THE HISTORY OF ESTHER.
The Jewish Maiden—The Conspiracy Discovered—Haman’s
Plot—A Mourning Nation—The Golden Sceptre—The
Queen’s Banquet.
Artaxerxes,[2] or, as he is termed in the Scriptures, Ahasuerus, sat
on the throne of Persia. Lord of the widest kingdom which then existed
upon earth—a kingdom which extended from India to Ethiopia, and
comprised a hundred and twenty-seven provinces—the will of the monarch
was the law to which many nations were constrained to bow. Ahasuerus
possessed neither the wisdom nor the self-command requisite in one to
whom power so vast is intrusted. He chose for his chief favourite and
minister Haman, an Amalekite, a man of unbounded cruelty and pride, and
dismissed his own queen for venturing to disobey a capricious command
given to her by her husband, when he was probably under the influence
of wine.
In choosing another partner of his state to fill the place of the
dethroned Queen Vashti, the despot sought for no higher qualification
than that of personal attractions. But the Almighty Disposer of events
guided the choice of the monarch.
[Illustration: SITE OF SHUSHAN OR SUSA.]
In the palace of Shushan was a certain Jew, named Mordecai, of the
tribe of Benjamin. With a father’s care he had reared Esther, a young
orphan maiden, a relative of his own. The Jewess was possessed of
exquisite beauty; amongst the fair she was the fairest; Ahasuerus saw
her, loved her, and raised the beauteous captive to the rank of the
queen of Persia.
Her elevation appears to have had no effect in changing the character
of this daughter of Abraham. In the palace of Ahasuerus, surrounded by
luxury and pomp, Esther preserved her faith to the God of her fathers,
though by the charge of Mordecai she kept her nation and kindred secret
from the king. While placed in a position far above that of her early
benefactor, the young queen still rendered to Mordecai the dutiful
obedience of a daughter. Through her the Jew made known to Ahasuerus
a secret plot to assassinate him, which had been made by two of his
chamberlains. The conspirators suffered the punishment of death, but he
to whose timely warning the king owed the preservation of his life, sat
day after day in the gate of the royal palace, unrewarded and neglected.
Through this gate passed Haman, the proud favourite of the Persian
monarch. As he moved on with a stately step amongst the courtiers and
servants of the king, every head, save one, was bowed down before
him—all did him obeisance save one! That one was Mordecai, the bold,
un-compromising Jew, who scorned to pay any mark of respect to him who
was the enemy of his faith—to him who belonged to the guilty tribe
doomed by a just God to destruction.
[Illustration: QUEEN ESTHER.]
Haman was not a man to forgive that which he looked upon as an insult.
Boiling with rage, he determined that not only should Mordecai expiate
his offence with his life, but that the whole of his race should be
swept away by one act of indiscriminate vengeance. The arbitrary temper
of Ahasuerus, and his blind confidence in his wicked minister, too
well seconded the bloody designs of Haman. This unprincipled favourite
succeeded in obtaining from the despot a decree for the extermination
of the Jewish people throughout all of his extensive dominions. Neither
age nor sex were to be spared; the babe was to be slaughtered in the
arms of its mother, and the spoil of the murdered victims was to be the
prey of the merciless Haman! A time was actually fixed upon by lot for
the perpetration of the horrible massacre, but, by the providence of
God, the lot fell upon a distant day. Their consciences untroubled by
a sense of their enormous guilt, Ahasuerus and Haman sat down to feast
and to drink, while all Shushan was startled by the fearful decree that
was to destroy a peaceful nation from the face of the earth!
When Mordecai heard of the king’s commandment, he rent his clothes, and
put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the midst of the city,
and cried with a loud and bitter cry. And in every province into which
the king’s decree came, there was great mourning amongst the Jews, and
fasting, and weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.
Esther heard of the deep distress of Mordecai, though, secluded as she
was in the royal apartments, she seems not to have been fully aware of
its cause. She sent Hatach, the king’s chamberlain, to Mordecai, and
received through him a copy of the dreadful decree, and a charge to go
herself to the despot, and make supplication for her persecuted people.
This message threw the young queen into great perplexity and distress.
For thirty days the capricious monarch had expressed no wish to see
her, and to enter unbidden into his presence exposed any intruder to
the penalty of death, unless the monarch should extend his golden
sceptre in token of pardon and grace. Through the medium of Hatach,
Esther communicated her difficulties and fears to Mordecai. But to
the resolute spirit of the Jew but one path appeared open to his
adopted daughter, and that was the path of duty. Whatever might be the
difficulty, she must brave it; whatever might be the danger, she must
dare it! He reminded Esther that it was probably for this very purpose
that she had been raised to share the throne of Ahasuerus.
The reply of the queen showed her piety and her obedience, and her
resolution at all hazards to intercede for her nation. She besought
Mordecai to gather together all the Jews that were then in Shushan,
that they might plead for her with that Almighty Ruler in whose hand
are the hearts of kings. She promised that at the end of three days,
which she would herself devote to solemn prayer, she would appear
before Ahasuerus, concluding her message with the touching words, “And
if I perish, I perish!”
The third day arrived, and the trembling Esther prepared to redeem her
promise. She put on her royal apparel, the rich garments and glittering
jewels whose splendour seemed a mockery of the fear and sorrow of her
whom they adorned. And so Esther ventured into the presence of the
despot, not armed with great natural courage, but leaning on that
invisible Protector who can give strength to the weak and heroism
to the fearful. Ahasuerus beheld his beauteous queen, and all his
affection towards her revived: he held out his golden sceptre, and
perceiving that no light motive could have induced her to brave the
peril of death, “What wilt thou, Queen Esther?” he cried; “and what is
thy request? It shall be given to thee to the half of the kingdom.”
[Illustration: ESTHER APPEARING BEFORE KING AHASUERUS.]
Notwithstanding the relief which the young Jewess experienced at the
first peril being happily past, she was not yet prepared to disclose
the secret of her race, hitherto carefully concealed. She confined
herself to a request that the king and Haman should that day attend a
banquet which she had prepared.
The request was instantly granted; the monarch and his favourite
appeared at the feast; and again Ahasuerus gave a gracious promise to
his queen—“What is thy request? even to the half of the kingdom it
shall be performed.” Again Esther sought a brief delay. She entreated
her lord to come with Haman to another banquet on the morrow, and
promised that she then would declare the subject of her anxious desires.
Haman left the presence of the queen glad, and with a joyful heart.
Honoured as no other subject had been honoured, the spirit of the
Amalekite was lifted up with pride. He approached the gate at which
Mordecai still sat. Surely now the firmness of the Jew will give way;
he will yield reverence at last to one who has so fearfully shown his
disposition to revenge, and his power to gratify it. No! Mordecai
stoops not, and the tyrant passes on, full of rage against one whom he
may kill, but whom he cannot conquer.
On what a slight thread hangs human happiness, when such a breath can
destroy it! Haman had all that the world could give, but one evil
passion, like a viper in the breast, poisoned in a moment every spring
of enjoyment. He went to his home a miserable man—so miserable, that he
was constrained to publish to others what was humiliating to himself.
Haman called for his friends, and Zeresh his wife, and told them of the
glory of his riches, the multitude of his children, the favour of his
sovereign, and the repeated invitations with which Esther the queen had
honoured him; closing all with this striking confession of the vanity
of earthly greatness—“Yet all this availeth me nothing, so long as I
see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the gate of the king!”
Zeresh appeared a meet counsellor for so unprincipled a man as her
husband. She and her friends assured Haman that the object of his hate
could be easily destroyed, without waiting for the day appointed for
the massacre. “Let a gallows be made fifty cubits high,” said they,
“and tomorrow speak thou unto the king that Mordecai may be hanged
thereon; then go thou merrily unto the banquet.”
The wicked counsel pleased Haman, and he caused the gallows at once to
be made.