CRITICAL NOTES.] The Jews destroy their enemies, and at Mordecai’s request establish the festival of Purim.
Esther 9:1. In the twelfth month, on the thirteenth day of the same, the Jews gathered themselves together in their cities, &c.] Several parenthetical clauses succeed this definition of time, so that the statement of what then took place does not follow till Esther 9:2.—Keil. These clauses state the meaning of the day just named, and give a general notice of the conflict between the Jews and their enemies. The word translated “when” may be here taken as the accusative of time, in which, or where, the king’s commandment and his decree drew near to be put into execution, i.e. in which the king’s word and law should be carried out. The day was changed from a day of misfortune to a day of prosperity for the Jews. “On the day that the enemies of the Jews hoped to have the mastery over them, and it was changed (i.e. the contrary occurred), that the Jews had the mastery over them that hated them.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH. Esther 9:1
HOPE AND FOREBODING
WE often hear that it is darkest just before the dawn, darkest in the natural world, darkest in the moral world, darkest in the world of God’s providential arrangements. Often has this been illustrated and proved in the history, both of individuals and of nations. The laws of nature are typical of the laws of God’s kingdom; essentially they are the same, as coming from the same ruler. In the natural world the deeper darkness is the herald of coming day; so it often has been in all histories, whether individual or national. The darkness was now deepening about the Jews; the month Adar was now close at hand. The fatal day drew near when the king’s commandment and his decree were to be put into execution; but the fatal day was turned into the festal day. The light afar off was sending forth its beautiful and cheering rays; but the Jews had not the power to catch the oncoming gladness, for their eyes were too dull to see: so it may be with us. Let us trust in God through the storm, and through the darkness. Let us pray—Open our eyes that we may see when all around appears dark and dismal. On the other hand, it must be remembered that there is a real darkness thickening around the sinner, while he fondly dreams of glorious light. It was so with these “enemies of the Jews.” They vainly thought that the thirteenth day of the month Adar was to be the day of their victory. On that day the sun was to shine upon their pathway of triumph. Alas! on that day the sun was but to shine as a funeral taper on their gloomy pathway to the everlasting darkness. Let evil-doers beware; let them seek to be wise in time; let them strive to have understanding of the times; let them not dream of coming light, when all the signs indicate that the darkness is only growing more intense.
I. Hope blighted. “In the day that the enemies of the Jews hoped to have power over them.” From a human point of view it was natural that these enemies of the Jews should entertain such a hope. The human reasonableness of this hope may be shown—(a) From their own numbers. The population was undoubtedly large as seen from the immense numbers slain by the Jews. It was natural then, as it is natural now, to rely upon numbers. We expect success on the side of that army that can bring the largest forces into the field, other things being equal. (b) From the insignificance of the Jews. A few people scattered up and down that vast country in a state of captivity, could have no chance against their numerous and powerful enemies. These Persians calculated as we calculate to-day, and they found, as we moderns too often find to our cost, that they reckoned without their host. There is a true, broad sense in which the battle is the Lord’s, and He can save by few as well as by many. (c) From the known unchangeableness of Persian law. There did not seem the slightest chance for the Jews. The hope of these enemies of the Jews rested on as good ground as any hope could do. But after all it was blighted, for the hope was changed. In a short time there was a marvellous vicissitude. Their sun of expectation suddenly shot into darkness just as they were fancying that it was nearing the meridian of splendour. Thus, the hope of the unjust must perish sooner or later. There can be no escape. The goodly houses built upon the sand of human reasoning must be swept away, even though the sand may appear to possess the solidity of the rock.
II. Foreboding reproved. The same human reasoning which led these enemies of the Jews to entertain hope would induce the Jews to give way to dark and injurious forebodings. If the faithful and valorous Esther had her great fears, how much more is it to be supposed that the rest of the Jews would look forward to the month Adar in a spirit of agonizing dread. How often we look forward to a month Adar, and see it shrouded with ominous darkness. There is such a month in the lives of most. Yea, there are gloomy temperaments to whom every year has its month Adar, rising gloomily, and yet grand in its gloom, like some lofty mountain. But the month Adar may, after all, be the month of rejoicing. As the traveller rejoices when he reaches the mountain top, and feasts upon the grand panorama of nature, so these Jews might rejoice when they reached the thirteenth day of the month Adar. The very day we feared has been the day of Divine deliverance and of Divine blessing. It is a day of rejoicing, but it is a day of humiliation. God’s grant of success may be God’s reproof of our unbelief and our forebodings. However darkly the month Adar may loom in the distance, let us move on towards it, encouraging ourselves in the Lord our God. Give to the winds thy fears; hope, and be undismayed. Hope on, hope always. Above all things, do not indulge in forebodings. It is injurious to thy own nature. It saps thy vital energies. It undermines thy physical strength and thy mental power. It can mend nothing, and is the result, in part, of a Want of faith in God. It is sinful if there be no effort to overcome.
III. True hope rewarded. “It was turned to the contrary that the Jews had rule over them that hated them.” Those amongst the Jews who looked above the vain state of men and things to the great supreme, and entertained hope in spite of all that seemed to make against hope, had their glorious reward in due season. The Jews had the mastery over their enemies. God’s people must finally triumph over their real foes. Real foes, for there are foes in seeming which are true friends. But no real foes, that is, foes that militate against highest interests, will be allowed to reign in perpetual triumph. Every enemy must be destroyed; even the last enemy, death, must be put under the feet. The hope of the righteous cannot perish. What happened unto the Jews, happened to them for ensamples to the people of God in all ages. Our moral experiences will find their counterpart in what we may call the material experiences of the Jewish people. They triumphed in a more material point of view. Their successes were even in the present state. God’s people now must look to triumph in a moral point of view. Their true success must be in the mighty future of God’s eternity. The hope that is built upon God’s word cannot fail. The hope that springs from faith in Jesus Christ must bloom into the flowers of paradise that never fade, and ripen into the fruits of the celestial Eden that never decay. Have faith in God, and in Jesus Christ his only Son.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Esther 9:1
He himself says once, with more justness than originality: Man is, properly speaking, based upon hope; he has no other possession than hope; this world of his is emphatically the place of hope. What then was our professor’s possession? We see him, for the present, quite shut out from hope; not looking into the golden orient, but vaguely all round into a dim copper firmament, pregnant with earthquake and tornado.—Sartor Resartus.
In the day that the enemies of the Jews hoped, &c. But their hope ran aslope, as they say; their lucky day deceived them. Wicked men’s hope, when they most need it, will be as the giving up of the ghost, and that is but cold comfort; and as the spider’s web, who gets to the top of the window as high as she can, and then when she falls she falls to the bottom, for nothing stays her. From such high hopes fell our English Papists; first, when Queen Mary died. You hope and hope (said Dale the promoter to Julian Irving, whom he had apprehended), but your hope should end in a rope; for though the queen fail, she that you hope for should never come to it; for there is my Lord Cardinal’s grace and many more between her and it. Secondly, at Queen Elizabeth’s death, that long-looked for day, as they called it, triumphing before the victory, and selling the hide before they had taken the beast. This they had done before in 1588, when in assurance of victory they had styled their forces the Invincible Armada; and also afterwards at the powder-plot, when they had presumptuously disposed of the chief offices, holds, and revenues of the land; like as before the Pharsalian field was fought, the Pompeians were in such miserable security, that some of them contended for the priesthood, which was Cæsar’s office; others disposed of the consulships and offices in Rome. So at the battle of Agincourt in France, where our Henry V. won the day, the French were so confident of a victory that they sent to king Henry to know what ransom he would give. A presumptuous confidence goes commonly bleeding home, when an humble fear returns in triumph.—Trapp.
Though it was turned to the contrary.—By a sweet and gracious providence of God, whose glory it is to help at a pinch, to alter the scene all on a sudden, to begin where we have given over, and to cause a strange turn of things, according to that of the Psalmist; God should send from heaven and save me (when it might seem to some that salvation itself could not save me), he should send forth his mercy and his truth, and then what should hinder the Church’s happiness?—Trapp.
The day in which the enemies of the Jews expected to see the realization of their hopes, became instead for the Jews a day of victory, and for their enemies a day of reverse and defeat. This, under existing circumstances, seemed to be a change which could only be brought about, as it were, by a miracle. It was, indeed, one of those providences by means of which it has pleased God to reveal himself from time to time in an especially remarkable manner. At all events, the prophets had foretold such occurrences as a matter surely to be expected. When the captivity of Israel should have reached its culmination, when the people of God are on the point of expiring under the rod of their drivers, then, instead of really perishing, they should become captors of their captors and taskmasters of their drivers. What is here shown in a small prelude, according to such prophecy, should attain a much larger circumference and a much greater glory. Our book itself, according to its deeper significance, points in in a manner typical or prophetical to this great and glorious final history. As a matter of fact, this change of affairs was itself deeply grounded in the nature and circumstances of things. So certain as the God of Israel was the only true God, whose kingdom should not be destroyed, but through all apparent reverses should continually rise to new and greater victories, so likewise to his people,—so long as it is the sole bearer of his sway, the grave, which threatens to swallow it up, should ever be a place of revivification and resurrection. And today also his empire must continue; and that which thought to overcome its power must itself be overcome, and either be absorbed or consigned to destruction. All the days of persecution of God’s kingdom are days indeed in which its enemies hope to overcome it, but it always turns out that such enemies are themselves conquered at last.—Lange.
We have above such an example in Haman, who was himself hung on the cross which he had prepared for Mordecai; so the Egyptians were themselves overwhelmed in the sea to which they had driven the Israelites in order to overwhelm them. So also Saul, who had driven David over to the Philistines, that they might destroy him, was himself destroyed by the Philistines.—Brenz.
We learn from this passage the comfortable truth, that God’s people obtain the victory over their enemies. Whatever hardships and troubles God’s people have to endure in the world, and however dark and lowering the cloud may be which sometimes hangs over them, yet, “at evening time it will be light to them,” and death’s temporary triumph over them will only lead to their eternal triumph over it and all their foes. Be not discouraged, ye that fear and serve the Lord. Greater is he that is for you than all that can be against you. Fight the good fight of faith, the crown of life is sure to all who are in Christ.—Davidson.
Foresight and foreboding are two very different things. It is not that the one is the exaggeration of the other, but the one is opposed to the other. The more a man looks forward in the exercise of foresight, the less he does so in the exercise of foreboding; and the more he is tortured by anxious thoughts about a possible future, the less clear vision has he of a likely future, and the less power to influence it.
What does your anxiety do? It does not empty to-morrow of its sorrows, but it empties to-day of its strength; it does not make you escape the evil, it makes you unfit to cope with it when it comes; it does not bless to-morrow, and it robs to-day. For every day has its own burden. Sufficient for each day is the evil which properly belongs to it. Do not add to-morrow’s to to-day’s. Do not drag the future into the present. The present has enough to do with its own proper concerns. We have always strength to bear the evil when it comes. We have not strength to bear the foreboding of it. As thy day, thy strength shall be. In strict proportion to the existing exigencies will be the God-given power; but if you cram and condense to-day’s sorrows by experience, and tomorrow’s sorrows by anticipation, into the narrow round of the one four and twenty hours, there is no promise that as that day thy strength shall be.
God gives us power to bear all the sorrows of his making; but he does not give us power to bear the sorrows of our own making, which the anticipation of sorrow most assuredly is.
Our hope should make us buoyant, and should keep us firm. It is an anchor of the soul. All men live by hope, even when it is fixed upon the changing and uncertain things of this world. But the hopes of men, who have not their hearts fixed upon God, try to grapple themselves on the cloud-rack that rolls along the flanks of the mountains, and our hopes pierce within that veil and lay hold of the Rock of Ages that towers above the flying vapours. Let us then be strong, for our future is not a dim peradventure, or a vague dream, nor a fancy of our own, nor a wish turning itself into a vision; but it is made and certified by him who is God of all past and of all the present. It is built upon his word, and the brightest hope of all its brightness is the enjoyment of more of his presence and the possession of more of his likeness. That hope is certain. Therefore let us live in it. “Reach forth unto the things that are before.”—Maclaren.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO Chapter S 9, 10
The Alpine Travellers. Three tourists were ascending the Alps. After they had gone a considerable distance, and were getting nearer to the eternal snows, and thus the danger increased, it was considered necessary to attach the company by ropes to one another and to the guides. But one of the tourists, an old traveller, was self-confident and self-reliant. He carried the doctrine of self-help too far, and refused to help his neighbours. He fell down the precipice and lost his life. We often best help ourselves by helping others.
Mutual help, need of. As an apple in the hand of a child makes other children run after and consort with him and share his sports, so does he convert affliction, and the need we have of each other’s aid, into a girdle of love, with which to bind us all together; just as no one country produces all commodities, in order that the different nations, by mutual traffic and commerce, may cultivate concord and friendship. How foolish they are who imagine that all the world stands in need of them, but they of nobody; that they know and understand all things, but others nothing; and that the wit of all mankind should be apprenticed to their wisdom.—Gotthold.
Whitfield. An old woman relates, that when she was a little girl Whitfield stayed at her father’s house. He was too much absorbed in his work to take much notice of, and pay much attention to, the little girl. She did not remember any of his eloquent utterances. She was, however, observant, and noticed the great preacher when he did not think that any one was observing his conduct. And the impression made upon her mind by his holy and cheerful demeanour, by his patience under trials and difficulties, and his evident consecration to his work, was of a most lasting and salutary character. Well were it if all great preachers would preach at home! We must be great in the palace of home, and then let our influence work outwards in all directions. Home religion is powerful.
The young Switzer. There was a young man among the Switzers that went about to usurp the government and alter their free state. Him they condemned to death, and appointed his father for executioner, as the cause of his evil education. But because Haman was hanged before, his sons (though dead) should now hang with him. If all fathers who had given an evil education to their sons were punished there would be a large increase of the criminal classes. At the present time the State is doing much in the way of educating; but the State cannot do that which is the proper duty of the parent. By precept, and even by the fear of penalty, should we enforce upon parents the duty of seeing faithfully to the true up-bringing of their children.
Faith of parents. An aged minister of Christ had several sons, all of whom became preachers of the Gospel but one. This one lived a life of dissipation for many years. But the good father’s faith failed not. He trusted God that his wicked son, trained up in the way he should go, in old age should not depart from it. In this sublime faith the aged father passed away. Five years after, this son of many prayers sat at the feet of Jesus.
Influence of parents. The last thing forgotten in all the recklessness of dissolute profligacy is the prayer or hymn taught by a mother’s lips, or uttered at a father’s knee; and where there seems to have been any pains bestowed, even by one parent, to train up a child aright, there is in general more than ordinary ground for hope.—The experience of a Prison Chaplain.
Says the venerable Dr. Spring: “The first afflicting thought to me on the death of my parents was, that I had lost their prayers.”
Great men Just as the traveller whom we see on yonder mountain height began his ascent from the plain, so the greatest man of whom the world can boast is but one of ourselves standing on higher ground, and in virtue of his wider intelligence, his nobler thoughts, his loftier character, his purer inspiration, or his more manly daring, claiming the empire as his right.—Hare.
True greatness. The truly great consider, first, how they may gain the approbation of God; and, secondly, that of their own consciences. Having done this they would willingly conciliate the good opinion of their fellow-men.—Cotton.
The greatest man is he who chooses the right with invincible resolution; who resists the sorest temptations from within and without; who bears the heaviest burdens cheerfully; who is the calmest in storms, and whose reliance on truth, on virtue, on God, is the most unfaltering.—Dr. Chening.
Distinguishing, great men. I think it is Warburton who draws a very just distinction between a man of true greatness and a mediocrist. “If,” says he, “you want to recommend yourself to the former, take care that he quits your society with a good opinion of you; if your object is to please the latter, take care that he leaves you with a good opinion of himself.”—Cotton.
Thus Mordecai was truly great, considering, first, how to gain the approbation of God; and, secondly, that of his own conscience. He rises above others by virtue of his wider intelligence, his nobler thoughts, his loftier character, and his more manly daring.
A good name. A name truly good is the aroma from character. It is a reputation of whatsoever things are honest, and lovely, and of good report. It is such a name as is not only remembered on earth, but written in heaven. Just as a box of spikenard is not only valuable to its possessor, but pre-eminently precious in its diffusion; so, when a name is really good, it is of unspeakable service to all who are capable of feeling its aspiration. Mordecai’s fame went out throughout all the provinces.—Dr. J. Hamilton.
Eastern hospitality. Nehemiah charges the people thus: “Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared.” Also in Esther: “Therefore the Jews made the fourteenth day of the month Adar a day of gladness and feasting, and a good day, and of sending portions one to another.” An Oriental prince sometimes honours a friend or a favourite servant, who cannot conveniently attend at his table, by sending a mess to his own home. When the Grand Emir found that it incommoded D’Arvieux to eat with him, he politely desired him to take his own time for eating, and sent him what he liked from his kitchen at the time he chose. So that the above statements must not be restricted to the poor.—Paxton’s ‘Illustrations.’
The heaviest taxes. “The taxes are indeed heavy,” said Dr. Franklin on one occasion, and if those laid on by the Government were the only ones we had to pay, we might more easily discharge them; but we have many others, and much more grievous to some of us. We are taxed twice as much by our idleness, three times as much by our pride, and four times as much by our folly; and from these taxes the commissioners cannot ease or deliver us by allowing any abatement.
Safeguard of nations. France tried to go on without a God in the time of her first revolution; but Napoleon, for reasons of State, restored the Catholic religion. M. Thiers gives this singular passage in his history: “Napoleon said, ‘For my part, I never hear the sound of the church bell in the neighbouring village without emotion.’ ” He knew that the hearts of the people were stirred by the same deep yearnings after God which filled his own, and so he proposed to restore the worship of God to infidel France. Later, and with deeper meaning, Perrier, successor to Lafayette as prime minister to Louis Philippe, said on his death-bed, “France must have religion” (C. D. Fors). So we may say, the nations, if they are to live, must have religion.
Punishment of nations. It was a sound reply of an English captain at the loss of Calais, when a proud Frenchman scornfully demanded, “When will you fetch Calais again?” “When your sins shall weigh down ours.”—Brooks.
Nations. In one sense the providence of God is shown more clearly in nations than in individuals. Retribution can follow individuals into another state, but not so with nations; they have all their rewards and punishments in time.—D. Custine.
England’s privileges.—It’s the observation of a great politician, that England is a great animal which can never die unless it kill itself; answerable whereunto was the speech of Lord Rich, to the justices in the reign of king Edward VI: “Never foreign power,” said he, “could yet hurt, or in any part prevail, in this realm but by disobedience and disorder among ourselves; that is the way wherewith the Lord will plague us if he mind to punish us.” Polydor Virgil calls Regnum Angliæ, Regnum Dei, the kingdom of England, the kingdom of God, because God seems to take special care of it, as having walled it about with the ocean, and watered it with the upper and nether springs, like that land which Caleb gave his daughter. Hence it was called Albion, quasi Olbion, the happy country; “whose valleys,” saith Speed, “are like Eden, whose hills are as Lebanon, whose springs are as Pisgah, whose rivers are as Jordan, whose wall is the ocean, and whose defence is the Lord Jehovah.” Foreign writers have termed our country the Granary of the Western World, the Fortunate Island, the Paradise of Pleasure, and Garden of God.—Clarke’s ‘Examples.’