the two felt most awkward and constrained—Haman in conferring or Mordecai in receiving the extravagant honours. Not that the latter was insensible or a stranger to feeling on the occasion. But then he viewed it, not as a prelude to his own aggrandizement, but as an earnest of the deliverance of his people; and as his confidence of this event rested on surer grounds than his own advancement or the influence of his daughter, his heart was filled with astonishment and with gratitude at the prospect; he possessed his soul in patience—he stood still, and waited for the salvation of God.
But let us now turn to Haman. He had not confidence to return to the palace to present the request for which he had visited it in the morning. Nor could he endure the sight of the people, before whom he felt himself dishonoured. But he “hasted to his house mourning, and with his head covered.” Had Haman been a man of virtue and true dignity of mind, this occurrence could not have disturbed his peace, far less broken his heart. “Why? what harm has it done to me? I have been selected as ‘one of the king’s most noble princes,’ to do this temporary honour to a man who saved the royal life.” At most he would have regarded it as one of those freaks which fortune delights to play in arbitrary courts, and which break the dull monotony of a palace. He would have said, “I have seen servants riding upon horses, and princes, like servants, walking on the earth.” But the man who could complain that all his wealth and honours “availed him nothing, so long as he saw Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate,” could not fail to be stung to the quick by the recent transaction. Hatred, and disappointment, and mortified pride, rankled in his breast, and, to torment him still more, awakened remorse for the past, and fearful forebodings of the future. Surely such a sight is sufficient to cure those who have been smitten with pride or with envy at worldly greatness.—McCrie.
Then said his wise men and Zeresh his wife unto him, If Mordecai be of the seed of the Jews, before whom thou hast begun to fall, thou shalt not prevail against him, but shalt surely fall before him. Who were these wise men? Either sages whom Haman patronized, and from whom he expected wise counsel when he required it, or diviners, who were believed to know more than men could know, without some communication with superior beings. Many of the heathens put much confidence in diviners, but we have learned better things from the word of God. By making it our counsellor at all times of perplexity we shall find peace to our souls.*
“If Mordecai be of the seed of the Jews, before whom thou hast begun to fall, thou shalt not prevail against him, but shalt surely fall.”—If Mordecai be of the seed of the Jews. Why do they lay so much stress upon the stock from which Mordecai sprung? If Mordecai had been a native Persian, or a Babylonian, or an Egyptian, would they not have prognosticated equal success to him against Haman? No; it plainly appears that the dispensations of Divine Providence in favour of the Jews were so far known to them as to assure them that Providence watched over their interests in a manner peculiar to their nation. Although most men are disposed to think that their own country is happy above others in the Divine favour, and although the Persians at this time seemed to have good reason to flatter themselves with a special interest in the favour of Heaven, yet these wise Persians plainly confessed, that the Jews scattered through the nations were the special objects of the Divine care. The wonders done in Babylon were known to all the world, and could not fail to impress all confederate princes with high sentiments concerning the God of Israel. Haman’s wise men might have read the sacred books of the Jews, in which they would find that their God had wrought as great wonders for them in times past as in the period of the Babylonian captivity. They learned instruction from the works of God. They saw that the same God who had preserved Daniel and his companions watched over the safety and fortune of Mordecai, and they concluded that Haman, his irreconcileable enemy, would fall under the weight of his vengeance.
But it is strange that these wise men, and even the wife of Haman, whatever they thought, expressed to him their mind so fully. If they did not choose to flatter him, might they not at least have concealed their dismal conjectures, especially as he was led by their counsels to that public disgrace in which he had involved himself, by building a gallows for the man who was appointed to be the king’s favourite? for although it was built in the court of his own house, yet the news of its erection was soon to spread. It appears from the freedom they used with Haman, that they already considered him as a lost man, whom it was useless to flatter. They were his friends, as long as his friendship could profit them, and now they seem to have cared little whether he accounted them as his friends or his enemies. Their prophecy must have been as unpleasant as the howling of a dog, or even a sentence of death, to his ears. The rich hath many friends; but when poverty is seen coming like an armed man, they vanish away like snow in the days of sunshine.
We may, however, learn useful instruction from a prophecy dictated by reflection on the works of the Lord. Blind heathens have been forced to see that God takes care of his people, that he often interposes wonderfully for their deliverance, and that he leaves not his gracious works in their behalf unfinished. Why do not God’s own people, in the day of their distress, call to remembrance his judgments for their consolation and the support of their faith? When he begins to deliver them, why do they indulge distrusting fears about the accomplishment of that work which he hath taken into his own hand? Why are they not thankful for the day of small things, as the beginnings of months of joy? After Jesus undertook to heal the daughter of Jairus strong temptations met the mourning parent, when Jesus was on the road to complete his work, and fears began to overwhelm his soul. But what said Jesus? “Fear not, only believe.” He believed, and received his daughter back from death.—Lawson.
Still, although we may despise the wife and the friends, we cannot say that by their counsel now they do Haman any injustice. They do not render him the highest service. The highest service would be to tell him the truth, and help him to conform to it by confession, repentance, and amendment. (If they had been even worldly wise they would have told him at once to take down the gallows.) But they do him no injustice. The poor man (for now pity begins to rise) has been sowing diligently, and he is now to reap as he has sown. Black harvest comes in a day. It begins to come in his own house. There—where he had plotted the mischief, begins to fall the shadow of doom.
Yet, let us not overdraw the picture; possibly, if we knew all, there are softer lines to put into it, and some lights of human kindness. There is always much untold and unknown in these histories. Did they follow up their confident prediction that he could not succeed against Mordecai and the Jews, by earnest friendly counsel to Haman to conceal himself, or at once to take flight out of the empire, or away to some distant part of it? We know not. We know only that they were still talking with him—talking over the whole matter—the gathering dangers, the possible methods of relief—when the conference is interrupted by the entrance of the king’s chamberlains, who have come, in haste, to bring Haman to the banquet that Esther had again prepared.—Dr. Raleigh.
When Haman’s wife heard her husband say that Mordecai was against him, because he was an Israelite, she said that her husband should take the foil, and Mordecai should prevail. What if she had heard her husband say that the Lord of Mordecai was against him? If the servant be so terrible, who dare encounter with his master?—H. Smith’s Sermons.
And Mordecai came again to the king’s gate. Was there ever a nobler man than this? You will find ten Christians who bear well the trial of adversity for one who can bear well the sharper trial of prosperity. Mordecai, returned to his place, was wearing fairer robes than the king’s—that vesture of humility wherein the Son of God walked on earth, and which he has ordained as the livery of his redeemed. Go tell him that he has now a splendid opportunity to rise in the world, that his foot is on the ladder, and he needs but to climb; and he will tell of another ladder he is climbing, with angels for his helpers, and that the show this morning had almost cast him down. His duty is at the king’s gate, and there he will wait upon God to show him the end of this strange thing.
“The dew that never wets the flinty mountain
Falls on the valley free;
Bright verdure fringes the small desert fountain,
But barren sand the sea.
The white-robed saints the throne-steps singing under,
Their state all meekly wear,
Their pauseless praise wells up from hearts that wonder
That ever they came there.”
But Haman hastened to his house mourning, and having his head covered. The change was swift and ominous since morning, when he had seen to the gallows being ready, and gone forth hopeful. Not a man in all the city knew that two hours hence others would cover his face and lead him out to death; but Haman felt that God was fighting against him, and anticipated his doom. Is it wrong to mock him now? Why not report yourself to the king as having done his bidding, and ask what you purposed to ask this morning? On the showing of your own words, the king has treated you as “one of his most noble princes.” Zeresh and your friends are expecting you to bring back your victim with you for the gallows. Why so downcast? But, despicable as Haman is, pity is fitter for us than scorn—pity, with a prayer for ourselves that we may escape the fatal madness of making self our god. Haman’s friends had helped him last night, and roused him to hope; but they failed him now. These were summer friends, and thought it not worth while even to lie to him any longer. Besides, they were superstitious. “If Mordecai be of the seed of the Jews.” Why this emphasis on Mordecai’s race? The case would not have been so bad if he had been an Ethiopian; but there were strange features about these Jews. They sometimes stood out on ground of high principle, and when they did so they prospered against all probability. The friends of Haman were Amalekites, in all likelihood, and familiar, therefore, with a history of warning. “Before whom thou hast begun to fall.” His friends see no hope for Haman now that he is started on the swift incline of ruin. When great men of this sort begin to go down their course is quick in proportion to their greatness; and it is a serious aggravation of their misery that the friends of their prosperity hasten their unpitied fall. The tempters, in this world or the next, prove the tormentors.—Symington.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 6
Esther 6:12. Fortitude of the Bechuanas. They are excellent patients. There is no wincing; everything prescribed is done instanter. Their only failing is that they become tired of a long course. But in any operation even the women sit unmoved. I have been quite astonished again and again at their calmness. In cutting out a tumour, an inch in diameter, they sit and talk as if they felt nothing. “A man like me never cries,” they say; “they are children that cry.” And it is a fact that the men never cry. They stand in striking contrast to Haman, who hasted to his house mourning for what was an imaginary evil in great measure; yea, they reprove a great many who profess to be sustained by higher motives. It may be a want of sensitiveness on the part of the Bechuanas, but with increased sensitiveness there should be an increased power of self-control. It is wonderful what power of self-control is possessed and manifested by the members of the Society of Friends.—Dr. Blaikie’s Personal Life of David Livingstone, LL.D.
Satan, a hard task-master. There was a man in the town where I was born who used to steal all his firewood. He would get up on cold nights, and go and take it from his neighbours’ wood-piles. A computation was made, and it was ascertained that he had spent more time, and worked harder, to get his fuel than he would have been obliged to do if he had earned it in an honest way, and at ordinary wages. And this thief was a type of thousands of men who work a great deal harder to please the devil than they would have to work to please God.—Beecher.
So Haman worked hard to please the devil of an evil nature, and it ended in mourning. He would have found more satisfaction in the long-run if he could have set himself to serve a good nature.
Circumstances. He is happy whose circumstances suit his temper; but he is more excellent who can suit his temper to his circumstances.—Hume.
If you can’t turn the wind you must turn the mill-sails. Joseph was a beautiful example. See him, in his changed positions, still the upright saint; and Jesus, his conduct at the marriage and in the temple. William Pitt used to be called the minister of existing circumstances. A Christian shepherd, when a gentleman said, to try him, “Suppose your master were to change, or your flock to die; what then?” replied, “Sir, I look upon it that I do not depend upon circumstances, but upon the great God that directs them.” The Rev. H. W. Fox, when dying, had constantly upon his lips the words of Baxter:—“Lord, when thou wilt; where thou wilt; as thou wilt.” Mordecai, riding in the procession, and then returning to sit at the gate, shows his superiority to mere externals.—Bowes.