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.
Sir Walter Scott's beautiful "Hebrew Hymn" will fittingly close these
sketches of Palestine:
When Israel, of the Lord beloved,
Out from the land of bondage came,
Her father's God before her moved,
An awful guide, in smoke and flame.
By day along the astonished lands,
The cloudy pillar glided slow;
By night Arabia's crimsoned sands
Returned the fiery columns' glow.
There rose the choral hymn of praise,
And trump and timbrel answered keen;
And Zion's daughters poured their lays,
With priests' and warriors' voice between.
No portents now our foes amaze,
Forsaken Israel wanders lone;
Our fathers would not know Thy ways,
And Thou has left them to their own.
But present still, though now unseen,
When brightly shines the prosperous day,
Be thoughts of Thee, a cloudy screen,
To temper the deceitful ray.
And oh! when stoops on Judah's path,
In shade and storm, the frequent night,
Be Thou long-suffering, slow to wrath,
A burning and a shining light.
Our harps we left by Babel's streams,
The tyrant's jest, the Gentile's scorn,
No censer round our altar beams,
And mute our timbrel, trump, and horn,
But thou hast said, "The blood of goat,
The flesh of rams I will not prize,
A contrite heart, an humble thought,
Are more accepted sacrifice."