Lecture by the Late W. Kelly
Woolwich, Tuesday Evening, March 18th, 1873
The Book of Esther is one of those few portions here and there of the word of God which are remarkable for the absence of His name. This has often surprised many: the Jews themselves were not able to understand it, and there are many Christians who are not much better; so much so, that it has been the habit, especially in these latter times, for some to treat the book with a certain measure of distrust, as if the absence of the name of the Lord were a just suspicion—as if it could not be of God because God's name was not there. Now, I hope to show that it is a part of the excellence of the book that the name of God is not there; for there are occasions where God veils His glory. There is no occasion where He does not work, but He does not always permit His name to be heard, or His ways to be seen. I shall show that it is precisely what the character of the book requires—that the name of God should not be there; and this, therefore, instead of weakening the claim of Esther to its place in the holy volume, will rather show the perfectness of the ways of God, even in so exceptional a fact as the absence of His name in an entire book.
We must understand, then, what God has in view. And the answer is this: He is here speaking of His ancient people under circumstances where He could not name His name in connection with them as their position was wholly irregular. Properly speaking, in the Book of Esther they have no position at all. We could not say that exactly about those Jews who had gone up from Babylon according to the leave that Cyrus the Persian gave them in fulfilment of the prophets. It is true that, even as to the remnant, God does not call them “my people.” In allowing Nebuchadnezzar to sweep the land of the house of David, and the tribes that still continued faithful to their allegiance, God took away from them their title for a short time, and that title is not yet given back to them. Nevertheless, it is in safe keeping. He means to restore them to the land of their inheritance; but the title-deed, for the time, has disappeared. It is not that it is lost, but reserved. It is kept secretly for them by God. When the day comes for Israel to be brought back God will gradually bring them into their proper place, and into their due relationship, and then will come the days of heaven upon earth. But it was far from being so yet, even with the remnant that went up from Jerusalem. There, as we know, the Book of Ezra shows them centering round the altar of God, and building His house; and the Book of Nehemiah presents' them marking their distinction. Even though they had lost their title, still they had not lost their God. If God would not call them His people, they, at least, would call Him their God. Faith clung to what God was to them when God could not call them His own. Therefore, did they build the walls of Jerusalem that His people might have, even in their feebleness, the sense of their separation' to Himself. This has characterised all their life. It was not merely their religious life, but their whole life. Ezra looks at the religious life: Nehemiah looks at all their life consecrated to Jehovah. But the Book of Esther brings out quite a different view. What became of the Jews that did not go up to Jerusalem? What became of those who were deaf to the leave, or valued not the liberty to go up to the land where God's eyes rested, and where yet He means to exalt His name—His Son the Messiah-as well as the people of His choice, then indeed to be manifestly owned by Him?
The Book of Esther is the answer to that question, and shews us that when God could not own them in any way whatever—and where, too, they were not owning Him publicly—when there was no sign on God's part, nor on the people's part—where the name of God, therefore, is now entirely in the secret—is not named once throughout the book—yet where there is all this, there is seen the hand and working of God secretly in favour of His people, even in the most irregular condition in which they can be found. This is the nature of the book, and this, I believe, is the solution of the difficulty as to the name of God not being once named in it. We shall see abundant confirmation of what I have referred to when we look into the book. I just give, so far, a little intimation of its character in order that we may take heed to it the more, as the various incidents come before us.
We at once plunge into a remarkable feast made by the king Ahasuerus, who, I presume, is the one who is known in profane history as Xerxes. That is a matter of no great consequence—whether it was Xerxes or Artaxerxes. or even another who has been put forward as the true answer to it. We must remember that the title of Ahasuerus was a general one, just as Pharaoh was the general one in Egypt, and Abimelech among the Philistines; that is, there were many Pharaohs and many Abimelechs. So also among the Persians there were several that bore the name of Ahasuerus. Which Ahasuerus is meant is a question, but it is a matter of no importance; if it were, God would have told us—I presume, however, that it was really Xerxes, partly because of the character of the man—a man of prodigious resources, unbounded wealth, immense luxury and vanity—a man, too, of the most arbitrary and capricious character. We shall see this in his conduct towards his wife, we shall see it, too, in his conduct towards the Jew. We shall see, accordingly, the history of a remarkable part of this capricious monarch's reign; for if there was a single Persian king with whom it might have been supposed to go hard with the Jew it was this one. Darius was a great admirer of Cyrus and, consequently a great friend of the Jews. Xerxes was a friend of nobody but himself. He was just simply a man who lived to please himself—to gratify his tastes and passions according to the ample means which the providence of God had placed in his hands, but which he wasted on his own luxury, as, alas! most men do.
Well, he is here shown to us in that epoch of the Persian empire when it consisted, not of 120 provinces only, which was the case when Darius the Mede and Cyrus the Persian reigned. We find that, in the Book of Daniel there were seven provinces added afterwards through conquest. Xerxes reigned at a time, therefore, when the Persian empire was in the height of its glory and its resources, and he has all the pomp and circumstance of the empire around him—all the grandees and satraps of his vast empire. Under these circumstances it is that he calls for Vashti, who refuses to come. This provoked the capricious and arbitrary monarch. Vashti disobeyed the king. She refused according to the peculiar love of retirement which characterized Persian women. She refused to meet his wishes. He would display her beauty to all the world, and she declined. The consequence was that the king seeks counsel with his nobles, and one of them ventures upon very bold advice, namely the dismission of Vashti. This, accordingly, is the first great step in the providence of God brought before us in the book, and all the remarkable issues follow.
Now, this of itself even, is of the greatest interest; but then there is more than this. The book not only is a book of providence—God's secret providence—when He could not name His name in behalf of His people-in behalf of the Jews in their poor and dispersed condition among the Gentiles; but, further, it is typical of the great dealings of God that are yet to be, because what, mainly does the book open with? This-the great Gentile wife of the great king is discarded, and the singular fact comes that a Jewess takes her place. I can not doubt, myself, that it is what will follow when the Gentile has proved himself disobedient, and has failed in displaying the beauty that should be in the testimony of God before the world. In short, it is what is going on now; that is, at this present time, the Gentile is the one that holds a certain position before God in the earth. The Jew, as you are aware, is not the present witness of God, but the Gentile. The Gentile has utterly failed. According to the language of the 11Th of Romans, the branches of the wild olive—the Gentile—will be broken off, and the Jew will be grafted in again. Well, Vashti is the Gentile wife that is discarded for her disobedience and failure in displaying her beauty before the world. That is what Christendom ought to do. The Gentile, I say will be broken off and dismissed, and the Jew will be brought in. This is what is represented by the call of Esther. She becomes the object of the great king's affections, and displaces Vashti, who is never restored. But I merely give this remark by the way to show the typical connection of the book with the great course of God's counsels in scripture.
Now I return to expound a little the facts that are traced in it as the grand development of secret providence when God's name can not be named. God can work when He can not proclaim Himself, and this is remarkably illustrated in the fact that when the command went forth for the young maidens to be sought for the king for him to take his choice, amongst others “in Shushan the palace there was a certain Jew, whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, a Benjamite; who had been carried away from Jerusalem with the captivity which had been carried away with Jeconiah king of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had carried away. And he brought up Hadassah; that is, Esther, his uncle's daughter: for she had neither father nor mother, and the maid was fair and beautiful, whom Mordecai, when her father and mother were dead, took for his own daughter. So it came to pass when the King's commandment and his decree was heard, and when many maidens were gathered together unto Shushan the palace, to the custody of Hegai, that Esther was brought also unto the king's house to the custody of Hegai, keeper of the women. And the maiden pleased him, and she obtained kindness of him” (chap. 2:5-9).
And, in short, when the turn of the different maidens came and, amongst others, Esther's turn, she not only found favor in the eyes of the chamberlain but, still more, in the eyes of the king. “Esther was taken unto king Ahasuerus into his royal house in the tenth month, which is the month Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign” (ver. 16). I may observe, by the way, that it is a remarkable confirmation these transactions of Ahasuerus belong to the time of Xerxes that it was in the third year of Xerxes's reign, as we know, as history tells us that, he held a grand council of all the grandees of his empire. The political object was his attempt to conquer Greece, and he returned again in the seventh year of his reign—the very same dates that are mentioned in this book of Esther. During that time he was away from his country and was occupied with that vain effort which ended in the most complete destruction of the Persian fleet, and the overthrow of their armies by the comparatively little power of the Greeks. But, however that may be, I merely make the remark by the way as showing the wonderful manner in which God's providence preserves even the dates, and the way in which the facts fit in. That, however, is a small point, but the great matter is this—that the Jewess was preferred to all others. The Jewess is the one who alone will be the bride on earth of the great King. We know who the great King means. I suppose you are all aware that ‘the great King' was the special title of the Persian monarch. Now Scripture uses 'the great King' in reference to the Lord. I cannot doubt, therefore, that there is an intention in this typical manner, even, of speaking of him.
Esther then becomes the bride—the queen of the great king, after the Gentile has been dismissed because of her disobedience, and the king makes a great feast thereon. He sends a release to the provinces, as we know will be the case. When the Jew is taken into favor it will be as life from the dead, whatever may be the mercy of God now, and it is most rich; but, as far as the earth is concerned, it is altogether spoiled by worldliness, by selfishness, by vanity. All these things have destroyed the character of God's Kingdom as far as its witness upon the earth. No doubt God accomplishes His heavenly purpose, but that has nothing to do with this book. The type of heavenly things is not found here. It is only the earth and the earthly aspect of Christendom set aside by the calling in of the Jew by and by. She becomes the permanent bride of the King.
We are here told in the end of the second chapter that not only does Mordecai sit in the King's gate, but he becomes the means of making known to the great king an attempt to take his life. Two of the king's chamberlains, which kept the door, sought to lay their hands upon the great king, but the thing became known. Inquisition was made, and they were both hanged upon a tree. We well know that every offender in that day that is coming will be found out and dealt with immediately. It will no longer be the uncertainty of law. In that day “a King shall reign in righteousness.” There will be a great discovery and punishment of those that lift up their hands against the Lord.
In the third chapter we have a very different scene. “After these things did king Ahasuerus promote Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, and advanced him, and set his seat above all the princes that were with him.”
(To be continued)