Wherefore they called these days Purim after the name of Pur. Therefore for all the words of this letter, and [of that] which they had seen concerning this matter, and which had come unto them,
Ver. 26. Wherefore they called these days Purim] Thereby to perpetuate the memory of that mercy, worthy to be engraven in pillars of marble. This was a notable name; for it served to remind the Jews of all that God had done for them at this bout. As there is edification in the choice of fit psalms, 1 Corinthians 14:26, so in the imposing of fit names upon persons, things, and times. As the Christian Sabbath is to good purpose called the Lord's day; and those festivities of Easter and Whitsuntide were not so fitly called Pasch and Pentecost as the feast of the Lord's resurrection and of the sending of the Holy Ghost. It should certainly be the constant care of us all to set up marks and monuments of God's great mercies, so to preserve the memory of them, which else will be moth eaten. Such as were Abraham's Jehovahjireh, Jacob's stone at Bethel, Moses' Jehovahnissi, Aaron's rod and pot of manna, Hebrews 9:4, the twelve stones pitched up in Jordan, the names of Gilgal, Ramath-Lehi, Aben Ezer; those plates nailed on the altar, Numbers 16:39. Hereby God shall be glorified, the Church's enemies convinced, our faith strengthened, our joy in the Lorcl heightened, our posterity helped, and Satan prevented, who seeketh to obliterate God's works of wonder; or at least to alienate them, and translate them upon himself, as he endeavoured to do that famous execution of Divine justice upon Sennacherib's army, by setting Herodotus awork to tell the world in print (Herod. 1. 2) that it was Sethon, king of Egypt, and priest of Vulcan, who obtained of his god that Sennacherib's army, coming against Egypt, should be totally routed by reason of an innumerable company of rats, sent by Vulcan, which gnawed in pieces their bowstrings, quivers, bucklers, &c., and so made way for the Egyptians to vanquish them. Herodotus addeth that also in his time there was to be seen the statue of Sennacherib, holding a rat in his hand, in Vulcan's temple, and uttering these words, Let him that beholdeth me learn to fear God. Eμε τις εσορεων ευσεβης εστω. Lo, the god of this world hath his trophies erected, and shall the God of heaven and earth go without? Oh, let us (who have lived in an age of miracles, and seen the out goings of God for our good more than ever did any nation) offer unto him the ransom of our lives, as they did, Exodus 21:30; Exodus 30:12, in token that they had and held all in mere courtesy from God. Let us leave some seal, some pawn of thankfulness for deliverance from so many deaths and dangers. Otherwise heathens will rise up and condemn us. They after a shipwreck would offer something; after a fit of sickness consecrate something to their gods; after a victory set up trophies of triumph, as the Philistines did to their Dagon, the Romans to their Jupiter Capitolinus.
Therefore for all the words of this letter] In obedience to Mordecai, their godly magistrate.
And of that which they had seen concerning this matter] And especially of God made visible all along in it, yea, palpable, so that they might feel him and find him, Acts 17:27, though his name be not found in all this book.
And which had come unto them] so. By report and hearsay, but from such hands as that they were fully satisfied thereof, as Haman's lot casting, Esther's supplicating, the king's reading the chronicles, &c.