The Dispersed Among the Gentiles
John Gifford Bellett
Table of Contents
The Dispersed Among the Gentiles: Part 1
In the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, on which I have already meditated, we saw the captives brought back to Jerusalem, there to await the coming of the Messiah, that it might be known, whether Israel would accept the Messenger and Savior whom God would send to them. In this book of Esther we are in a very different scene. The Jews are among the Gentiles still.
We will look at it in its succession of ten chapters; and in the action recorded we shall find—
The Lord God working wondrously, but secretly.
The Jews themselves.
The Gentile, or the power.
The great Adversary.
1, 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 2nd than the 1st chapter in the history of the Gentile's 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 before 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 he 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 others more worthy are 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 in which God Himself dwells. 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 so conspicuous in the ancestry, after the flesh, of David's Lord? And did not Samson 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 the 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.
The Dispersed Among the Gentiles: Part 2
The Jew, strange to say it, as we have seen, becomes important to the power, that is, to 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 chap. 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, with equal strangeness 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. Apparently it is 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, Haman is only second to him.
This is strange indeed, we may say. The great enemy of Israel, when Israel was in the wilderness, re-appears 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 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 re-appear, we scarcely know how; and that soon in bloom and strength, as in a palmy hour.
This, again, I say, is strange, indeed. It is of one in quasi-resurrection; of one whose deadly wound was healed; of one “who was, and is not, and shall be present.”
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 in a full form of daring awful apostasy, such will be displayed 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 such 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 saith 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 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-by 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 Pur, 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 towards both 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 unto themselves. The decree would have reached the returned captives, as well as the dispersion. Judea 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, yea, and to cut off His people before His face? Mordecai will jeopardize 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 tenderhearted, 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 things in charity. He will not bow and do reverence at the command of the king, though his life may be the penalty.
The Dispersed Among the Gentiles: Part 3
Esther 4-7
The various exercises of the soul in these chapters, as we see in Esther and Mordecai, are a matter of great interest. The hand and the Spirit of God work together so wondrously in the story of Israel, as we get it in the Psalms and in the Prophets: His Hand forming their circumstances; the Spirit, their mind. And these two things occupy a very large portion of the prophetic word. And we get living personal illustrations of this here, in the exercise of heart through which these two distinguished saints of God are seen to pass, and the marvelous circumstances through which they are brought.
Esther 4-5. On the issue of the fatal decree Mordecai fasts and mourns in sackcloth. But all the while he counts upon deliverance. Such a combination is full of moral glory. Elijah gave a sample of it in his day, for he knew the rain was at hand; but he casts himself down on the earth, and puts his face between his knees, as one in “effectual fervent prayer” (1 Kings 18, James 5:16-18). The Lord Himself gives another sample of this. He knows and testifies that He is about to raise Lazarus from sleep, the sleep of death; but He weeps as He approaches the grave. So here with Mordecai. He will not put off his mourning. He refuses to be comforted, while the decree is out against his people, though he reckons, surely reckons, upon their deliverance one way or another. This is another of those combinations which are necessary to character or moral glory; a sample of which I have already noticed in this true Israelite, this “Israelite indeed.”
And Esther is as beautiful in her generation, as a weaker vessel. She may have to be strengthened by Mordecai, but she is tenderly, deeply, in sympathy with the burdens of her nation. She sees difficulty, and feels dangers; and she speaks, for a time, from her circumstances. Nothing wrong in this. She tells Mordecai of the hazard she would run if she went into the royal presence unbidden. Nothing wrong, again I say, in thus speaking as from her circumstances, though there may be weakness. But Mordecai counsels her, as a stronger vessel; and he appears as one above both circumstances and affections, in the cause of God and His people. He sends a peremptory message to Esther, though he so loved her; and he is calm and of a firm heart in the midst of these dangers. He sits above water-floods in this way, in the dear might of Him who has trod all waves for us. There is neither leaven nor honey, as I may say, in the offering he is making: he confers not with flesh and blood, nor does he look at the waters swelling. His faith is in victory; and the weaker vessel is strengthened through him. Esther decides on going in unto the king. If she perish, she perishes; but she is edified to hazard all for her people. And yet, while she thus does not “faint” under the trial, neither will she “despise” it: for she will have Mordecai and her brethren wait in a humbled dependent spirit, so that she may receive mercy, and her way to the king's presence be prospered.
Accordingly, at the end of the fast, which they agreed on for three days, she takes her life in her hand, and stands in the inner court of the king's house, while the king was sitting on his royal throne. But kings' hearts are in the hand of the Lord; and so it proves to be here. Esther obtains favor in the sight of Ahasuerus, and he holds out the golden scepter to her.
This was everything. This told of the issue of the whole matter. All hung upon the motion of the golden scepter. It was the Spirit of God, the counsel and good-pleasure, the sovereignty and grace of God, that ordered all this. The nation was already saved. The scepter had decided everything in favor of the Jews and to the confusion of their adversaries, be they as high and mighty, as many and as subtle, as they may. God had taken the matter into His own hand; and if He be for us, who shall be against us? “Thou shalt be far from oppression,” the Lord was now saying to His Israel, “for thou shalt not fear; and from terror, for it shall not come nigh thee. Behold, they shall surely gather together, but not by me; whosoever shall gather together against thee shall fall for thy sake. Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the water to destroy. No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn” (Isa. 54).
Esther drew near and touched the scepter. She used the grace that had visited her; but used it reverently and the scepter was true to itself. It awakened no hope that it was not now ready to realize. It had already spoken peace to her; and peace, and far more than peace, shall be made good to her. “What wilt thou, queen Esther?” says Ahasuerus to her, “and what is thy request? It shall be given to thee, even to the half of the kingdom.”
Very blessed this is. The scepter, again let us say, was true to itself. What a truth is convoyed in this! The promise of God, the work of the Lord Jesus, is as this scepter. Those have gone before—pledges under the hand and from the mouth of our God, and eternity shall be true to them; and endless ages of glory, witnessing salvation, shall make them good. Nothing is too great for the redeeming of such pledges: as here, the half of the king's dominions are laid at the feet and disposal of Esther.
But her dealing with the opportunity, thus put into her possession, is one of the most excellent and wondrous fruits of the light and energy of the Spirit that we see in the midst of the many wonders of this book in all the workmanship of God's great hand.
Instead of asking for the half of the kingdom, instead of desiring at once the head of the great Amalekite, she requests that the king and Haman may come to a banquet of wine which she had prepared for them. Strange, indeed! Who could have counted on such an acceptance of such an unlimited pledge and promise? It brings to mind the answer of the divine Master, of Him who is “the wisdom of God,” to the Samaritan woman. She asked for the living water, and He told her to go call her husband! Strange, it would appear, beyond all explanation. But, as we know, it was a ray of the purest light breaking forth from the Fountain of light. And so here. This answer of Esther was strange, indeed. But it will be found to have been nothing less than the witness of the perfect wisdom of the Spirit that was now illuminating and leading her. It was the way of conducting the great adversary onward to the full ripening of his apostasy, to his attaining that mighty elevation in pride and self-satisfaction, from the which the hand of God had prepared from the beginning to cast him clown. Esther, under the Spirit, was dealing with Haman, as the hand of God had once dealt with Pharaoh in Egypt. The vessel of wrath had again fitted itself for judgment; and he must fall from a pinnacle up to which his own lusts and the god of this world are urging his stops. Esther is the instrument in God's hands for giving him occasion thus to fill out the full form of his apostasy. Esther shows herself wonderfully in the secret of all this. She bids Haman and the king, the second day, as well as the first—only these two together; and when this was done, the giddy height was reached from which the apostate is destined to fall.
He cannot stand all this. It is too much for him. His heart is overcharged; gratified pride has satiated it. He cannot contain himself; but corruption drives him in the way of nature—a sad verdict against nature. But so it is. It was natural, that he should expose all his glories to his wife and his friends. Flesh and blood can appreciate it; and pride must have as many courtiers and votaries as it can. And it must have its victims likewise. Mordecai still refuses to bow; and a gallows, fifty cubits high, is raised that he may be hanged thereon.
Esther 6-7
Every secret thing must reach its day of manifestation. The word which Mordecai told the king about Teresh and Bigthana, the chamberlains, though Hitherto forgotten or neglected, must now be remembered. The tears and the kisses, and the spikenard of the loving sinner in Luke vii., and the corresponding slights of the Pharisee, are passed in silence for a moment; but they are all brought to light ere the scene closes. For there is nothing hid that shall not come abroad. God lets nothing pass. Mordecai's act shall not always be forgotten. It shall be recognized, and that too in the very face of his great adversary; as the sinner's loving acts were all rehearsed in the hearing of her accusers (Luke 7:36-50).
The night after Queen Esther's first banquet was a sleepless one to Ahasuerus. For, as God gives His beloved sleep, so does He at times hold the eyes waking to them by thoughts of the head upon the bed. By sending instruction through meditations in the night-season, He deals with the hearts of the children of men. So here with the Persian. The sleepless king calls for the records of the kingdom, the depository of the act of Mordecai; and he there reads about the act which had now happened some years before. And as it is true of man, that all that he has he will give for his life, so now the king, on the sudden unexpected discovery of the act of Mordecai, by which his life had been preserved, deems nothing too high or honorable for him.
Here, however, we may pause for a moment, and consider the wonderful interweaving of circumstances which we get in this history. There is plot and underplot, wheel within wheel, as the expression is, circumstance hanging upon circumstance; and each and all formed together to work out the wonderful works of God.
There is, in this story, the marvelous re-appearance of both the Jew and the Amalekite. Strange phenomena indeed! Who would have thought it, as I have said before? The Jew and the Amalekite reproduced in the distant realms of Persia, and in divers places of favor and authority round the throne there! Then there is Vashti's temper and Esther's beauty meeting at the same moment. There is the fact of Mordecai being the one to overhear the plot against the life of the king. There is the lot deciding on a day for the slaughter of Israel, eleven months distant, so that there may be time for counsels to ripen, and changes to take place. There is the heart of the king moved to hold out the golden scepter to Esther. And then we see the king's sleeplessness, and his thoughts guided to the records of the chronicles. And now, again, we see Haman entering the court of the palace at this peculiar juncture.
What threading together of warp and woof in all this! What intertwining of circumstances, and the production of a curious texture of many colors! And yet, as we have seen and said already, God all the while is unseen and unnamed.
Very blessed! Pleased with the work of His own hand, and in the counsels of His own mind, the Lord can be hid for a time, unpublished, uncelebrated. And we are called, in our way, to that which is like this. We are to prove our own work, to have rejoicing in ourselves alone, and not in another, without uttering our secrets, or gathering the regards of our fellows. And truly great this is, to work unseen, to serve unnoticed. Deep counsels of that wisdom which knows the end from the beginning, and wondrous working of that hand which can turn even the hearts of kings as it pleases.
Haman falls. What a day may bring forth, we commonly say, who can tell? We see it to be so in his history. Zeresh and his friends have to receive, ere the second day's banquet begins, a different Haman from him whom they had greeted after the close of the first. Haman falls, and falls indeed. But over this we must tarry for a little, that we may take knowledge of the character of this great fact, so important is it in setting forth the judgment of God:
1. Haman's greatness was allowed so to flourish and ripen, that he might fall in the hour of highest pride and daring.
This is very instructive, for this has been God's way, and is so still. The builders of the tower of Babel were allowed to go on with their work, till they made it a wonder. Nebuchadnezzar was given time to finish his great city. The beast of the Apocalypse will prosper till the whole world wonder after him. So here, Haman is borne with till he sits on the pinnacle. Then, in the moment of proudest elevation, the judgment of God visits all these. Herod, as another such, was smitten of God, and died, as the people were listening to him, and saying, “It is the voice of a god, and not of a man” (see Psa. 37:34-36).
2. He is caught in his own trap. The honor is given to Mordecai which he had prepared for himself; and the gallows which he had prepared for Mordecai, he hangs thereon himself.
This still instructs us; for this has been God's way, and will be so still. Daniel's accusers are cast themselves into the den which they had prepared for him; and the flame of the fire slew those men who took up the children of the captivity to cast them into the furnace. And so it is foretold of the adversaries and apostates of the last days in this world's history. “Their own iniquity shall be brought upon them” (Psa. 7; 9; 10; 35; 57; 141, etc.) Satan himself, who has the power of death, is destroyed through death.
3. He falls suddenly.
So with the last great enemy. The judgment of God is to be like a thief in the night, like the lightning that cometh out of the east and shineth to the west. “In one hour,” it is said of the Apocalyptic Babylon, “is she made desolate.” The judgments on the world before the flood, and on the cities of the plain, were such also; “like figures,” with this fall of the Agagite, of a judgment still to be executed.
4. He falls completely, utterly destroyed. So with the great enemy, and the course of this present world with him.
The children of Judas cut off (Psa. 109), the little ones of Edom dashed against the stones (Psa. 137), Haman's sons, all hanged after himself—these illustrate for our learning the utter downfall and annihilation of all that now offends; the clearing out of all by the besom of divine judgment. The “millstone” of Rev. 18 tells us this, and prophecy upon prophecy has long ago announced it.
Full of typical significancy, in all the features that signalize it, is the fall of the great Amalekite. We live in such an hour of the world's history, as renders it specially significant and instructive to us. We are, day by day, seeing the Lord allowing the purposes of the world to ripen themselves, gradually to unfold their marvelous and varied attractions, and its whole system to make progress, till it again, like the tower of Babel of old, draw down the penal visitation of heaven; and that, too, in a moment, suddenly, to do its work of judgment completely, when (blessed to tell it!) not a trace of man's world shall remain, his pride and wantonness, with all their fruit, shall be withered and gone, and such a world as is lit for the presence of the Lord of glory shall then shine.
The Dispersed Among the Gentiles: Part 4
Esther 8-10
We close this Book with the deliverance of the Jews in the very moment when destruction was awaiting them, and with their exaltation in the kingdom, and the celebration of their joy.
Mysterious workmanship of the hand of God! The Amalekite, the great adversary, cast down in the moment of his proudest elevation, and utterly cut off; the Jew, his purposed and expected victim, when there was but a step between him and death, delivered, then favored and honored, and seated next to the throne in rank and authority!
What a history! True in every circumstance of it, typical in every circumstance of it also; significant of those last days in the history of the Jew and of the earth, of which prophets have spoken again and again, the downfall of the man of the earth, and the exaltation of God's people in His own kingdom!
Mordecai, instead of being any longer at the king's gate, now comes before the king and takes his ring, the seal of office and of authority, from his finger. Thus is the Jew translated at the end. All scripture prepares us for this; and here it is illustrated. Here the historic scriptures of the Old Testament end, and here, as in a type, the history of the earth ends.
I may say, that the leading principal characteristics in the story of Israel are these, as we read it in the prophets—
1. The present casting off of that nation, and the hiding of the divine countenance from them; and yet, their providential preservation in the midst of the Gentiles.
2. The present election of a remnant among them, and that repentance at the last, which leads them, nationally, to the kingdom.
3. The judgment of their adversaries and oppressors, with the especial downfall of their great infidel enemy.
4. Their deliverance, exaltation, and blessing in kingdom-days, with their leadership of the nations.
These are among the great things of the prophets; and these things are found in this little book of Esther. So that, again, I may say, this last Old Testament historic notice of the people of Israel pledges and typifies their present preservation all through this age of Gentile supremacy, and their glory in the last days, when the judgment of their enemies shall be accomplished.
Certain detached features of the coming millennial kingdom are likewise exhibited here. The fear of the Jews falls on their enemies, on those that were round about them; and they are restrained from all attempts to do them harm. Such had been seen in the palmy days of the nation, and such is promised by the prophets to be their portion again. Shushan, the capital of the Gentile world in that day, rejoices in the exaltation of the Jew; as all scripture tells us, the whole world will rejoice under the shadow of the throne of Israel in the time of the coming kingdom. Many of the people of the land became Jews, as we read the like thing in the prophets again and again. Thus, for instance, “Many people shall go, and say, Come ye and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, and He will teach us of. His ways, and we will walk in His paths; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” The throne that had exalted the Jew, and put down his oppressor, exercises universal dominion, laying a tribute upon the land, and upon the isles of the sea; as we know that, by and by, the king in Zion “shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth.”
And here, let me add, that Ahasuerus represents power, royal authority, in the earth. He then filled the throne that was supreme among the nations. He was “the power,” and represents, mystically or in shadow, the power that will be in a divine head in the day of the kingdom. It is so, I grant, that power in the hand of this Persian is first exorcised in evil; serving, as he did, the wicked designs of Haman, though now he is exalting the righteous. Still, he represents power, royal authority in the earth. Just like Solomon in Jerusalem, he did evil personally; he may have repented; but still his personal ways were evil as well as good. Nevertheless, in a general typical way, he represented power, and was the shadow of Christ on the throne of glory, that throne that is to rule the world in righteousness.
Full of mysterious beauty and meaning all this is. Those days of Ahasuerus and of Mordecai were days of Solomon and of prophecy, coming millennial days, days of the kingdom of God in the earth and among the nations. They were as the days of Joseph in Egypt. Mordecai in Persia was as Joseph in Egypt—the first historic book, and the last, in the Old Testament, giving us these varied but kindred notices that will come in upon the close and judgment of the kingdoms of the Gentiles.
The days of Purim celebrate all this. They constitute triumph after the victory, the joy of the kingdom upon the establishment of the kingdom. The Jews took on them, according to the word of Mordecai and Esther, to make the 14th and 15th days of the twelfth month, the month Adar, days of feasting and joy, because they rested therein from their enemies, and their mourning was turned to gladness, and light, and honor. They were a kind of Passover, celebrating deliverance from the land of Persia, as that feast did from the land of Egypt; or, if we would rather have it so, Purim was another song on the Red Sea, or another song of Deborah and Barak on the fall of the Canaanite. And it rehearses the song yet to be sung on the sea of glass in Rev. 15; or again, I say, if we would rather have it so, the joy of Israel in coming kingdom-days, when they shall draw water out of the wells of salvation (Isa. 12). Indeed the Psa. 124 and 126 prepared as they are for future days of Israel's glory and joy, breathe the very spirit that must have animated Israel in this present day of Mordecai and Esther. It is beautiful to trace all this, to see these rehearsals again and again, as we go on the way, waiting for the full chorus of eternal harmonies in the presence of glory by and by. The infant church in Acts 4, in this spirit, breathes and utters the second Psalm, prepared as that Psalm is for the day when God's king sits upon the hill of Zion, after the enemy has perished, and the kings of the earth have learned to bow before Him. The blessed God is pleased with His own works: “For thy pleasure they were and were created.” He, therefore, preserves, the work of His hands as their Creator. He is pleased with the counsels of His grace and wisdom. He has, therefore, preserved to this day the nation or people of the Jews, and will preserve them till the fruit of His counsels displays itself in His kingdom. And His kingdom thus will rise on the ruins and judgment of the nations; and Christ's world, “the world to come,” shine in brightness, and purity, and blessing, after the folding up and passing away of “this present evil world.”
This coming kingdom, this millennial world, is spoken of in all forms of speech by the prophets; but it has also been set forth in all forms of samples, and parcels, and specimens of it, in broken pieces of history from the beginning: as here we have seen it showing itself at the end of the Book of Esther. Ordinances, prophecies, and histories, in their several ways, have been doing this service.
Ere the antediluvian saints pass away, the spirit of prophecy speaks through Lamech, and addresses, as to them, a word of promise touching the earth; that therein, in due season, there should be comfort instead of curse (Gen. 5).
In Noah, as in the new world, we see an illustration of this prophecy of Lamech's; for after the judgment of the deluge, the earth rises again as in new or resurrection-form; and a pledge, a foreshadowing, of millennial days is before us.
The land of Egypt, under the government of Joseph, is a “like figure.”
Under the law, we have a shadow of the same millennial rest in the weekly sabbath—in the annual feast of tabernacles—in the jubilee every fiftieth year.
For a moment, in the day of Joshua, when the tribes of Israel had entered the land, kept the Passover as a circumcised people, and then ate unleavened cakes of the corn of the land, we see, in another form the same happy mystery witnessed to us (Josh. 5)
After this, the palmy reign of Solomon in a more extended form, in a full and rich manner, tells us the like secret.
And, indeed, I might have noticed the meeting of Jethro with the ransomed Israel on the mount of God, in wilderness-days, was (though in a different form) the foreshadowing of the same coming day of glory (Ex. 18).
And so now, in dispersion-days, as I may speak, we have the same; as we see at the close of this Book of Esther.
Prophecies upon prophecies accompany these ordinances and these histories; so that, in the mouth not only of many but of various witnesses, the kingdom that is still to be set up, and the glory that is still to be revealed, are verified to us. These are rehearsals of the great, the magnificent, issues of the counsels of God, of that purpose which shall be manifested in “the dispensation of the fullness of times.”
The New Testament gives us like illustrations and promises. The transfiguration tells us of it. The regeneration or Palingenesia tells us of it. The action in the Apocalypse first makes way for it; and then, at the end, it shines in our sight, when the holy city descends from heaven bearing the glory of God with it, and when the millennial nations walk in the light of it.
Thus, the close of Esther finds itself in company with things from the very beginning to the very end, and all through the volume, all through the actings and sayings of God in the progress of this world's history. It is wonderful. What a witness of the writings that were to be found in scripture! What a proof of the breathing of the same Spirit in all the parts of it! How it tells us, that “known unto God are all His works from the beginning of the world"! We fill our own place, and occupy our own moment, in this great plan. J. G. B.
The Dispersed Among the Gentiles: Part 5
Having read the books of Ezra and Nehemiah by themselves, as the story of the returned captives, and the book of Esther by itself as the story of the dispersed captives, we would now meditate on them together for a few moments. They give us, as we see, two distinct companies of captives, or two sections of the Jews. They illustrate different parts of the divine counsel and wisdom touching that people; and teach us lessons very important for our souls thoroughly to learn.
In each of these scenes, in the midst of each of these sections of the people of God, we have, so to speak, a separate platform erected for the exhibition of several or separate portions of God's ways and dealings with them.
The returned captives are brought home and left in the land, in order that they may be tested again; for to test His people, though in different ways, had been God's way from the beginning. Israel had already been tested by the gift of power. They had received a fat and good land, and been led on as from strength to strength, till they had flourished into a kingdom; a kingdom which had drawn the eyes of the kings of the earth, and was the admiration of the world.
But they had been untrue to this stewardship. They had abused the power entrusted to them, and were rebellious against the supreme rights of Him who had thus set them up, and ordained them as chief and metropolitan in the earth. And accordingly, or consequently, power, supremacy in the earth or principal authority among the nations, was taken from them and given to the Gentiles.
Now, however, they are at home again. The captivity to which their unfaithfulness had led is over, and there is a section of the people at home in the land of their fathers again. For it is the divine purpose to test them by another test. God is about to send Messiah to them. His mission and ministry is to be in healing mercy, a proposal of the grace that brings salvation, that it may be known, whether they have an answer to the appeals of love, since they have already proved that they had no fidelity to Him who had entrusted them with power.
This is what we read in the fact of Israel's (or Judah's) return from Babylon. They are Jews again in their own land. Accordingly, as soon as they get home again, they behave themselves as Jews. They keep the ordinances—they raise the national altar—they rebuild the temple—they keep themselves apart from the heathens—they read the scriptures—they observe the way of the God of Israel, as far as subjection to power in the hand of the Gentile will admit it. And the God of Israel owns them. He blesses them. He shelters them. He may exercise them in faith and patience; but still He is with them. As of old, He gives them leaders and deliverers and teachers; sends to them His prophets; and grants them days of revival, days of the new moon in the seventh month.
We know all this, indeed. This was, it is true, a kind of reformation in their religions history. No idolatry is practiced by them after this; but other corruptions rapidly set in and worked, as not only the books of Ezra and Nehemiah themselves she w us, but more particularly the prophecy of Malachi. And the opening of the New Testament scriptures confirms this; for the Gospel by Matthew lets us see clearly and fully, that the returned captives were deeply unbelieving; as untrue to the doctrines and proposals of goodness, as their fathers had been to the stewardship of power. “He came to His own, and His own received Him not."
This is so, indeed. And as, when they had been untrue to power, power was given over to the Gentiles, so now, since they are untrue to grace, grace is given over to the whole world; for the gospel is preached and the salvation of God is held up in the eyes of the ends of the earth.
And strikingly consistent and beautiful this progress in the ways of divine wisdom, or of God's dispensations. All testing ends in failure, and God must act for us and not with us. This fresh trial, by the ministry of Messiah, only proves, as by the mouth of another witness, that man is incorrigible and in curable. Every effort to make something of him, or to do something with him, leads him out to another exposure of himself, till he is left naked to his shame. The kingdom is not entered by a tested creature, even though grace test him. Judgment as of “reprobate silver” is the result of the process. “The bellows are burnt, the lead is consumed of the fire, the founder melteth in vain."
Yes, indeed, he must be saved by grace, and not merely tested by it. The first advent of Messiah, or the proposal of salvation, did not lead Israel into the kingdom; it has left them a judged people scattered and peeled, unsaved and unblest, only condemned upon a fuller conviction than ever.
We turn, however, to another scene. We are to consider another section of the people, the dispersed and not the returned. For in them is erected another platform, as I may still speak, for the illustration of God's way. We shall see them as the pledges and witnesses, not of a tested but of a saved people, saved through sovereign grace, and led into the kingdom.
This people had not availed themselves of the opportunity they had of returning home. This is a standing witness against them. They remained among the uncircumcised. They acted the part of the raven in Noah's ark. They seemed to take up with the unclean world. They are as Gentiles, we may say; we see no feasts or ordinances, or word of God among them. But I grant they are Jews still. And grace abounds towards them. In the midst of the Gentiles they are still kept alive—another unconsumed burning bush. Jehovah is not seen to be acknowledging them, as He was acknowledging their brethren who had returned to Jerusalem. Still He has His eye upon them, and they are kept alive; and that, too, till the due time comes for His rising up to deal with them in a way of which all His prophets have spoken.
All this we see in Esther, that wondrous book which closes the historic volume of the Old Testament.
A remnant is seen there. God deals with them marvelously both by His hand and Spirit; but He is unmanifested. We have seen this, when meditating on Esther. And we further traced God's way with Israel in all those eras of their history, when they were in an informal anomalous state. As instanced in the marriage of Joseph with an Egyptian, of Moses with a daughter of Midian, and the like, and Esther's marriage with Ahasuerus the Persian. For this was as the way of God Himself with them: when they were untrue to Him, He went over to others. Power first, as we have seen, and now grace and salvation, have gone over to others, since Israel was disobedient and unwilling. How consistent all this is! What constancy and perfection and unity in the ways of His holy wisdom! His brethren were untrue to Joseph, and cast him out. He married and became important in Egypt. His brethren wore untrue to Moses, and forced him away; he married and became happy in Midian. His people were untrue to Jehovah; and He gave power to the Gentiles. His own were untrue to Messiah, rejecting, not receiving Him; and He now dispenses grace and salvation to the whole world.
Surely the Lord knows the end from the beginning. Surely His way is before Him.
“His wisdom ever waketh,
His sight is never dim,
He knows the way He taketh,
And I will walk with Him”
Oh for grace to say this and to do it! And to walk with Him, too, along the path of His wisdom, and the ways of His dispensations, as from glory to glory, to “walk in the light as He is in the light.”
And fresh wonders still shew themselves to us on these two platforms, in the story of the Returned, and in the story of the Dispersed.
As I have already observed, Malachi begins to intimate what will be the end of the returned or tested captives. All will fail, as all has failed. The New Testament Scriptures affirm the intimation of Malachi. The Evangelists make good the hints and notices of the Prophets. But Esther gives us to know what will be the dispersion, or of that portion which remained among the Gentiles. They will finally be taken up in sovereign grace, carried through “the great tribulation,” and by that road into the kingdom. In that story, or on that platform, we see the nation of the Jews brought to the eve and on the brink of utter destruction, rescued by the wonder-working hand of God, and then seated in the high places of honor, of influence, and of authority, by the Power that rules the earth, all their enemies either judged and taken out of the way, or seeking their favor and blessing.
These are the secrets we are instructed in, in these books, or in these two scenes of various action. Man is tested and fails; the sinner is taken up in grace and saved.
And these are the secrets we have been set down to learn from the beginning; and we are destined, blessedly destined to celebrate them forever. Man is exposed, God is displayed. Man is thoroughly made naked to his shame; God is exalted in the highest order of exaltation, and displayed in the brightest light of glory.
It was thus in the story of Adam at the very beginning. He was tested, and under the testing he failed, and destroyed himself; he was then taken up in grace, and saved through the death and resurrection of Christ—by faith in the bruised and bruising Seed of the woman.
It was thus again in Israel. Israel was set under law. But the shadows of good things to come accompanied the law. Under their own covenant, under the law, Israel, like Adam, was ruined. But God acts in the midst of the self-destroyed people, the self-wrought ruin; and by ordinances and prophecies and pledges of many kinds He has ever been telling them of final grace and salvation.
And now, in like manner, the gospel thoroughly exposes us, but fully, presently, perfectly, eternally, saves us. And through the ages of glory, it will be told out that we are a washed people, a ransomed people, who owe everything to grace and redemption, though glorified forever.
So that these two platforms, the scene in the midst of the returned captives, and the scene in the midst of the dispersed captives, are in company with all the divine way from the beginning, and with that which is to be had in remembrance and celebrated forever. Only we marvel afresh at this new witness of the way of God, His necessary perfect way, in a world like this.
How complete all this makes the divine historic volume of the Old Testament! That volume ends here; and we are well satisfied to have it so.
The was of the Lord Himself in this book is specially wonderful. Apparently He is neglectful of His people. He is “silent” towards them. He does not show Himself There is no miracle. His people, even in all the exercises of their hearts under the most pressing circumstances, never mention Him. Surely this is wonderful. But it is admirable as well as wonderful. It is perfect in its place and season. For during this present Gentile age God is apart from Israel, like Joseph in Egypt, or Moses in Midian, apart from their brethren, as I have already noticed; yea, and as many voices of the prophets have anticipated (see Psa. 74; Isa. 8:17; 45:15; 18:4; Hos. 5:15, etc.). And the Lord Jesus, speaking as the God of Israel at the close of His ministry, says to them, “Behold your house is left unto you desolate; for I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord” (Matt. 23:38, 39)!
But He cares for them. Their names are in the palm of His hand. He revokes not the judgment; but He will, in due time, awake for their deliverance. It is Jesus asleep in the boat, winds and waves tossing it. But in the needed time He awoke, and rose for the quieting of all that, which, swelling in its anguish, was raging against them.
Hail to the Lord's anointed,
Great David's greater Son!
When to the time appointed
The rolling years have run,
He comes to break oppression,
To set the captive free,
To take away transgression,
And rule in equity.
(Conclusion)
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