"Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones
Against the rock."[262]
It is more difficult to account for the responsible part taken by Mordecai and Esther in begging permission for this awful massacre. The last pages of the Book of Esther reek with blood. A whole empire is converted into shambles for human slaughter. We turn with loathing from this gigantic horror, glad to take refuge in the hope that the author has dipped his brush in darker colours than the real events would warrant. Nevertheless such a massacre as this is unhappily not at all beyond the known facts of history on other occasions—not in its extent; the means by which it is here carried out are doubtless exceptional. Xerxes himself was so heartless and so capricious that any act of folly or wickedness could be credited of him.
After all that can be said for it, clearly this Book of Esther cannot claim the veneration that we attach to the more choice utterances of Old Testament literature. It never lifts us with the inspiration of prophecy; it never commands the reverence which we feel in studying the historical books. Yet we must not therefore assume that it has not its use. It illustrates an important phase in the development of Jewish life and thought. It also introduces us to characters and incidents that reveal human nature in very various lights. To contemplate such a revelation should not be without profit. After the Bible, what book should we regard as, on the whole, most serviceable for our enlightenment and nurture? Since next to the knowledge of God the knowledge of man is most important, might we not assign this second place of honour to the works of Shakespeare rather than to any theological treatise? And if so may we not be grateful that something after the order of a Shakespearian revelation of man is contained even in one book of the Bible?
It may be best to treat a book of this character in a different manner from the weighty historical work that precedes it, and, instead of expounding its chapters seriatim, to gather up its lessons in a series of brief character studies.
CHAPTER XXXII.
AHASUERUS AND VASHTI.
Esther i.
The character of Ahasuerus illustrates the Nemesis of absolutism, by showing how unlimited power is crushed and dissolved beneath the weight of its own immensity. The very vastness of his domains overwhelms the despot. While he thinks himself free to disport according to his will, he is in reality the slave of his own machinery of government. He is so entirely dependent for information on subordinates, who can deceive him to suit their own private ends, that he often becomes a mere puppet of the political wire-pullers. In the fury of his passion he issues his terrible mandates, with the confidence of a master whose slightest whim is a law to the nations, and yet that very passion has been cleverly worked up by some of his servants, who are laughing in their sleeves at the simplicity of their dupe, even while they are fawning on him with obsequious flattery. In the story of Esther Ahasuerus is turned about hither and thither by his courtiers, according as one or another is clever enough to obtain a temporary hearing. In the opening scene he is the victim of a harem plot which deprives him of his favourite consort. Subsequently Haman poisons his mind with calumnies about a loyal, industrious section of his subjects. He is only undeceived by another movement in the harem. Even the jealously guarded women of the royal household know more of the actual state of affairs in the outside world than the bewildered monarch. The king is so high above his realm that he cannot see what is going on in it; and all that he can learn about it passes through such a variety of intermediary agents that it is coloured and distorted in the process.