SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON VERSES 12-14. What strife, what emulation was now amongst all the Persian damsels that either were or thought themselves fair! Every one hopes to be a queen, and sees no reason why any other should be thought more excellent. How happy were we if we could be so ambitious of our espousals to the King of heaven! Every virgin must be six months purified with the oil of myrrh, and six other months perfumed with sweet odours, besides those special receipts that were allowed to each upon their own election. O God, what care, what cost is requisite to that soul which should be addressed a fit bride for thine holy and glorious majesty When we have scoured ourselves with the most cleansing oil of our repentance, and have perfumed ourselves with thy best graces, and our perfectest obedience, it is the only praise of thy mercy that we may be accepted.Bishop Hall. No doubt the virgins generally took the opportunity-one that would occur but once in their lives-to load them selves with precious ornaments of various kinds necklaces, bracelets, earrings, anklets, and the like.—Rawlinson. What care and cost is required for the decoration of the soul when it would prepare as an acceptable bride for Jesus. -Starke. Because God desires more and more to have delight in us, and to draw nigh to us, and therefore he more and more goes on to purge us. For though he loves us at first, when full of corruptions, yet he cannot so much delight in us as he would, nor have that communion with us, no more than a husband can with a wife who hath an unsavoury breath or a loathsome disease. They must therefore be purified for his bed, as Esther was for Ahasuerus. "Draw nigh to God," says James, "and he will draw nigh to you;" but then you must "cleanse your hands, and purify your hearts," as it follows there; God else hath no delight to draw nigh to you.Goodwin. MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH. VERSES 15, 20. ESTHER'S ELEVATION. God in the mysterious nature of his operations puts down the mighty from their seats, and exalts them of low degree. In all the changes of life, in the rise and fall both of nations and of individuals, we shall only be able to walk with calmness as we see the ruling purpose of the Supreme moving on to its accomplishment. Let the history of God's movements in the past be the interpreter of the present, and impart settled faith in the unerring wisdom of the Infinite. The Vashtis may fall, but their fall is the Divine stepping-stone by which the orphaned Esthers rise to greatness in order to be of service to humanity. Written history reveals the working of God; and when the history of the present is written it will declare that God is still working. Let us now read the history of Esther's elevation so as to teach in the present. I. God's servants patiently wait his time. That Esther was the servant of God is plain from the whole of this history. She was his chosen vessel. Here she waits the Lord's time. She is in no hurry; she manifests the calm of conscious greatness. True greatness has nothing to lose by patience. It may be objected that she was compelled to wait her turn. It may, however, be replied that many are unwise enough to try and fight against the force of Providence, and seek to hurry on Divine movements. Esther did not take this course because she had Blessed are they who know how to Blessed are they also that know been taught Divine lessons. She could wait. wait when waiting is the Divine appointment. how to move when the turn has come to go in unto the king. Ready to serve both by waiting and by moving is the characteristic of God's servants. She The II. God's servants have sustaining confidence. Esther required nothing but what the king's chamberlain appointed. As a wise woman, she would take what was seemly and necessary for her adornment, but, as one conscious of being sent on a Divine mission, she was not bent upon decking herself with gaudy jewels. let her beauty tell its own thrilling story, and work in its own magical way. goodness of her soul shone right through her physical form, and rendered her more attractive than if she had worn the most costly garments. She had a sustaining confidence which made her not over-anxious and exacting in her requirements. A sincere effort to serve God will deliver from the evils of over-anxiety. Nature requires little, and grace less. She required nothing but what was appointed. Oh for grace to lessen the number of our requirements, to learn the difficult lesson, in whatsoever state we are therewith to be content. III. God's servants find favour in unexpected quarters. From a human point of view it was a surprising thing that the king should so suddenly find his love drawn out towards this captive and orphaned Jewess. But more surprising still is the fact that Esther obtained favour in the sight of all them that looked upon her. Was green-eyed Jealousy on that occasion conquered? Did none of the on-looking virgins attempt to depreciate her beauty? Did none object to the shape of her nose, the colour of her hair, or the tone of her complexion? Was no whisper heard against this lovely maiden? Women are sharp to find out each other's defects, and yet Esther escaped because she was Divinely fashioned and Divinely guided. She was admired by all because she was God's servant. Hatred is sometimes the penalty of faithfulness in God's service; but if persecuted for Christ's sake we shall receive the favour of heaven, which is better than the favour of earth. However, we may find this, that God raises up for his servants friends in unexpected quarters. Joseph found friends and helpers in the prison. Daniel had lions for his friends and a king for his comforter. Bunyan was trusted by his jailor. IV. God's servants are royal. The king set the royal crown upon Esther's head, and made her queen instead of Vashti. But Esther needed no earthly insignia to set forth her royalty. She was God's servant, and all his servants are royal. A kingly seed, a royal race are the children of God. She was a queen by virtue of a Divine creation. She was royal by reason of the queenly magnificence of her character. Her virtues were her crown. They shone with brilliancy far surpassing the virtue of pearls or rubies. The crown which Ahasuerus placed on her head will crumble to dust, but the crown of her virtues will never suffer any tarnishing of its lustre. What ambition there is to receive royal crowns from earthly kings! What commotion in the seraglio when the whisper went forth, Esther has received the crown royal! How soldiers will fight, and what hardships officers will endure in order to receive the decorating ribbon or medal from an earthly sovereign! But this is as nothing to the position of those who are to receive the heavenly crown from the hand of the King eternal. Happy day when Jesus shall set the royal crown of his approval upon the heads of his favourites. V. God's servants are instruments of good. We are not now about to refer to Esther's great life-work in the deliverance of her people from a great danger, but to the facts here stated. In order to celebrate Esther's elevation to the crown, the king made a great feast, called Esther's feast, to all his princes and servants, and granted release to the provinces. This release may be understood either of a remission of labour or a remission of taxes. It is highly probable that it refers to the appointment of a holiday, on which there would be a resting from labour. Finally, the king gave gifts with royal munificence.-Keil. When the righteous are exalted the nation has reason to rejoice. Even material benefits result from their elevation. The country owes more to the presence in it of the righteous than it either understands or is prepared to admit. The king's former feast ended disastrously, but we do not read of any evil resulting from the joyful festivities on this occasion. May we suppose that Esther's presence exerted a salutary and restraining influence ? The righteous should be saving forces. VI. God's servants are fitted for the positions to which they are raised. Esther was gifted with the power of silence, and this is a rare gift. She did not show her kindred nor her people, for the set time had not yet arrived for the announcement. Intoxicated with her success, she might have made an untimely boast of the lowness of her origin. But she did not, for she was Divinely fitted. She knew both when to speak and when to keep silence. God fashions and educates his servants for the particular spheres they are designed to fill, and for the special duties they are intended to discharge. VII. God's servants in highest positions do not overlook the minor moralities. It would, we may suppose, have been called a minor immorality had Esther neglected the commandment of Mordecai. She was now a queen, and was she to be in subjection to her uncle? There may be minor and major in moralities, but unfaithfulness in the least leads to unfaithfulness in the greatest. Esther was convinced of Mordecai's wisdom and impressed with a sense of his kindness, and therefore felt that his commandment was binding. We cannot afford, even in highest positions, to be deaf to the voice of wisdom. The commandments of wise old men have in them a Divine force. Those Esthers are Divinely wise who pay respectful attention to the weighty words of the aged Mordecais. Observe that all Christians are the servants of God, whether the earthly position be high or low. They are royal, whether dwelling in a cottage or reigning in a palace. They should not be over-anxious about the good or great things of this life. Esther required nothing. They should move with quiet faith and restful confidence in their God. They should seek, above all, to fit themselves to be instruments of good to their kind. SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON VERSE 15. Now when the turn of Esther, &c.— Then, and not till then. So when Joseph was sufficiently humbled, the king sent and loosed him; the ruler of the people let him go free. When David was become weaned from the world, when his heart was not haughty, nor his eyes lofty, then was he advanced to the kingdom. He that believeth maketh not haste. God's time is best; and as he seldom cometh at our time, so he never faileth at his own.-2 -Trapp. She required nothing.—As other maids had done to set out their beauty, but contenting herself with her native comeliness, and that wisdom that made her face to shine, she humbly taketh what Hegai directed her to, and wholly resteth upon the Divine providence.-Trapp. Undazzled by splendour and royalty, the tender virgin rejected all these things. With noble simplicity she took the ornaments, neither selecting nor demanding anything, which the chief chamberlain brought to her. Even after she became queen above all the wives of the king, her heart still clung, not only with gratitude, but with childlike obedience, to her pious uncle and foster-father, as in the time when he trained her as a little girl.-Stolberg. Let then both men and women learn by this case so to direct all their aims and desires as to please God alone by the ornament of a good conscience, and by the forms of minds well adjusted; but to despise the adventitious bodily ornaments of this world as vain in his sight, and by this piety gain the surer rewards of heaven. For this alone is the true beauty, which is precious in God's view, and which causes us to be approved by the King of kings, and joined to him in spiritual matrimony. Surprising that even the heathen saw and taught this, for Crates says: That is ornament which adorns, but that adorns which makes a woman more adjusted and more modest. For this end neither gold, nor gems, nor purple avails, but whatever has the import of gravity, modesty, and chastity.-Fenardent. That mind is truly great and noble that is not changed with the highest prosperity. Queen Esther cannot forget her cousin Mordecai; no pomp can make her slight the charge of so dear a kinsman; in all her royalty she casts her eye upon him amongst the throng of beholders; but she must not know him; her obedience keeps her in awe, and will not suffer her to draw him up with her to the participation of her honour. It It troubles her not a little to forbear this duty, but she must; it is enough that Mordecai hath commanded her not to be known who or whose she was.-Hall. He Nor was Esther behind with her grateful returns. Too many when suddenly exalted forget their former friends, or, what is as bad, forget themselves, become vain and arrogant, and so impatient of admonition and good advice. Children, when they grow up, are apt to think that they are released from all obligation even to their natural parents; they become wise in their own conceits, and spurn advice as if it were an undue assumption of authority. But "Esther did the commandment of Mordecai, like as when she was brought up with him." The least signification of his will was a law to her; for she knew that he would require nothing of her inconsistent with her duty to God and her husband. had enjoined her not to make known her kindred or her people; and this she religiously abstained from, not only when she was under the conduct of Hegai, but after she was seated in the affections of Ahasuerus, and had come to the kingdom. "Esther had not yet showed her kindred nor her people; as Mordecai had charged her." She, no doubt, felt a strong desire to make the avowal, and to use her interest with the king for the advancement of her kind benefactor. But even this generous feeling she repressed, because it would have led to a transgression of his command. To testify her gratitude she would not disobey him, nor run the risk of displeasing him. And she acted thus, though it does not appear that he acquainted her with his reasons for concealment. We may be sure, however, that Mordecai did not impose this silence arbitrarily; and his caution confirms the remark already made, that he looked forward to something more important that was to be accomplished by the elevation of his daughter, and waited for the opportune occasion when the disclosure of her people and relationship to him would be the means of advancing it. "Known unto God are all his works from the beginning," and "the secret of Jehovah is with them that fear him.”McCrie. There is everything about Esther to engage our interest and sympathy. It is sad enough to find ourselves, even in adult years, suddenly in the front rank through the falling of those who stood in nature before us; but "she had neither father nor mother" while still a child, needing all care. And there were serious aggravations of her orphanhood—her sex, her belonging to the race of exiles, her beauty. But the Lover of little children, the Father of the fatherless, who had said to these captives, "Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive," had provided for Esther one who proved to her both father and mother. And there are early indications that the orphan girl was a daughter of the Lord Almighty; she obeyed Mordecai, even when beyond his control; and she was modestly free from love of display, a feature scarcely to be expected in a favoured beauty unless she had also grace. At length she became queen consort, and Mordecai's faith had its reward. For we are disposed to think it must have been in faith that he had committed her to the various perils of these twelve months. The parallel between Esther and the child Moses is striking (as McCrie shows in his lectures): each exceeding fair; each raised from lowly station to a place beside the throne; each a deliverer of Israel; each cast upon the waters for a time, although the waters on which Esther was cast were far more perilous than the Nile, and the royal home than the ark of bulrushes; so that we may credit Mordecai with faith like that of Amram and Jochebed. At least it is certain that Esther's advancement, while it came through the beauty which gave her her name, did not come through that alone or chiefly. God gave "her favour in the sight of all them that looked on her;" her Father sent her to her husband, a poor orphan indeed, but with that "discretion" without which her comeliness would have been in his judgment "as a jewel of gold in a swine's snout."-A. M. Symington, B.A. MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH. VERSES 21, 23. THE PLOTTERS AND THE COUNTERPLOTTER. In this passage we have a striking illustration, even in a temporal point of view, of James's statement, "Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin when it is finished, bringeth forth death." Here in these two plotters—Bigthan and Teresh—are depraved affections and desires bringing forth sinfulness of purpose; it was not their fault that the sinful purpose did not culminate in the sinful deed, and they were guilty. The sinful purpose unchecked on our part renders us criminal in the sight of God, though not always in the sight of man. This sinful purpose brought upon them temporal death. They were both hanged on a tree." Temporal death is not always the result of sinful purposes. If it were, what a valley of death this world would be. But oh, if we do not repent of sinful purposes, and fly to Jesus Christ, the sinner's refuge, spiritual death will be the inevitable result. The plotters are Bigthan and Teresh. Their design was dark and dastardly, and not to be condoned, because such plots were too common in those days. The counterplotter was Mordecai, who sat at the king's gate. 66 Cer I. Notice, Their discontentment and his contentment. Profane history throws no light on their circumstances. We cannot tell whether or not they had a true cause for anger. We must simply abide by the statement-two of the king's chamberlains were wroth. Anger may arise from either real or ideal causes. tainly discontentment is a fruitful source of anger. The discontented man soon finds out reasons why he should be angry. A fancied grievance is quite enough to stir up the nature and rouse the angry passions. If the truth were known, these men had very likely more reason to be pleased with the monarch for their advantages than to be angry on account of some grievance. Mordecai had not much outward reason for satisfaction. He might have reasonably expected more in consequence of Esther's elevation. But he sat with contented heart at the king's gate. He did not complain because he had not been raised to some high position at the court. He sat not as a cringing captive, not with the frown of discontent on his brows; but rejoicing, we may believe, in the elevation of her he loved, sweetly dreaming of her glory, and trying to picture to himself the salutary effect of her moral influence in that heathenish palace. II. Their discontentment culminates in a murderous purpose. They sought to lay hands on the King Ahasuerus. He that hateth his brother is a murderer. Anger is a murderer, though the victim escapes with his life. Society cannot punish for unenacted murder. Human governments can only take cognizance in this respect of deeds. The Divine government exercises control in the immaterial world of thought. Thoughts are powers. Unexpressed anger is sinful if encouraged. God will try our thoughts. Who then shall stand ? III. This contentment expressed itself in a faithful discharge of duty. Mordecai did not say, Why should I meddle? what matters it to me what becomes of this heathen despot? But he practically said, Here is a great wrong being planned; it is my duty to make known the conspiracy and bring the plotters to judgment. It is required not only of those in high positions, but of those in low positions, that they be found faithful. The men sitting at the king's gate can often do more service to the nation than those sitting in the king's presence. Usefulness is required of |