means they could devise to thwart the undertaking. Their origin appears
to have given them considerable influence at the Persian court; and
although they could not act openly against the plain decree of Cyrus, an
unscrupulous use of their money and influence among the officers of the
government enabled them to raise such obstructions, that the people were
much discouraged, and the work proceeded but languidly, and at length
was suspended altogether. From this lethargy they were roused by the
exhortations and reproaches of the prophet Haggai; and the building was
resumed with fresh zeal.
The new temple was dedicated with great solemnity and joy. The Jews were
allowed the free exercise of their religion and laws, and the government
was directed by a governor of their own nation, or by the high-priest,
when there was no other governor. There was, in fact, a distinct
commonwealth, with its own peculiar institutions; and, although
responsible to the Persian king, and to his deputy the governor-general
of Syria, it was more secure under the protection of the monarch than it
would have been in complete independence. The dreadful lesson taught by
the desolation of the land, the destruction of the temple, and the
captivity of the people, had effectually cured the Jews of that tendency
to idolatry which had been their ruin. But, as time went on, the
distortion of character which had been restrained in one direction broke
forth in another; and although they no longer went formally astray from
a religion which did not suit their depravity, they, by many vain and
mischievous fancies, fabricated a religion suited to their dispositions
out of the ritual to which they adhered.
Early in the reign of Artaxerxes, son of the mighty Xerxes, the Hebrews
went to work on the beloved city with a regular plan of its rebuilding,
including an encircling wall.
This king had learned by reading and traditions, the veneration which
his most distinguished predecessors had shown for the God of Israel; and
about seven years after he ascended the throne, he commissioned Ezra,
the priest and scribe, to take charge of the religious service at
Jerusalem. And he was, in reality, the governor or viceroy under the
monarch.
Those of the Hebrews who desired to do so, were invited to return with
him, and others who remained, were to pay contributions for the use of
the temple.
To this fund the king himself and his council contributed large sums of
money; and the ministers of the royal realms west of the Euphrates, were
enjoined to furnish Ezra with silver, wheat, wine, oil, and salt, that
the sacrifices and offerings of the temple should be constantly kept up;
all of which is said to have been done in order to avert from the king
and his sons, the wrath of the God of the Hebrews, who was held in much
honor at the Persian court.
An exemption from all taxes was also promised to persons engaged in the
service of the temple; but this boon did not induce any of the Levitical
tribe to join the caravan which assembled on the banks of the river
Ahava, in Babylonia: and it was with some difficulty that Ezra at last
induced some of the priestly families to go with him. The whole caravan
was composed of one thousand seven hundred and fifty-four adult
males--making, with wives and children, about six thousand persons. As a
party thus composed had little military strength, and as the journey
across the desert was then, as it always has been, dangerous from the
Arab tribes by which it is infested, they felt considerable anxiety on
this account. But Ezra, from having said much to the king of the power
of God to protect and deliver those that trusted in him, felt
disinclined to apply for a guard of soldiers; and thought it better that
the party should, in a solemn act of fasting and prayer, cast themselves
upon the care of their God. Their confidence was rewarded by the perfect
safety with which their journey was accomplished. In four months they
arrived at Jerusalem.
While Ezra, with his sealed commission from Artaxerxes, was urging on
the noble work at Jerusalem, an unexpected danger to his people in
Babylon and its provinces arose--a sudden and fearful crisis in destiny.
Among the captives there was Esther, a Hebrew maiden. The Persian king,
to commemorate his victorious and prosperous reign, extending from Judea
to Ethiopia, and embracing a hundred and twenty-seven provinces, made a
magnificent feast, which continued six months. This was to display his
power and wealth, before the nobility of his realm, and representatives
from the conquered provinces of his spreading empire. At the expiration
of this brilliant entertainment, he gave the common people, without
distinction, a feast of seven days in the court of his palace. The rich
canopy and gorgeous curtains, with their fastenings--the tall columns,
the golden couches, and tesselated floors--are described as "white,
green, and blue hangings, fastened with cords of fine linen and purple
to silver rings, and pillars of marble: the beds were of gold and
silver, upon a pavement of red, and blue, and black, and white marble."
[Illustration: Our Saviour Teaching in the Temple.]
Of this grandeur, in the ashes strewn by wasting ages, are imposing
remains. Modern travellers pause before "the vast, solitary, mutilated
columns of the magnificent colonnades," where youth and beauty graced
the harems of Persian monarchs.
Upon this occasion, the queen had a private pavilion for her female
guests. But during the successive days of dissipation, the mirth waxed
loud in the apartments of the king. The flashing goblet circulated
freely, and his brain became wild with "wine and wassail." As the
crowning display of his glory, Vashti, in her jeweled robes and diadem,
must grace the banquet. The command was issued, and the messenger sent.
This mandate, requiring what at any time was contrary to custom, the
appearance of a woman, unveiled, in an assemblage of men, now when
revelry and riot betrayed the royal intoxication, overwhelmed the queen
with surprise. A thousand wondering and beaming eyes were upon her
during the brief pause before answering the summons. Her proud refusal
to appear, roused the fury of Ahashuerus, already mad with excitement.
It would not answer to pass by the indignity, for a hundred and
twenty-seven provinces were represented at his court, and the news of
his sullied honor would reach every dwelling in his realm, and curl the
lip of the serf with scorn. The nobles fanned the flame of his
indignation. Unless a withering rebuke were administered, their
authority as husbands would be gone, and the caprice of woman make every
family a scene of daily revolution.
Vashti was divorced--and to provide for the emergency, his courtiers
suggested that he should collect in his harem all the beautiful virgins
of the land, and choose him a wife. Among these was Hadassah, the
adopted daughter of Mordecai. He urged her to enter her name among the
rivals for kingly favor. It was not ambition merely that moved Mordecai.
He had been meditating upon the unfolding providence of God toward his
scattered nation, and felt that there was deeper meaning in passing
events than the pleasures and anger of his sovereign. Arrayed richly as
circumstances would permit, the beautiful Jewess, concealing her
lineage, joined the youthful procession that entered the audience
chamber of Ahashuerus, where he sat in state, to look along the rank of
female beauty, floating like a vision before him.
The character of Esther is here exhibited at the outset; for when she
went into the presence of the king, for his inspection, instead of
asking for gifts as allowed by him, and as the others did, she took only
what the chamberlain gave her. Of exquisite form and faultless features,
her rare beauty at once captivated the king, and he made her his wife.
Mordecai was a man of a noble heart, grand intellect, and unwavering
integrity; there was nevertheless an air of severity about him--a
haughty, unbending spirit; which with his high sense of honor and scorn
of meanness would prompt him to lead an isolated life. We have sometimes
thought that even he had not been able to resist the fascinations of his
young and beautiful cousin, and that the effort to conceal his feelings
had given a greater severity to his manner than he naturally possessed.
Too noble, however, to sacrifice such a beautiful being by uniting her
fate with his own, when a throne was offered her; or perceiving that the
lovely and gentle being he had seen ripen into faultless womanhood could
never return his love--indeed, could cherish no feeling but that of a
fond daughter, he crushed by his strong will his fruitless passion. In
no other way can I account for the life he led, lingering forever around
the palace gates, where now and then he might get a glimpse of her who
had been the light of his soul, the one bright bird which had cheered
his exile's home. That home he wished no longer to see, and day after
day he took his old station at the gates of Shushan, and looked upon the
magnificent walls that divided him from all that had made life
desirable. It seems also as if some latent fear that Haman, the favorite
of the king--younger than his master, and of vast ambition, might
attempt to exert too great an influence over his cousin, must have
prompted him to treat the latter with disrespect, and refuse him that
homage which was his due. No reason is given for the hostility he
manifested, and which he must have known would end in his own
destruction.
Whenever Haman, with his retinue, came from the palace, all paid him the
reverence due to the king's favorite but Mordecai, who sat like a
statue, not even turning his head to notice him. He acted like one tired
of life, and at length succeeded in arousing the deadly hostility of the
haughty minister. The latter, however, scorning to be revenged on one
man, and he a person of low birth, persuaded the king to decree the
slaughter of all the Jews in his realm. The news fell like a thunderbolt
on Mordecai. Sullen, proud, and indifferent to his own fate, he had
defied his enemy to do his worst; but such a savage vengeance had never
entered his mind, It was too late, however, to regret his behavior.
Right or wrong, he had been the cause of the bloody sentence, and he
roused himself to avert the awful catastrophe. With rent garments, and
sackcloth on his head, he travelled the city with a loud and bitter cry,
and his voice rang even over the walls of the palace, in tones that
startled its slumbering inmates.
[Illustration: Humility Exemplified--Giving Alms in Secret.]
It was told Esther, and she ordered garments to be given him, but he
refused to receive them, and sent back a copy of the king's decree,
respecting the massacre of the Jews, and bade her go in and supplicate
him to remit the sentence. She replied that it was certain death to
enter the king's presence unbidden, unless he chose to hold out his
sceptre; and that for a whole month he had not requested to see her. Her
stern cousin, however, unmoved by the danger to herself, and thinking
only of his people, replied haughtily that she might do as she chose; if
she preferred to save herself, delivery would come to the Jews from some
other quarter, but she should die.
From this moment the character of Esther unfolds itself. It was only a
passing weakness that prompted her to put in a word for her own life,
and she at once rose to the dignity of a martyr. The blood of the proud
and heroic Mordecai flowed in her veins, and she said: "Go, tell my
cousin to assemble all the Jews in Shushan, and fast three days and
three nights, neither eating nor drinking; I and my maidens will do the
same, and on the third day I will go before the king, and if I perish, I
perish!" Noble and brave heart! death--a violent death--is terrible; but
thou art equal.
There, in that magnificent apartment, filled with perfume, and where the
softened light, stealing through the gorgeous windows by day, and shed
from golden lamps by night on marble columns and golden-colored
couches, makes a scene of enchantment, behold Esther, with her royal
apparel thrown aside, kneeling on the tesselated floor. There she has
been two days and nights, neither eating nor drinking, while hunger, and
thirst, and mental agony have made fearful inroads on her beauty. Her
cheeks are sunken and haggard--her large and lustrous eyes dim with
weeping, and her lips parched and dry, yet ever moving in inward prayer.
Mental and physical suffering have crushed her young heart within her,
and now the hour of her destiny is approaching. Ah! who can tell the
desperate effort it required to prepare for that terrible interview.
Never before did it become her to look so fascinating as then; and
removing with tremulous anxiety the traces of her suffering, she decked
herself in the most becoming apparel she could select. Her long black
tresses were never before so carefully braided over her polished
forehead, and never before did she put forth such an effort to enhance
every charm, and make her beauty irresistible to the king.
At length, fully arrayed and looking more like a goddess dropped from
the clouds, than a being of clay, she stole tremblingly toward the
king's chamber. Stopping a moment at the threshold to swallow down the
choking sensation that almost suffocated her, and to gather her failing
strength, she passed slowly into the room, while her maidens stood
breathless without, listening, and waiting with the intensest anxiety
the issue. Hearing a slight rustling, the king, with a sudden frown,
looked up to see who was so sick of life as to dare to come unbidden in
his presence, and lo! Esther stood speechless before him. Her long
fastings and watchings had taken the color from her cheeks, but had
given a greater transparency in its place, and as she stood, half
shrinking, with the shadow of profound melancholy on her pallid, but
indescribably beautiful countenance, her pencilled brow slightly
contracted in the intensity of her excitement, her long lashes dripping
in tears, and lips trembling with agitation; she was, though silent, in
herself an appeal that a heart of stone could not resist. The monarch
gazed long and silently on her, as she stood waiting her doom. Shall she
die? No; the golden sceptre slowly rises and points to her. The
beautiful intruder is welcome, and sinks like a snow wreath at his feet.
Never before did the monarch gaze on such transcendent loveliness; and
spell-bound and conquered by it, he said, in a gentle voice: "What wilt
thou, Queen Esther? What is thy request? It shall be granted thee, even
to the half of my kingdom!"
Woman-like, she did not wish to risk the influence she had suddenly
gained, by asking the destruction of his favorite, and the reversion of
his unalterable decree, and so she prayed only that he and Haman might
banquet with her the next day. She had thrown her fetters over him, and
was determined to fascinate him still more deeply before she ventured on
so bold a movement. At the banquet he again asked her what she desired,
for he well knew that it was no ordinary matter that had induced her to
peril her life by entering unbidden his presence. She invited him to a
second feast, and at that to a third. But the night previous to the
last, the king could not sleep, and after tossing awhile on his troubled
couch, he called for the record of the court, and there found that
Mordecai had a short time before informed him through the queen, of an
attempt to assassinate him, and no reward been bestowed. The next day,
therefore, he made Haman perform the humiliating office of leading his
enemy in triumph through the streets, proclaiming before him: "This is
the man whom the king delighteth to honor." As he passed by the gallows
he had the day before erected for that very man, a shudder crept through
his frame, and the first omen of coming evil cast its shadow on his
spirit.
[Illustration: Herod's Cruel Massacre.]
The way was now clear to Esther, and so the next day, at the banquet, as
the king repeated his former offer, she, reclining on the couch, her
chiseled form and ravishing beauty inflaming the ardent monarch with
love and desire, said in pleading accents: "I ask, O king, for my life,
and that of my people. If we had all been sold as bondmen and bondwomen,
I had held my tongue, great as the evil would have been to thee." The
king started, as if stung by an adder, and with a brow dark as wrath,
and a voice that sent Haman to his feet, exclaimed: "Thy life! my queen?
Who is he? where is he that dare even harbor such a thought in his
heart? He who strikes at thy life, radiant creature, plants his
presumptuous blow on his monarch's bosom." "That man," said the lovely
pleader, "is the wicked Haman." Darting one look of vengeance on the
petrified favorite, he strode forth into the garden to control his
boiling passions. Haman saw at once that his only hope now was in moving
the sympathies of the queen in his behalf; and approaching her, he began
to plead most piteously for his life. In his agony he fell on the couch
where she lay, and while in this position the king returned. "What!" he
exclaimed, "will he violate the queen here in my own palace!" Nothing
more was said; no order was given. The look and voice of terrible wrath
in which this was said, were sufficient. The attendants simply spread a
cloth over Haman's face, and not a word was spoken. Those who came in,
when they saw the covered countenance, knew the import. It was the
sentence of death. The vaulting favorite himself dare not remove it--he
must die, and the quicker the agony is over, the better. In a few hours
he was swinging on the gallows he had erected for Mordecai.
After this, the queen's power was supreme--every thing she asked was
granted. To please her he let his palace flow in the blood of five
hundred of his subjects, whom the Jews slew in self-defence. For her he
hung Haman's ten sons on the gallows where the father had suffered
before them. For her he made Mordecai prime minister, and lavished
boundless favors on the hitherto oppressed Hebrews. And right worthy was
she of all he did for her. Lovely in character as she was in person, her
sudden elevation did not make her vain, nor her power haughty. The same
gentle, pure, and noble creature when queen, as when living in the lowly
habitation of her cousin, generous, disinterested, and ready to die for
others, she is one of the loveliest characters furnished in the annals
of history.
It is a little singular that the words, God or Providence, are not
mentioned in the whole book of Esther. The writer seems studiously to
have avoided any reference to them, as if he did not wish to recognize
the interposition of Heaven in any of the events that transpired; while
his narrative is evidently designed to teach nothing else. The hand of
Providence is everywhere seen managing the whole scheme.
But the greatest acts of Providence awaken the least attention among
blind, mortal men. We are startled when some great occurrence meets us,
but overlook the vast effects which follow causes that attracted no eye
but God's. We see the flying timbers and flaming ruins of a
conflagration, and forget that a concealed spark did it all.
A noble mind and body are wrecked, and many weep; yet how few think that
the blast of moral ruin which stranded the life-bark, was once the quiet
breath of a mother's unholy influence leading the boy astray.
So the splendid career of a hero and patriot, like Mordecai, Moses, or
Washington, is less glorious than the simple decision made amid the
conflicting emotions of youthful aspiration to honor God and serve a
struggling country.
Jehovah illustrates this principle in all his administration. What to
Elijah on the solemn mount was the sweep of the hurricane, rending the
cliffs and tossing rocks like withered leaves in air--the thunder of the
earthquake's march--the blinding glow of the mantling flame--compared to
the "still small voice" that thrilled on his ear, so full of God! It is
not strange that there is to be a reckoning for "idle words" even, for
they have shaken the world, and their echo will never die away.
Their mutual love and devout character, remind us of the affectionate
fidelity to each other and to God, of Ruth the Moabitess, and her Hebrew
mother-in-law Naomi, who lived in the time of the Judges.
Naomi's family were self-exiled on account of famine in Palestine. Ruth
had married a man of Moab; but he and her father-in-law died. A sister
whose husband was brother to her own, was also a widow; and when Naomi
determined to return to her native land, at her request, Orphah sought
her people and friends.
Ruth would not leave the pilgrim to the Holy Land. Embracing Naomi, she
said: "Entreat me not to leave thee, for where thou goest I will go, and
where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be mine, and thy God
my God: where thou diest I will die, and there will I be buried: naught
but death shall part us."
Beautiful and brave heart! home, and friends, and wealth, nay, the gods
she had been taught to worship, were all forgotten in the warmth of her
affection. Tearful yet firm, "Entreat me not to leave thee," she said.
"I care not for the future; I can bear the worst; and when thou art
taken from me, I will linger around thy grave till I die, and then the
stranger shall lay me by thy side!" What could Naomi do but fold the
beautiful being to her bosom and be silent, except as tears gave
utterance to her emotions. Such a heart outweighs the treasures of the
world, and such absorbing love, truth, and virtue, make all the
accomplishments of life appear worthless in comparison.
God blessed their devotion to him and each other, giving his special
tokens of favor to the young heroine from Moab. Upon reaching Bethlehem,
she went into the fields of a kinsman of her mother-in-law, Boaz, a
wealthy citizen, to glean after the reapers. He inquired after her,
became interested in her, and, remembering his obligations on account of
their relationship, married her. An honorable portion and plenty crowned
the homeless wanderings of Ruth and Naomi, as they did the captivity of
Mordecai and Esther.
About two hundred years after the death of the latter, the Hebrew
Scriptures were translated into Greek by the order of Ptolemy
Philadelphus, the Egyptian sovereign of Palestine, making the famous
Septuagint--the name probably referring to seventy-two persons engaged
on the work.
A little over two centuries passed, and the Roman armies began their
conquests in Asia. Less than a score of years later Herod the Great
governed Judea, under the Roman emperor. This Herod, whose reign closed
the ancient annals of Palestine, was an Edomite--a cruel and ambitious
man.
Less than thirty years passed, and one of the darkest, bloodiest acts of
any sovereign since time began, disgraced the reign of Herod.
Jerusalem was astonished by the arrival of three sages from the distant
east, inquiring for a new-born king, saying that they had seen "his
star," and had come to offer him their gifts and homage. They found him
in the manger at Bethlehem: and then repaired to their own country
without returning to Jerusalem, as Herod had desired. The jealousy of
that tyrant had been awakened by their inquiry for the "King of the
Jews;" and as their neglect to return prevented him from distinguishing
the object of their homage, he had the inconceivable barbarity to order
that all the children in Bethlehem under two years of age should be put
to death, trusting that the intended victim would fall in the general
slaughter; but Joseph had previously been warned in a dream to take his
wife and the infant to the land of Egypt, whence they did not return
till after the death of Herod.
That event was not long delayed. In the sixty-ninth year of his age.
Herod fell ill of the disease which occasioned his death. That disease
was in his bowels, and not only put him to the most cruel tortures, but
rendered him altogether loathsome to himself and others. The natural
ferocity of his temper could not be tamed by such experience. Knowing
that the nation would little regret his death, he ordered the persons of
chief note to be confined in a tower, and all of them to be slain when
his own death took place, that there might be cause for weeping in
Jerusalem. This savage order was not executed. After a reign of
thirty-seven years, Herod died In the seventieth year of his age.