The book of Esther, perhaps little read, and in which, as has been often remarked, the name of God is not once to be met with, is nevertheless part of the canon of Scripture.
Its purport is to record how God interfered providentially to preserve alive the Jews, when threatened with extermination by the decree of Ahasuerus, issued at the suggestion of the wicked Haman. Scattered abroad as exiles from their land, because they had sinned against God when they dwelt in it, He nevertheless placed His protecting shield over them, and put His arm around them, —a fact full of comfort for them in all their subsequent wanderings and vicissitudes. And we, who understand the secret history of matters, looking deeper than the surface, can discover whose malice it was that counseled that blow aimed at their very existence, which, however, was more than parried by the merciful interference of their God. Haman and Mordecai are figures on the stage, but the devil was acting behind the scenes, attempting again, what he had before tried in Egypt, to extirpate the people from off the face of the earth.
But why this persistent opposition to a feeble and defenseless people, dwelling a second time among strangers? Had the devil succeeded in his design, God’s saving grace would never have been known. Had the Jews been then exterminated, the Saviour God had promised could never have appeared. Of the seed of Abraham, of the house of David, the Lord Jesus Christ was to spring. Had that line then been cut off before the time arrived for the Messiah to be born, the hopes of man must have withered, and the prospects of blessing for earth have been blighted forever. In Egypt this was attempted by the decree to destroy all the male infants. God frustrated that design, and reared up in the very family of Pharaoh the instrument by whom He would afterward chastise the Egyptians. After the Lord’s birth, another effort was made to hinder the accomplishment of God’s purpose. By the flight into Egypt, however, the blow aimed by Herod failed to reach his intended victim. But Satan has not forgotten the birth of the Lord, nor the nation’s connection with Him after the flesh. And by and by Israel will feel the effects of his great wrath, when, unable to kill the child, he will seek to destroy the woman (Revelation 12). One understands then the real cause why the existence of the Jews was imperiled under Ahasuerus, as well as the great issue at stake. Ostensibly it was politically wise for the king, as suggested by Haman, to grant that decree. In reality, unless God had interposed, it would have consigned all mankind to a doom, which, though just, would have been irreversible. Little suspected the king, as he sat to drink with Haman, the deep and awful meaning of that day’s work, as far as men were concerned.
But “the counsel of the Lord standeth forever, the thoughts of His heart to all generations” (Psalms 33:11). God’s purpose about the Lord cannot be frustrated. He will gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are on earth and which are in heaven. He will judge, too, the world by Him, and has already appointed a day (Ephesians 1:10, Acts 17:31). These, and other statements of the word, acquaint us with God’s plans, bound up as they are with the future in store for His Son; and not all the wisdom of Egypt’s counselors, the malicious cunning of Haman, nor the savage cruelty of Herod, could overthrow, or even arrest, the fulfillment of the eternal counsels of God. A comforting reflection is this for His saints, a most solemn consideration it should be for His enemies.
How incompetent is man, fallen or unfallen, to be entrusted with the destiny of his soul! Adam and Eve, for the pleasure of the moment, coupled with the expectation of being like God, forfeited all blessing for the future, with their life, as well as intercourse in innocence with Jehovah, their Creator. Pharaoh, for fear of Israel turning traitor during any invasion of the land, and asserting their independence, and escaping from Egypt, proposed to kill all their male children when born. Ahasuerus, to gratify his favorite, handed over the chosen people to be slaughtered by their enemies. Herod, to save a dynasty, would have irretrievably ruined the race. Such is man, so easily made a tool of by his most inveterate foe, acting, as he vainly imagines, for his own best interest; state policy, or self-preservation constraining him to follow a course, which to him even would otherwise probably be indefensible, yet really compassing his own ruin, and dragging down with himself, unless God interpose, the whole human race to the pit of everlasting destruction.
But another point comes out in this book, to which let me invite the reader’s attention, and that is the illustration, afforded us by the Jews, of faith in the word of the One on the throne.
Haman’s hatred of Mordecai was just as deep and bitter before, as after the decree for the slaughter of the Jews was issued. Till it was issued, however, the lives and the property of the Jews were as safe as those of any other of the subjects of the great king. But, the knowledge that such a decree was signed, to them changed everything. Haman’s enmity they might have heard about, and yet might have lived without allowing the wrath of the Agagite to disquiet their hearts; but the written decree of the king, authenticated by his seal, who could withstand? This all classes understood, whether personally affected by it or not. For, though Ahasuerus and Haman could turn to their carousal, satisfied with their day’s work, the city of Shushan was perplexed, Mordecai put on sackcloth with ashes, and throughout, the king’s extensive dominions, wherever the decree reached, there was great mourning among the Jews, and fasting, and weeping and wailing, and many lay in sackcloth and ashes. What a change had come over the—city, and produced by what I—the written word of the king!
The day of their doom, however, was yet distant; for the decree, signed on the thirteenth day of the first month, was not to come into operation till the thirteenth day of the twelfth month. Could they not then eat, drink, and be merry for a time, without taking it so much to heart just at first? Why not enjoy life still, and put off, till nearer the day, the thought of what was impending? Impossible. Death was before them, destruction awaited them, let them talk as they might. The thirteenth day of the month Adar was, it was true, still some way off; but what mattered that, if the day would infallibly arrive ‘? The fatal decree had been signed and published; and, though they had at Shushan a year of grace, the day of their doom was fixed. If they believed the king’s writing, how could they be otherwise than sad and distressed? What a view of life on earth, we may well believe, many must have got, if living in enjoyment and pleasure before? What availed a few months of pleasure here, if destruction awaited them at the end of the year? Doubtless some became earnest now, who before had been as butterflies on a summer’s day, enjoying the brightness of the moment, without contemplating the possibility of death cutting short their career. Would such a life do still? Ah, no! The possibility of escaping their doom would be now the pressing thought, and no longer how to kill time, and how to make the days pass happily and quickly enough. And were they foolish to be aroused and concerned at that decree? The issue indeed justified their concern, and men will all agree they did well to be disquieted, and to mourn.
But supposing they had taken up other ground, and discredited its existence, would that have saved them? They would not in that case have fasted. Sorrow would not have clouded their joys, and Esther might never have known of the king’s fatal missive, till the morning arrived for its execution, and his palace floor had been stained by her blood. All might have been spared many hours of anxiety, but none would have been preserved from the extermination which threatened them. Or, supposing they had adopted a different course, and, whilst admitting the genuineness of the decree, had taken no steps to avert its execution, trusting to the general clemency and merciful character of their king; in that case also, they would not have fasted; but would not their seeming gaiety and thoughtlessness have been at times intruded upon, as by an. unwelcome guest, with the fear that perhaps after all they might be sleeping on the brink of a volcano? And what would have been the final result under such circumstances? Irretrievable ruin for their race. Incredulity, and continued procrastination, would have been alike fatal.
The decree was issued against all the Jews, so all were involved in the ruin it legalized and commanded. The palace at Shushan would not afford a sanctuary, nor the king’s harem a refuge, as Mordecai warned Esther. God, lie felt sure, would act for His people, for he evidently understood something of the divine purpose about Israel; but, as far as man was concerned, no Jew could count on exemption from death on that fatal thirteenth day of the month Adar. God’s word, Mordecai felt, could not fail, so the nation would not perish; but which of them would survive that day, he could not have ventured to predict. Of one thing he was sure, and would have Esther to understand it, that unless she bestirred herself to gain an audience of the king, she and her father’s house would infallibly perish in the coming calamity (4:14). Nor was her uncle mistaken in his calculations, for no less than five hundred men, enemies of the Jews, were found, and slain in Shushan, the palace, when the appointed day arrived (9:6).
But what was to be done? How could they appeal to the king? How could they gain an audience? How could they convince a man like him that he had made a mistake? All now hung on the king’s favor. Esther had not seen him for thirty days; and by law, to the infraction of which the penalty of death was attached, no one could enter his presence unsummoned, unless he held out the golden scepter. The fate of the nation then, humanly speaking, hung on the king’s favor. To claim an audience was impossible. Would he extend to her the golden scepter, that she might live? In this, as far as man could see, was her and her people’s only chance of escape. The king was gracious. God moved his heart to accept the person of the queen, as He afterward withheld sleep from the monarch’s eyes, to carry out His providential dealings with the Jews.
The king favorably inclined to her, she managed at the second banquet to acquaint him with the real nature of the decree which he had sanctioned. His eyes opened to it, Haman’s death took place, and Mordecai’s exaltation; and a second decree appeared, not reversing the former, but granting leave to the Jews to defend themselves, and to slay their enemies who should rise up against them.
On the three and twentieth day of the third month, the second decree was signed, to take effect some eight months later, viz., on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month. Now all was changed in Shushan, and amongst the Jews throughout the hundred and twenty and seven provinces over which the king reigned. “The city of Shushan rejoiced, and was glad. The Jews had light, and gladness, and joy, and honor. And in every province and in every city, whithersoever the king’s commandment and his decree came, the Jews had joy and gladness, a feast and a good day” (8:15-17). But why this sudden change? The written word of the king had caused mourning, his written word was productive of rejoicing.
But some might have said, “All this rejoicing is premature. The thirteenth day of Adar has not yet come. Delay your demonstrations of happiness till that day has passed.” But no. They did not do that, who believed their monarch’s word. It was true that the first decree remained uncanceled, but the second was unalterable, and of undoubted validity. They waited not, then, till the day had come and gone, to see whether they could place reliance on their sovereign’s written word. They believed they could; they rejoiced in the prospect of finding it sufficient, months before they could put it to the test; for they knew that the writing written in the king’s name, and sealed with the king’s ring, might no man reverse (8:8). What ground to rest upon was this? A solid, stable foundation.
At length the time came when the wisdom of their fasting, and the propriety of their rejoicing before the event, were both amply justified. Eight hundred of their enemies slain in the palace, and seventy-five thousand put to death in the provinces, proved the widespread enmity in existence against them, which only waited a fitting opportunity to display itself (9:12-16). Had they been unconcerned when the first decree was issued, how many would have survived the slaughter legalized by the king’s commandment were they premature in rejoicing when the second decree was issued? Not one of those, who believed in the certainty of the execution of the one, but had full ground to be glad at the signing of the other; for, trusting to the royal word, and acting as he had directed them, not one of the Jews lost his life or his property, when the sun had set on that ever to be remembered day.
Again, supposing any one had questioned their right to rejoice eight months before the event could take place, what answer had they at hand? Ahasuerus, they could say, had indeed accepted the Jews, though most of them had never doubtless beheld him. But how could that be affirmed of those who had never been personally spoken to by him? They could know it by this: Mordecai, as their representative before him, had come out of his presence with a great crown of gold on his head, and royal apparel of blue and white on his shoulders (8:15). In his acceptance, each Jew could see his own. None but those of Mordecai’s race could on that account feel assured of the royal favor. All, however, who were Jews, could see in that a token of the king’s favor to them. “And many of the people of the land became Jews; for the fear of the Jews fell upon them” (8:17).
Such, then, were the circumstances and conduct of the Jews during that year, the twelfth year of Ahasuerus—the Xerxes, as is commonly thought, of profane history. Let us now turn to that of which they are an illustration.
By the king’s written proclamation, as we have seen, the doom of the Jews was settled, and the day fixed. “The wrath of God,” we read in Romans 1:18, “ is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness, and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness; “and the day is appointed when that wrath shall be poured out, and judgment take effect” (Romans 2:16; Acts 17:31; 2 Thess. 1:7-10); “and they shall not escape” (1 Thessalonians 5:3), is God’s announcement concerning those on earth who will be overtaken by the day of the Lord. What, then, should men do under these circumstances? Should they ignore the divine warning? God’s wrath will be poured out, whatever men may think about it. Should they continue careless about it? That day may then, perchance, overtake them (it certainly will come) as a thief (1 Thessalonians 5:1-3; Revelation 16:15). But will God indeed punish men some may ask. He fulfilled to the letter His announcement about the flood. He will, we may be assured, fulfill His word about the judgment to come. The Jews under Ahasuerus took the king at his word, and the wisdom of their belief in the decree was afterward fully justified. Should men not act with reference to God’s word in a similar way?
Again, exercise of heart in the Jews, in respect to their impending doom, preceded their deliverance from it, and to all now exercised in their consciences about God’s holiness, God’s truthfulness, and the sinner’s desert, God speaks, to tell them of a way of escape from that terrible day of reckoning with the wicked which must infallibly arrive. In the gospel, we learn the righteousness of God is revealed by faith to faith, as it is written, “The just shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17; John 5:24). The second decree of Ahasuerus was enough for the Jews. Should not God’s written word be enough for men? No amount of mere profession will save a soul on that day, for God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. No depths of sin into which a man may have got will place him now, if he believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, beyond the reach of salvation. “For all have sinned, and do come short of the glory of God: yet can be justified freely by God’s grace, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:23,24). The Jews believed, and rejoiced, before the day came. Souls in the early days of Christianity were expecting God’s Son from heaven, who delivers us from the wrath to come (1 Thessalonians 1:10); and in Him they could, and did rejoice, receiving the end of their faith, even the salvation of their souls (1 Peter 1:8, 9). Like the Jews in that twelfth year, we stand between the written announcement of the future and its fulfillment. Reader, have you, like those Jews, built your hopes on the written word of Him who is on the throne? Their only ground of rejoicing was the written decree as to a future day. We are to trust now in the word of our God. ‘Tis true they could point to Mordecai’s exit from the king’s audience chamber, adorned with a golden crown and clad in royal apparel; and cannot we point to the sinner’s surety, the High Priest too of His people, who is now in heaven crowned with glory and honor? (Hebrews 2:9.)
My reader, shall the simple faith of these Jews, and the sequel of their history, fail to touch you? Shall their conduct be an example for you? Or can you say that, not only can you enter into their feelings, as they contemplated their doom, but you understand their feelings of relief and gladness, having yourself experienced such, when the way of deliverance was made known, and the word of Him, who sits on the throne, was implicitly trusted in and obeyed?