Female Scripture Biography, Volume I

by F. A. Cox

Immediate recourse was had to his counsellors, who concurred in the opinion of Memucan, that it was a public question of great importance to the future welfare of the state, and affecting the domestic felicity, not of the king only, but of every family in the Persian empire. The advice he gave them, which Ahasuerus promptly followed, was to divorce Vashti, and interdict her forever from reappearing in the royal presence. "If it please the king, let there go a royal commandment from him, and let it be written among the laws of the Persians and the Medes, that it be not altered. That Vashti come no more before king Ahasuerus: and let the king give her royal estate unto another that is better than she. And when the king's decree which he shall make shall be published throughout all his empire (for it is great,) all the wives shall give to their husbands honour, both to great and small." It is not surprising that such a gratifying, but unchristian proposal, should be adopted by an arbitrary heathen monarch. Neither Memucan nor his royal master had drunk at the purifying fountain of evangelical truth.

God was now making "the wrath of man to praise him." Human passions, prejudices, and errors were promoting divine designs. The feast, and the riot, and the vanity, and the rage of Ahasuerus, all concurred, though unconsciously on his part, to fulfil the mighty arrangements of Providence, and to introduce, a train of events which now march through the page of sacred history in rapid and wonderful succession.

After the divorce of Vashti, the ministers of Ahasuerus advised him to adopt speedy measures to fill up the vacancy in his affections and his throne. Their plan exhibits the barbarity of the age and the sensuality of the king. He was to have his choice of all the "fair young virgins," collected from the provinces of the empire: and it devolved upon Hadassah, or Esther, an orphan educated under the inspection of Mordecai, her cousin and guardian, one of the captive Jews at this period attached by some employment to the royal establishment. That God, who had bestowed upon this young Jewess unusual beauty, gave her favour in the eyes of the king, and secretly accomplished his own gracious purposes respecting his people by her advancement.

Little did any of the persons immediately concerned in this affair imagine the predestined results. Ahasuerus was gratifying his passions; Esther and Mordecai conforming to an irresistible influence; Hegai, the keeper of the women, following the impulse of a secret admiration, and, perhaps, aiming to ingratiate himself in the favour of one whom he might suppose likely to become the future queen; while the Supreme Disposer was making use of all this variety of feeling and design as the means of securing the ends in his omniscient view.

Esther retained her humility of spirit after her elevation of circumstances; for she "did the commandment of Mordecai like as when she was brought up with him." She was one of the very few that resist the allurements of splendour--that cherish kindness for their poorer relatives--and remember with gratitude the guardians of their youth.

Mordecai, having detected a conspiracy against the king, mentioned it to Esther, who named it to her royal consort; by which means the traitors were soon brought to execution. This circumstance rendered the faithful Jew known to his sovereign. It was attended, indeed, by no immediate recompense; but he felt a satisfaction in having done his duty, incomparably more grateful to an unambitious mind.

The danger to which the great king of Persia was exposed by the machinations of his domestics, shows the counterbalancing disadvantages which attach even to the most prosperous condition of human life; the conduct of Mordecai, on this occasion, teaches the allegiance we all owe both to our lawful king, and to the Sovereign of the universe; and the circumstances of the whole transaction, though for the present otherwise unnoticed, being "written in the book of the Chronicles before the king," reminds us of the "Lamb's book of life," that faithful register of the pious services of his people, which, if not in this life, shall be fully requitted in another.

Great princes often act capriciously, and advance to the highest stations those whose personal insignificance or baseness must otherwise have rendered them contemptible. Thus Ahasuerus promoted Haman, the Agagite, to the place of his prime minister; who received that homage from the multitude, which persons of rank and eminent station usually secure in all countries, but which is peculiarly exacted under arbitrary governments. The flattering incense of the king's servants was accepted by Haman as a fragrant offering, while his vanity feasted itself most luxuriously upon popular admiration.

But, in proportion to a man's eagerness after honour, will be his sensibility to the slightest affront, and his readiness to interpret, in the worst sense, even unintentional neglect. It will not appear surprising to those who are acquainted with the heart of man, that this new favourite should have felt even more pain from the disrespect of one individual, than pleasure from the reverence of ten thousand others: and this, not because of any extraordinary importance which the dissentient had acquired, but simply on account of the extreme susceptibility to applause which the dignity and the pride of Haman had superinduced. Mordecai, in fact, refused to pay that homage to the prime minister which the king commanded; and he persisted in his refusal, notwithstanding the remonstrances of the king's servants, who "spake daily unto him." The known loyalty of Mordecai renders it certain that this determination did not proceed from any disesteem of the king; his character is an equal pledge that it did not originate in envy, or any ridiculous pique: it must have been a conscientious scruple, and the probability is, that the king required for his favourite a religious homage, similar to what the Persian monarchs were accustomed to claim for themselves. The minister was, besides, an Agagite, and therefore, probably, of the race of Amalek, a people against which Jehovah had proclaimed a perpetual and exterminating war. If these were his motives, he is rather to be extolled for his heroism, than censured for his temerity. A man of God should persevere in his duty at all hazards, unseduced by the flatteries, and unawed by the threats of mankind. He must contend against spiritual wickedness, oppose internal lust, and resist external temptation. He must brave alike caresses and sneers; the importunity of the timid, and the insistance of the powerful; so, however reproached by men, he will be honoured by God.

The officers of the king, at length, resolved to inform his favourite of this determined omission to pay him reverence. Haman became incensed, and his rage burned with destructive violence. Having been told that Mordecai was a Jew, he instantly vowed to revenge his mortification, not only by punishing the individual, but by destroying the nation: and as the Persian monarchy, at this period, included Judea, had not Providence signally interposed, few if any could have escaped. How cruel is wrath, how outrageous anger! Thousands are devoted to death for an individual's conduct, who were utterly incapable of participating in it, and who had never even heard the name of their offending countryman! Supposed guilt and unquestioned innocence were doomed alike to perish in one indiscriminate massacre! O let us daily pray for that "wisdom which is from above, which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy, and good fruits!"