Chapter 9:20-32.
THE day comes when the enemies of God and His people shall fall, not by providential means only, but by predicted inflictions of extraordinary and unprecedented character, and finally by the manifest intervention and presence of the Judge Himself. But there will be another immense change antecedent of a spiritual nature. A residue, which in due time will be constituted a strong nation or its nucleus, will be humbled in heart and accept of the punishment of their iniquity, and instead of being as now since Pentecost added together as part of the church of God, will return (as Micah says) “unto the children of Israel.” For the times will have then arrived to form afresh the broken links, and to prove publicly that God has not cast away His people, nor abandoned the land of His promise and oath to the patriarchs, but will fulfill every pledge of blessing to and in them completely and forever. “For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.”
What we have in the book of Esther is no more than the witness of secret providence in the face of the extremest dangers looking onward to that grand public issue, and meanwhile yielding a striking and standing ordinance of Him Who delivers though unseen.
“And Mordecai wrote these things, and sent letters unto all Jews that were in all the provinces of king Ahasuerus, both nigh and far, to enjoin them that they should keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar, and the fifteenth day of the same, yearly, as the days wherein the Jews had rest from their enemies, and the month which was turned unto them from sorrow to gladness, and from mourning into a good day: that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, and of sending portions one to another, and gifts to the poor.
“And the Jews undertook to do as they had begun, and as Mordecai had written unto them; because Haman the son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had devised against the Jews to destroy them, and had cast Pur, that is, the lot, to consume them, and to destroy them; but when it [or Esther] came before the king, he commanded by letters that his wicked device, which he devised against the Jews, should return upon his own head; and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows. Wherefore they called these days Purim, after the name of Pur. Therefore because of all the words of this letter, and [of that] which they had seen concerning this matter, and that which had come unto them, the Jews ordained and took upon them and upon their seed, and upon all such as joined themselves unto them, so that it should not fail, that they would keep these two days according to the writing thereof, and according to the appointed time thereof, every year; and [that] these days [should be] remembered and kept throughout every generation, every family, every province, and every city; and [that] these days of Purim should not fail from among the Jews, nor the memorial of them perish from their seed. And Esther the queen, the daughter of Abihail, and Mordecai the Jew, wrote with all authority to confirm this second letter of Purim. And he sent letters unto all the Jews, to the hundred twenty and seven provinces of the kingdom of Ahasuerus, words of peace and truth, to confirm these days of Purim in their appointed times, according as Mordecai the Jew and Esther the queen had enjoined them, and as they had decreed for themselves and for their seed, [in] the matters of the fastings and their cry. And the commandment of Esther confirmed these matters of Purim; and it was written in the book” (ver. 20-32).
Here again, it will be noticed, the book cleaves to its sincerely impressed character, and not even then is He named Whom ordinarily and naturally it were the highest duty to proclaim. Yet is the utter difference made plain in man's word; for the Talmud lays down that at the feast of Purim a man should drink till he knew not the difference between “Blessed be Mordecai,” and “Cursed be Haman.” “Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils; for wherein is he to be accounted of?” Judaism, and Christendom where Christ is ignored, each sinking into the driest ditch of heathenism, both dare to sanction a reveling carnival where had been a holy feast.