Esther.
In the book of Nehemiah we have the last look which scripture furnishes historically at the remnant in Jerusalem, justly subjected to the world-power for their apostasy from Jehovah, yet provisionally kept for Messiah's advent. Alas! as we know they rejected Him to their own rejection, the call of the Gentiles following, till mercy take the Jews up again at the end of the age, and they fall at the feet of Jesus Messiah in glory, after manifold judgments, when “all Israel shall be saved.”
Here we have another final view historically in the book of Esther; but it is in a quite different direction, for we have a picture of the secret providence which never fails to watch over them while they are scattered among the Gentiles. And this it is that accounts for no introduction of Jehovah or even Elohim in the book, which rationalistic ignorance alleges against its divine inspiration. Oh, the folly of heeding what these enemies of God (and therefore in divine things of man also) say about scripture! Were their learning and ability as great as they conceive for themselves and their school, nothing avails but faith for the true and spiritual intelligence of God's word. For their system excluding faith excludes God also, and is a constant crying up of man in any and every form; so that assuredly the issue is that the blind guides lead their blind followers into the ditch. Now to faith the absence of God's name is here in unexpected but exquisite harmony with the book, and its intrusion would not have been in perfect keeping with the secret working for the people (publicly Lo-ammi) preserved extraordinarily, while their enemies are completely foiled and overwhelmed. It stands alone from beginning to end the deeply interesting witness of One unseen and unnamed Who none the less surely works in the anomalous state of the Captivity, carrying out by seemingly nothing beyond human means the vindication of those who, faulty as the people had been, secretly feared Him, and the catastrophe of their adversary, though in possession of assured and boundless means to compass their destruction.
The readers of Baxter's “Saint's Rest” know that the author, on Sandys' authority, says the Jews used to fling the book of Esther to the ground, because God's name was not there. But J. C. Wolfii Biblio. Heb. 2:90 is opposed and imputes the act, where it may have been, to manifesting their abhorrence of Haman; for the book was notoriously venerated in the highest degree, however late in the Canon. Luther was as wrong about it as about the Epistle of James. The interpolations in the Greek V. gave it an unfavorable aspect to Athanasius and others who did not know Hebrew.
Short as the book is, it is full of the most surprising circumstances which crowd its scenes and entrance the least sensitive of readers from the first chapter to the close. Without a touch of romance, it is instinct with the life of the Persian empire at that day. Yet though it seem unique and exceptional on the surface, underneath we may discern the constant story of scripture, the war that never ceases, while man is tried in the ages and dispensations (allowed for the wisest purposes by Him Who could terminate it in a moment) between Him Who is good and righteous, and “the old serpent, the devil.” And in that it is in this world, though the springs be outside it and on high, we see in the book the godly Jew on the one hand who resists at all cost, and, not out of pride or personal feeling but uncompromising religious fidelity, refuses to honor the representative of a people with whom Jehovah swore from early days to have war from generation to generation. In Mordecai and Haman the question is here brought to issue, and the triumph of the chosen people is foreshown; not less is the shame and curse which will without a doubt fall on their enemies in the day that hastens. As Satan instigated the Amalekite to his exterminating hatred of God's fallen people, so He Who loved them notwithstanding all would punish condignly an enmity that began without cause against the object of His manifest favor.
It is remarkable, however, that while the book of Esther does not in its historical events transcend the provisional limits which characterize all the past captivity annals, it supposes that servitude to their Gentile masters to which apostate iniquity had reduced the people of God. But even in its most extreme form, outside the land, the temple, the sacrifices, and the priesthood, it demonstrates the surest action of divine providence on their behalf against their foes however deadly and powerful. We have also typical instruction which yields much more to the opened eye. He Who, though hidden and unmentioned, none the less does all things according to His sovereign will, does not fail to add very far beyond the living proof of watchful oversight, tender care, and overthrow of seemingly triumphant malice. For Vashti, in the typical point of view, by no means obscurely sets before faith the Gentile set aside because of insubjection to the supreme ruler, and this in that which He had so deeply at heart, the display of her beauty before the world; and the accomplishment of promise of old is in the call of Esther the Jewish bride to be the object of His love and the sharer of His earthly glory. This is the scheme that runs through the prophets as a whole, of which the things, here prefigured, are manifest characteristics: the everlasting overthrow of the dominion of the nations by divine judgment; the elevation of the earthly object of Jehovah's love, as set forth distinctly in the Psalms and Prophets, to say nothing of Canticles; and the administration for the Great King entrusted to Mordecai as the figure of the Lord Jesus.