Notable Women of Olden Time

by Anonymous

Mordecai, the relative who had supplied the place of parents to Esther, was, as we have said, of the house of Kish. Mordecai was the Jew rather than the Benjamite. His heart was devoted to his country. When the child of his adoption was taken to the palace, Mordecai displayed his wise forethought in cautioning her against making her parentage and kindred known. He had been as a father to her, and a deep interest in the orphan of his care led him, day by day, to watch the gate of the palace—to mingle with the attendants, that he might catch a view of her train or gather tidings of her welfare. And thus, unknown as the relative of the fair queen, or as especially interested in the king, Mordecai was enabled to detect and reveal a plot for the assassination of Ahasuerus. Esther being informed of the plot, disclosed it to the king—the criminals were defeated and punished—but no reward was conferred upon Mordecai.

The passion of Ahasuerus for his fair bride seems to have soon declined. The fickle voluptuary sought new pleasures, and the bride so lately exalted to a throne was no longer an object of envy. Many bitter tears have been shed by the victims of family pride or state policy, when thus allied to greatness and splendour. The sacred rite has often been prostituted to purposes of ambition and selfishness, and has thus become a source of guilt and misery. Esther, in her elevation, may have shed as bitter tears as fell from Vashti in her banishment and disgrace.

Thus each state has its own trials and its own griefs—and it has its peculiar alleviations too. Perhaps the progress of the narrative will show us the source of that influence which seems early to have estranged Ahasuerus from his bride.

Among the courtiers of the king there was the descendant of a race long at variance with the Jews. The Amalekites had been the enemies of the Israelites from the infancy of the nation. When the tribes came up from Egypt, faint and weary in the desert, the Amalekites had fallen upon them and attempted to destroy them; and during a series of ages there had been a war of extermination between the races. Nor had Amalek been subjected until Saul was raised to the throne and Israel had become a kingdom.

When Israel and Judah had been destroyed or carried captive by the hosts of the Assyrians, the remaining Amalekites seem likewise to have been carried into the east, either as prisoners or allies. And now, from among all his courtiers, Ahasuerus had chosen, as his chief favourite and counsellor, Haman, the son of Hammedatha, a descendant of Agag—that king of Amalek who, as the prisoner of Saul, was condemned to death by Samuel, the judge of Israel. The descendant of a royal line and of an ancient race, Haman was as crafty as he was unprincipled and malignant, and his evil influence seems to have first drawn the king's favour from Esther. He did not know her lineage, but by plunging the king in every excess, by keeping all safe counsellors at a distance, he intended to increase his own influence and perpetuate his own power, while he was accumulating great wealth from the prodigality of his master and from the presents offered as bribes to obtain his favour.

As he did not know the lineage of Esther, he did not persecute her; but as he feared an influence that might compete with his own, he strove to alienate the heart of Ahasuerus from her. Haman was advanced to honours far above all the native princes of the kingdom; even to the first seat in counsel, to the highest honours in the realm, and to constant companionship of the monarch.

As, with trains of slaves and flatterers, he was hastening to the audience of the monarch, or returning loaded with marks of royal favour, he passed Mordecai the Jew, seated alone—unknown, unheeded, without rank or wealth—by the gate of the palace. "Yet Mordecai bowed not, neither did reverence to Haman." The two men seemed to represent to each other their respective nations; as if all the hate and malice of the race, and of long ages of national bitterness, were concentrated in an individual. They met as the Israelite and the Amalekite; and the memories of centuries of aggression and injuries, of shame and defeat, were crowded into the present moment. Mordecai saw in Haman, not only the foe to his race, but the crafty, unprincipled, unholy counsellor, who had already alienated the heart of the monarch from his youthful bride, and whose pernicious influence was spreading blight and corruption, misery and destruction—through an empire.

Every feeling of the Jew, every principle of an upright, sincere heart forbade Mordecai to pay the homage demanded of him by Haman. Every sentiment of national pride, of family honour, of personal dignity, of self-respect, arose to deter the descendant of Israel from showing honour to the hereditary foe of his people and the persecutor of his faith.

Haman, at the same time, saw in Mordecai the descendant of those who had triumphed over his nation and destroyed his ancestors. The descendant of Agag, the captive of Saul, he might naturally vent his indignation upon the tribe that humbled his house and subjected his nation and destroyed his ancestors. The contempt with which Mordecai regarded him roused all the ancient malignity of the Amalekite, and his hot blood called for vengeance.