Chapters 1 and 2

The book opens by presenting to us a sight of the Gentile now in power. It is, however, the Persian and not the Chaldean; “the breast of silver,” not “the head of gold,” in the great Image which Nebuchadnezzar saw. We are here reading rather the second than the first chapter in the history of the Gentile in supremacy in the earth. We see him in the progress rather than at the commencement of his career; but, morally, he is the same. Moab-like, his taste remains in him, his scent is not changed. All the haughtiness that declared itself in Nebuchadnezzar reappears in Ahasuerus. No spirit or fruit of repentance—no learning of himself—or of what becomes him as a creature, is seen in this man of the earth. The lie of the serpent, which formed man at the beginning, is working as earnestly as ever. The old desire to be as God, utters itself in the Persian now, as it had afore in the Chaldean. The one had built his royal city, and looked at it in pride, and said, “Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty?” The other now makes a feast, and for one hundred and eighty days, shows to the princes and nobles the whole power of his realm, “the riches of his glorious kingdom, and the honor of his excellent majesty.”
Nay more; for the Persian exceedeth. There is a bold affecting to be as God in Persia, which we did not see in Babylon. We notice this in three distinguished Persian ordinances.
1. No one was to appear in the royal presence unbidden. In such a case, had this ordinance of the realm been violated, life and death would hang on the pleasure of the king.
2. No one was to be sad before the king; his face or presence was to be accepted of all his people as the spring and power of joy and gladness.
3. No decree of his realm could be canceled: it stood forever.
These are assumptions indeed. This exceeds, in the way of man showing himself to be as God; and know we not, that this spirit will work till the Gentile has perfected his iniquity? But the hand of God begins to work its wonders now, in the midst of all the festivity and pride which opens the book. The joy of the royal banquet was interrupted; a stain defaces the fair form of all this magnificence. The Gentile Queen refuses to serve the occasion, or be a tributary to this day of public rejoicing; and this leads to the manifesting of the Jew, and of ultimately making that people principal in the action, and eminent in the earth, beyond all thought or calculation.
It was a small beginning, poor and mean in its character and material. Vashti’s temper, which goaded her to a course of conduct which jeoparded her life, was the “little fire” which kindled this “how great a matter.” It is a miserable, despicable circumstance. What can be meaner? The temper, we may say, of an imperious woman! And yet, God, by it, works results, then known to Himself in counsel, but the accomplishment of which shall be seen in the coming day of Jewish glory.
“Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill,
He treasures up His bright designs,
And works His sovereign will.”
Vashti is deposed. She is disclaimed as the wife of the Persian; and another more worthy is to be sought for to take her place.
Now, the question may arise, How far can one of the Jews take advantage of such an occasion? Does holiness avail itself of corruption? Can the people of God forget their Nazaritism, their separation to Him? And yet, Esther consents to go before the king at this time, as in company with all the daughters of his uncircumcised subjects!
This may amaze us, if we judge of things by any light less pure and intense than that which is of God. The moral sense of mere man—the verdict of legal ordinances—the voice of Mount Sinai itself—will not do at times. We must walk in the light as God is in the light. We must know “the times,” like Issachar of old, ere we can rightly say, “what Israel ought to do.”
Did not some of Bethlehem-Judah take wives of the daughters of Moab, and that, too, without rebuke? Did not Joseph, in his marriage, deviate from the holiness of Abraham, and Moses from the ordinances of the law? Was not Rahab, though a daughter of the uncircumcised, adopted of Judah, and became conspicuous in the ancestry, after the flesh, of David’s Lord? And did not Sampson take to wife a woman of Timnath, that belonged to the Philistines?
The people of God were not in due order on the occasions of those strange events; and this is their moral vindication. The light of divine wisdom in divine dispensation becomes the judge, rather than ordinances. The Jews were now in the dispersion. Joseph, if we please so to express it, is in Egypt again, Moses in Midian, and the sons of Bethlehem-Judah in Moab; and Esther is as much unrebuked for going in unto the King of Persia, as Joseph for marrying Asenath, or Moses for marrying Zipporah, or Mahlon for marrying Ruth; and each and all of them stand without reproach or judgment before God in these things, just as David did when he ate the show-bread. Nay, these things were of God, as Samson’s marriage with a Philistine woman seems distinctly to be so recognized. (Judg. 14:4)
Divine counsels shall be accomplished; the fruits of grace shall be gathered; and the ordinances of righteousness, and the arrangements which suit us, were we in integrity, and in well-ordered condition, shall not interfere.
Chapter 3
The Jew, strange to say it, as we have seen, becomes important to the Power—that is, the Persian. But more so than I have as yet noticed—important to his safety as well as to his enjoyments. For Mordecai becomes his protector, as Esther had become his wife. This we see at the close of chapter 2. The King is debtor to both. In spite of all his greatness, and all the resources for happiness and strength which attached to his greatness, he is debtor to the dispersed of Judah. They are important to him. Both his heart and his head, as I may say, have to own this.
But, if the Jew be thus strangely brought into personal favor and acceptance, equally strangely is the Jew’s enemy brought into high and honorable elevation, and seated in the very position which capacitated him to gratify all his enmity. An Amalekite sits next in dignity and rule to the king. Above all the princes of the nation, Haman, the Agagite, is preferred; why we are not told. No public virtue or service is recorded of him. It is, apparently, simply the royal pleasure that has done it. A stranger to the nation he was-a distant stranger; one, too, of a race now all but forgotten, we might say, once distinguished, in the day of the infancy of nations, but now all but blotted out from the page of history, superseded by others far loftier in their bearing than ever he had been; the Assyrian first, then the Chaldean, and now the Persian. And yet, there he now is before us, an Amalekite seated next to Ahasuerus the Persian; in dignity, office, and power, only second to him.
This is strange, indeed, we may say. The great enemy of Israel, when Israel was in the wilderness, reappears here in the same character, in this day of Israel in the dispersion. (See Ex. 17) It is strange; an Amalekite found nearest to the throne of Persia! The heart of the great monarch of that day turned towards him, to put him into a condition to act the old Amalekite part of defiance of God, and enmity against His people. We could not have looked for such a thing. This name, the name of Amalek, was to be put out from under heaven; and, from the days of David till now, I may say, this people had not been seen. But now they reappear, we scarcely know how; and that, too, in bloom and strength, as in a palmy hour.
This, again, I say, is strange, indeed. It is of one in resurrection; of one whose deadly wound was healed; “who was, and is not, and yet is.”
The Agagite now stands forth as the representative of the great enemy, the proud Apostate that withstands God, and His people, and His purposes. There has been such an one in every age; and he is the foreshadowing of that mighty apostate who is to fall in the day of the Lord. Nimrod, in the days of Genesis, represents him; Pharaoh, in Egypt; Amalek, in the Wilderness; Abimelech, in the time of the Judges; and Absalom, in the time of the Kings; Haman, here in the day of the dispersion; and Herod in the New Testament. Exaltation of self, infidel pride, and the defiance of the fear of God, with rooted enmity to His people, are, some or all, the marks on each of them; as such will be displayed, in a full form of daring, awful apostasy, in the person of the Beast who, with his confederates, falls in the presence of the Rider on the White Horse, in the day of the Lord, or the judgment of the quick. Prophets have told of him as “the king that is to do according to his own will;” as “Lucifer, son of the morning; “as “the Prince of Tyrus,” we may say; as “the fool that says in his heart there is no God;” and variously beside. And the Apocalypse of the Apostle shows him to us in the figure of a Beast, who had his Image set up for the worship and wonder of the whole world, and his mark as a brand in the forehead of every man; whose deadly wound was healed, who was, and is not, and yet is to be.
And further, we may notice, that the purpose, as well as the person of the great adversary, stands forth in this. great Haman. He must have the blood of all the Jews. His heart will not be satisfied by the life of the one who had refused to do Him reverence. He must have the lives of the whole nation. He breathes the spirit of the enemy of Israel, who by and bye is to say, “Come and let us cut them off from being a nation, that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.” (Psa. 83) The Amalekite and his company cast the lot, the Fur, only to determine the day on which this deed of extermination was to be perpetrated. But, as we know, the lot may be “cast into the lap, but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord.” (Prov. 16:33) And so was it here. Eleven long months, from the thirteenth day of the first month, to the thirteenth day of the twelfth month—that is, from the day when the lot was cast, to the day on which the lot decided that the slaughter of the nation should take place—are given, so that God would ripen His purposes both towards His people and their adversaries.
This has a clear, loud voice in our ears. There is no speech or language but the voice is heard. God is not even named; but it is the work of His hand, and the counsel of His bosom.
Haman finds no hindrance from the king his master. He tells the king that there is a people scattered through his dominions whom it is not his profit to let live, for their customs are diverse from all people-the secret of the world’s enmity then and still. (See Acts 16:20,21) The decree, according to the desire of Haman, goes forth from Shushan the palace; and it spreads its way in all haste to all parts of the world, the domain of the great Persian “breast of silver.” The whole nation, as the consequence of this, takes the sentence of death into themselves. The decree would have reached the returned captives, as well as the dispersion. Judaea was but a province of the Persian power in that day. But they are to learn to trust in Him who quickens the dead, who calls those things that be not, as though they were, who acts in this world, in resurrection-strength. The remnant of Israel must learn to walk in the steps of the faith of their father Abraham. It is faith that must be exercised; for “the Lord will not for awhile reveal Himself, though He thinks of them, and shelters them without displaying Himself.”
Mordecai now appears, as the representative of this Remnant, the possessor of this Abraham-like faith, in this awful hour.
The godliness of this dear and honored man begins to show itself, in his refusal to reverence the Amalekite. The common duty of worshipping only the true God, the God of Israel, would have forbidden this. And shall a Jew bow to one of that race with whom the God of the Jews had already said, that He would have war forever and ever bow to one who, instead of bowing himself to the Lord of heaven and earth, had even come forth to insult His presence and His majesty, and to cut off His people even before His face? Mordecai will jeopard his life by this refusal. But be it so. He is in the mind of his brethren Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who can say to an earlier Haman, “We are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.”
This is fine in its generation truly; but finer still from its connections. For combination constitutes excellency of character. We are “to quit ourselves like men”—and yet, “let all our things be done in charity.” In Him, who was all moral glory, as we have heard from others, there was “nothing salient”—all so perfectly combined. And in Mordecai we see this. We see “goodness,” and with that, “righteousness.” He was gracious, and tender-hearted, bringing up his orphan cousin, as though she had been his own daughter. But now, he is faithful and unbending. He will quit himself like a man now, if then he did all his things in charity. He will not bow and do reverence at the command of the king, though his life may be the penalty.