CRITICAL NOTES.]
Esther 9:12.] If the Jews had killed five hundred men in Susa, how many may they not have slain in other parts of the kingdom? The king recognizes the fact that, if the Jews had to do with so many opponents, they could hardly have mastered them, and even now great danger threatened them on the part of those remaining, if they could not hunt down such in their hiding-places, and destroy them utterly.
Esther 9:13. To do to-morrow also according unto this day’s decree] This request of Esther has been pronounced the offspring of a blood-thirsty vengeance, and desire to have another day for the butchery of enemies. But what was “this day’s decree” which the queen desired to be continued another day? Merely “to stand for their life” against all that would assault them. Hence we infer that the queen believed, or had reason to suspect, that the enemies of the Jews in Shushan would renew the attack upon the following day. So fearfully enraged were these enemies that they were likely to retaliate for their losses by an unauthorized continuance of the fight, and it was to secure her people against such an event Esther wisely made this request. This extension of the decree was to have effect only in Shushan, not in the provinces.—Whedon’s Com. Let Haman’s ten sons be hanged upon the gallows] i.e. crucify the dead bodies in order to increase the disgrace of their execution, but more in order to augment the fear of the Jews. This was the Hebrew and Persian custom.—Lange.
Esther 9:16. And had rest from their enemies] The position of these words in the middle of the verse is noticeably strange. There may be here some disarrangement of the text, or it may be, as Keil suggests, “that the narrator desired at once to point out how the matter ended.” Such apparent disorder of the text is not always to be regarded as evidence of corruption by transcribers. The Hebrew writers are not always the best models of accuracy and perfection of literary style. Seventy and five thousand] “The slaughter of these seventy-five thousand shows,” says Wordsworth, “that a very large number of their heathen enemies, who had been exasperated against the Jews, had prepared themselves for an attack upon them; and that, presuming upon their own numbers and forces as compared with the Jews, they assaulted them in order to destroy and despoil them, and to enrich themselves with their property; and that the Jews made a vigorous resistance, and by the help of God, routed their assailants with a great discomfiture. The slaughter was not the consequence of a vindictive spirit in the Jews, but of the bitter animosity of their enemies; and it proves that the Jews would have been extinguished (as Haman’s decree intended that they should be) if God had not interfered to rescue them from destruction.”
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH. Esther 9:12-16
THE RIGOUR OF JUSTICE
Justice is stern, and in the course of justice none of us should see salvation. This is one of the glories of the new dispensation, that we may live under the reign of mercy, and not under the reign of justice. However, mercy must not be permitted to induce the spirit of presumption. If mercy harden, justice will be allowed to do its severe work. The prospect of mercy must lead to penitence, to faith, to renewed consecration, in order that the stroke of justice may be averted. In this paragraph let us see Esther as the personification of justice, and thus notice—
I. Justice works by striking terror. The proceedings of the Jews on this occasion were calculated to strike terror into the hearts of their enemies. Five hundred men slain in Shushan the palace, Haman’s ten sons destroyed, the leaders of the movement against the Jews were all slaughtered. Thus a panic was spread amongst all those who had shown themselves the Jews’ enemies. Justice works by terror. It is so under human rule. It is so under Divine rule. Society seeks to restrain the criminal by fear. But this can never be a permanently renovating power. It is by the indwelling force of Divine love that the evil must be extirpated. God’s method of law and of justice in the old dispensation must give place to the brighter and surer method of love and mercy in the new dispensation. It is highly fitting that the dispensation which was to be permanent, which is for all races, should be one of mercy, and of love, through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour.
II. Justice pursues to the bitter end. Haman’s ten sons are slain, and then they are hanged upon the gallows. The Jews stood for their lives, and slew seventy and five thousand. Justice demands the uttermost farthing. It says, “Pay me what thou owest.” It takes the penniless debtor and casts him into prison, there to lie until all the debt be paid. Justice is an exact accountant. Escape there cannot be from the stern grasp of justice except by the interposition of a higher power. Justice and mercy are harmonized in the cross of the blessed Saviour.
III. Justice makes a distinction. These Jews slew only their foes. They did not proceed on the method of indiscriminate slaughter. They do not appear to have touched inoffensive women and helpless children. They did not even confiscate to themselves the property of their foes. Divine justice will be exact in its distinctions. It will judge between the good and the bad, and also between bad and bad. One servant will receive many stripes, and another the few.
IV. The administrators of justice have rest when the appointed work is accomplished. The Jews had rest from their enemies. The open enemies were destroyed. The concealed enemies were afraid. There was security, if not absolute safety, to the Jewish nation. How blessed that word rest to these once persecuted, fighting, and now triumphant Jews. Rest, after all their fears and forebodings! Rest, after all their awful but necessary work of bloodshed! The warriors find rest. The statement implies that these Jews did not find supreme delight in the butchery and blood-shedding of man. They were not warriors by trade and by desire, but by the stern necessity which has no law. Sweet and welcome to them the rest after long and bitter months of fear and anxiety. To all those who fight against the enemies of the Lord there is the sure prospect of rest. Every Christian has such enemies. “We wrestle not against flesh and blood,” &c. But rest will come ere long. Sweet rest in heaven; Divine repose in the Father’s house. The soul of the believer pants for rest in this world of strife and turmoil. Rest from moral enemies. Rest from the strife of tongues. Rest from foes without, and fears within. Lord God, give us to taste the pure rest of heaven.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Esther 9:12-16
If she had been put upon her defence for this act, she might have urged that love for her countrymen and love for her religion, prompted her to deal thus toward the fierce enemies of both. And we shall not question the fact, that it was by these feelings she was chiefly animated, and not by the desire of revenge alone. But it must be remembered, that although this furnishes a sufficiently satisfactory explanation of her conduct it does not justify it. It has ever been under the pretext of zeal for truth, that the fires of religious persecution have been kindled. Under this plea, for example, Popery has shed the blood of the righteous like water, and even in Protestant countries pains and penalties have been inflicted upon those who refused to adopt the form of religion patronized by the state. Intolerance has always had its arguments in self-defence; but these do not serve for its vindication. And so in the case before us, we believe most assuredly that Esther acted in all good conscience, as also did Mordecai, by whom very probably she was instructed what to do on the occasion. Yet this hinders not our regretting that she was hurried away by the spirit of revenge, rather than moved by what would have become her better—the mild and sweet influence of a forgiving heart. In defence of her religion and her people she suffered herself to act with unbecoming zeal. I would take occasion to observe here, that the great principle of toleration in religion is still imperfectly understood, and in many parts of what is called Christendom, as imperfectly practised. The principle is utterly to be repudiated, that man is not responsible to God for unbelief. He is responsible, as Christ’s words imply, when he says that men “love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil.” But on the other hand, this other principle is ever to be maintained and urged, that man is not responsible to his fellow-man, either for his belief or unbelief, and that pains and penalties to enforce religious conformity are altogether indefensible. That there is a limit to be affixed to the publication of opinions which are blasphemous, revoltingly immoral, or licentious, and subversive of all order and government, is a proposition which very few will call in question. The well-being of society demands that care be taken lest its very foundations be undermined by men whose heart is set in them to do evil. But to punish any one for holding particular views of Divine truth, or for refusing to conform to the belief and practice of the majority, is manifestly wrong. If no other arguments could be advanced for the assumption and exertion of a power to compel uniformity, these two would be sufficient: that the application of external force in matters of religion implies that those who have recourse to it must deem themselves infallible, which no man, or class of men, can rightly do; and that it evidently supposes that the claims and evidences of true religion are not so powerful of themselves as to be able without external or temporal aid to secure the approval of those to whom they are addressed. Let us hope that the world and the Church also will come to understand better than either has done hitherto, the reverence which is due to the inalienable rights of conscience, when these are pled for.—Davidson.
On the other side of the account this—that with emphasis it is stated that in Shushan the palace, in a great city, they slew 500 men. Twice it is said they slew only men. They were allowed to slay women and children. But as this was not necessary to their own preservation, they took the course dictated by humanity and mercy. And this stands well to their credit.
It might seem perhaps to some that Esther herself was lacking in this humanity, when, using her great influence over her uxorious husband, and in reply to his desire to know what now she wished further done, assuring her that her wish should immediately be royal command—she asked not only that Haman’s sons should be hanged—but that there might be another day of slaughter added to the first. One very vigorous objector speaks of it as “another day of butchery in the palace.” But that is mere excess and exaggeration. The whole meaning of Esther’s prayer is that the Jews might be allowed to continue the defence for another day, since the assault had not yet ceased.
The request was wholly reasonable, and it was at once granted. It was only in the palace, i.e. in the capital city, that this was necessary; throughout the provinces of the empire the fighting began and ended on the same day.—Raleigh.
We would give prominence to this circumstance, because some have been disposed to charge the Jews with a vindictive and merciless spirit in the conduct of this war—especially for the purpose of lowering the estimate which we have formed, and endeavoured to present, of the character of Esther, in not being satisfied with one day’s slaughter, but asking the king, when the opportunity was given her, that it should be continued on the following day, and that the dead bodies of Haman’s ten sons should be suspended on the gallows. If there is the appearance of severity in this, it is difficult to see that it was not warranted and necessary for the future peace of the Jews in Persia. The Jews were simply acting on their own defence. They were not the aggressors. If their enemies had wished to be let alone, they had nothing to do but to let them alone; and having risen to exterminate them, they could hardly complain if they should be themselves exterminated. To have the war prolonged over another day, on which the dead bodies of Haman’s ten sons should be seen hanging on the gallows, must not be viewed in the light of pleasure in bloodshed and cruelty, but rather what was needful to protect the Jews against future trouble and single-handed resistance of assault, and, as has been suggested, “to deter other councillors, at any time, from abusing the king with false representations.” Many of the ringleaders may have escaped on the first day. They may have secreted themselves in houses, or fled to the suburbs, knowing that the decrees only extended over one day. They would be enraged more than ever against the Jews, and might concert measures for private revenge. Unprotected households would not be free from invasion and spoliation. The work was not completed. But let there be a second day, accompanied with the terrible spectacle of the scaffold with its ten victims, and there would be less likelihood of any future uprising against the Jews. Moreover, we must look at the retribution on the Divine as well as the human side. If these enemies of the Jews were chiefly Amalekites, they lay under the righteous sentence of the Almighty, whose word could not fail of accomplishment. They were bitterly opposed, not only to the people of God, but to God himself, and would have rooted out his name from the earth along with those who feared and worshipped him. Mordecai and Esther were only instruments in his hand; and in the execution of the Divine purpose, and the fulfilment of prophecy, we do not find anything in their conduct which can fairly be ascribed to personal vindictiveness and vengeance, but only necessary, though severe, expedients for the protection and honour of an unjustly persecuted and reproached people. Far be it from us to ascribe the results of all war, even of defence, to the judgment of God; but when it is distinctly pointed out, in the Word of God, and though the causes should be veiled in mystery, we can only bow before his throne, saying: “Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus.”
But whilst much may be urged on the side of the Jews, Mordecai, and Esther, to clear them from the charge of vindictiveness and cruelty, we have a thrice-recorded declaration with regard to their clemency. They had a right to take the property of their enemies for a spoil, The clause in Haman’s edict to this effect had been incorporated in Mordecai’s; but both with reference to the five hundred who were slain at Shushan on the thirteenth of the month, and the three hundred who were slain on the following day, as well as the seventy-five thousand who were slain in the provinces, we have this declaration—a declaration all the more praiseworthy and remarkable when we consider the proverbial love of gain ascribed to the Jews,—that “they laid not their hands on the prey.” Just suppose that the enemies of the Jews had been victorious, and had carried out the letter of Haman’s decree on all those whom they destroyed, what a sad record should we have had! Not the men only who were actually engaged in the conflict were to have been slain, but women and children also, and their whole goods were to be taken. If Haman’s ten sons had got their own way, we may be sure that they would not in any particular have restricted their father’s will. They would have been deaf to the pleadings of mothers and the frightened cries of little children, and would not have spared the property. In contrast with this the conduct of the Jews, Mordecai, and Esther, was merciful and humane. They only slew those who had taken arms against themselves; and, as regards the property, though they had authority to take it, yet did they not appropriate anything. The wives and children of such as were slain would have need of it. They would show that it was not a war of self-aggrandisement, malice, or covetousness, but a conflict forced upon them for their own preservation. If it had been vengeance which they sought in the second day’s conflict and the hanging of Haman’s sons, they had an opportunity of taking it in a far more effectual and grievous manner; but what they wanted was simply present safety, and some guarantee for the future. They stopped there, and by their conduct set a notable example to contending nations. All war is to be deplored; but more deplorable still, the reckless waste of the property of the vanquished. In certain cases it may be necessary in order to obtain terms of peace, but when it is wanton and revengeful it must receive the just censure of every generous heart. By letting alone the spoil, which must have been great, and which they might easily have seized and legally claimed, the Jews must have commended themselves to the peaceable and right-minded of the population of Persia,—“but they laid not their hands on the prey.”—McEwen.
Let it be granted to the Jews, &c. The enemies at Shushan could not be all caught the first day; lest those that lurked should hereafter prove troublesome to the Church by hatching new plots, she begs that they also may receive condign punishment. And Haman’s sons are hanged up for example. This she requested not out of any private and personal spleen to any, but for the glory of God and the Church’s peace. Had her aims been otherwise than good, her good actions could not have showed her a good woman. For, though a good aim doth not make a bad action good, as we see in Uzzah; yet a bad aim maketh a good action bad, as we see in Jehu. Lavater’s note may not here be let slip: the diligence that Esther used in rooting out her temporal enemies should quicken us to do the like to our spiritual, viz. those evil affections, motions, and passions, that war against the soul. These be our Medes and Persians, with whom we must make no truce, but maintain a constant deadly feud, till we have mastered and mortified them all, for till that be done effectually we must never look to have true peace, either within ourselves or with others.—Trapp.
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.’