CHAPTER III. An CRITICAL NOTES.] 1. After these things] After the events related in the former chapter. The twelfth year of the reign of Ahasuerus, five years after ch. ii. 16, but here somewhat sooner. "The name Haman is probably the same which is found in the classical writers under the form of Omanes, and which in ancient Persian would have been Umana or Umanish, an exact equivalent of the Greek Eumenes Hammedatha is perhaps the same as Madata or Mahedata (Madates of Q. Curtius), an old Persian name signifying "given by (or to) the moon."-Rawlinson. The term Agag means "the fiery," and may have been applied to persons without any reference to nationality. It was employed as a general name of dignity by the kings of Amalek. Impossible to determine Haman's nationality. We may perhaps conclude that the epithet "Agagite" is here used symbolically of a heathen enemy of the Jews. 2. Bowed] A simple inclination of the body as to an equal in courtesy; but reverenced] a complete prostration in Oriental style of homage to a superior. A kind of religious homage. Mordecai's confession that he was a Jew appears to imply that the rules of his religion would not allow him to offer the semblance of Divine honours to a mortal. Mordecai is represented in the apocryphal Esther as praying: "Thou knowest, Lord, that it was neither in contempt nor pride that I did not bow to Haman; for I would have been glad for the salvation of Israel to kiss the soles of his feet. But I did this that I might not glorify man more than God; neither would I worship any, O God, but thee." 4. Whether Mordecai's matters would stand] Whether the religious scruples of a Jew would be tolerated in opposition to Persian laws and customs. 6. He thought scorn] Literally, it was contemptible in his eyes. 7.] The first month Nisan corresponds nearly with our April. The twelfth month Adar with our March. interval of eleven months. is an old Persian word meaning lot (sors). The words "from day to day, from month to the twelfth month," must not be understood to say that lots were cast day by day, and month by month till the twelfth; but that in the first month lots were at once cast, one after the other, for all the days and months of the year, that a favourable day might be obtained. We do not know the manner in which this was done," the way of casting lots being unknown to us." Keil, But Rawlinson says Pur is supposed to be an old Persian word etymologically connected with the Latin pars, and signifying part or lot. In modern Persian parch has that meaning. The recovered fragments of the old language have not, however, yielded any similar root. Smav be regarded as an impersonal verb, and refers to some one whose office it was to cast lots. 8.] The Jews were at this time a people scattered abroad. From the fall of Samaria the tribes of Israel had become more and more dispersed among the people in all the provinces of the East, until their tribe divisions could be now but faintly recognized. Seneca says, "Such power have the customs of this detestable people already gained, that they are introduced into all lands; they the conquered have given laws to their conquerors." 9.] Ten thousand talents of silver, reckoned according to the Mosaic shekel, are £3,750,000; according to the civil shekel, £1,875,000.- Keil. 10.] The signets of Persian monarchs were sometimes rings, sometimes cylinders, the latter probably suspended by a string round the wrist. The expression here used might apply to either kind of signet.—Rawlinson. The signet cylinder of Darius Hystaspes bears a trilingual inscription which reads, "Darius the great king," and also a picture of the king hunting lions in a palm grove. 11.] Some understand this to mean that Ahasuerus refused the silver which Haman had offered to him; but the passage is better explained as a grant to him of all the property of such Jews as should be executed. In the East confiscation follows necessarily upon public execution, the goods of criminals escheating to the crown, which does with them as it chooses.-Rawlinson. 12.] The scribes of Xerxes are mentioned more than once by Herodotus. They appear to have been in constant attendance on the monarch, ready to indite his edicts, or to note down any occurrences which he desired to have recorded.—Rawlinson. and are here placed together, the satraps of the larger provinces and the rulers among the separate peoples of the provinces. The are the native so-called born princes of the different people. 13.] By the runners, by whom they were sent, are meant the posts, the angari or pressmen, who were posted on the main roads of the empire at definite distances from each other, from four to seven parasangs, and who rapidly expedited the royal (mails) letters or commands. The three verbs to destroy, to kill, and cause to perish-are combined to give strength to the expression. is their property, which is called spoil because it was delivered up to plunder. 14.] By the issue of the decree at this time (the first month) the Jews throughout the empire had from nine to eleven months' warning of the peril which threatened them. So long a notice is thought to be "incredible," and the question is asked, Why did they not then quit the kingdom? In reply we may say, (1) That many of them may have quitted the kingdom; and, (2) That those who remained may have believed, with Mordecai, that enlargement and deliverance would arise from some quarter or other. As to its being improbable that Haman should give such long notice, we may remark that Haman only wished to be quit of Mordecai, and that the flight of the IT ים Jews would have served his purpose quite as well as their massacre.-Rawlinson. 15.] primarily does not mean that it was distressed by terror or sorrow, but that it was perplexed, did not know what to think of such a terrible command. The remark that “Shushan was perplexed" has been attributed to Jewish conceit, but without reason. Susa was now the capital of Persia, and the main residence of Persians of high rank. These, being attached to the religion of Zoroaster, would naturally sympathize with the Jews, and be disturbed at their threatened destruction. Nay, even apart from this bond of union, the decree was sufficiently strange and ominous to “perplex' thoughtful citizens.-Rawlinson. MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH. VERSES 1, 6. THE PROSPEROUS WICKED MAN. MATTHEW HENRY says, "I wonder what the king saw in Haman that was commendable or meritorious; it is plain that he was not a man of honour or justice, of any true courage or steady conduct, but proud, and passionate, and revengeful; yet was he promoted and caressed, and there was none so great as he. Princes' darlings are not always worthies." I. The wicked man in great prosperity. History, both of nations and of individuals, repeats itself. Both in ancient and in modern times we may see the wicked in great prosperity. Haman is typical. The race is prolific. Haman is the progenitor of a long line that by skilful plotting rise above the heads of superior men. If earthly greatness be a reward, the good are not always rewarded in time. In this world rewards are not rightly administered. Push and tact get the prize. Modest talent may be commended in the song or in the oration, but may be thankful if it does not find itself compelled to enter the workhouse. Goodness in purple and fine linen is commended; but goodness personified in a certain beggar named Lazarus is not an article of modern creeds. We are still too prone to believe that Virtue fares sumptuously every day, and that only Vice is fed with crumbs and has its sores licked by the dogs. II. The prosperous wicked man is surrounded by fawning sycophants. "All the king's servants, that were in the king's gate, bowed, and reverenced Haman: for the king had so commanded concerning him.” But a king's commandment is not required to secure outward homage towards those in high places. There is always a sycophantic crew ready to worship earthly greatness. Clothe a man with the outward marks of royal favour, and many are at once prepared to become his blind adulators. Christian England has not improved very much on heathenish Persia. Outward show attracts more admirers than inward worth. Imperialism is glorified in political, literary, and ecclesiastical spheres. Greatness, not goodness, is still a leading virtue in ethical systems. Prowess in arms, push in business, skill in politics, success in literature, and parade in religion are the articles of the creed in which modern society devoutly believes. The wicked Haman so long as he is prime minister must be reverenced. III. The prosperous wicked man is surrounded by meddling sycophants. Even admirers may be too officious. If Haman had known and seen all he might have prayed, Save me from my friends. The king's servants told Haman that there was a Jew who would not reverence enthroned and bedazzled wickedness. No, they would have told him this had they told him the truth; they might have told him this had they seen Mordecai's nobility. However, their selfish zeal carried them too far. They were undermining Haman's grand position, and frustrating their own purposes of aggrandisement. How often it is that in trying to grasp too much we lose all ! IV. The prosperous wicked man finds that false greatness brings trouble. That greatness is false which is not the outcome of goodness. The course of wicked prosperity cannot run smooth. Haman meets with the checking and detecting man. Mordecai. Ahab is troubled by Elijah. Nathan said unto David, Thou art the Herod beheads John the Baptist, but still he is not free from a reproving spirit. When Mordecai refuses to bow let Haman tremble. We do not attempt to prosecute the difficult inquiry what it was which led Mordecai to refuse to bow to Haman. Much has been said and written, but no satisfactory conclusion has been reached. All that we can say is, that there must have been a strong religious motive working in the mind of Mordecai which induced him to pursue a course which exposed him to the wrath of an Eastern despot. The nobility, the heroism of Mordecai must be admired as he thus braved death itself, and refused to follow the multitude in doing evil. Oh, for more Mordecais; for those who shall dare to be singular; for those who will stand by their convictions. Let great men watch how men of strong convictions deport themselves. There is more wholesome teaching in the silent mood of the strong-minded than in the honeyed words of shallow sycophants. V. The prosperous wicked man may learn that an unrestrained nature brings trouble. Haman was intoxicated with his greatness, and could not brook it that one poor Jew refused an outward act of homage. Haman was full of wrath, and consequently was full of trouble. Wrath is cruel, both to the subject and the object. A dark cloud gathers on Haman's countenance, for wrath drives away the cheering sunlight, and brings darkness over the whole man. One whispered hiss reaching the great man's ear is sufficient to drown the hosannas of the multitude. VI. The prosperous wicked man unwittingly plots his own downfall. Haman's wrath led him to dangerous extremes. He vainly fancied that nothing could withstand his greatness; so he determines to take signal vengeance on Mordecai by making his whole nation suffer. It was not sufficient for this great man to touch Mordecai only. He would not demean himself by laying hands on that one dog of a Jew. He must have wholesale slaughter. Wherefore Haman sought to destroy all the Jews that were throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus. Poor Haman! Already we see thee treading on a volcano. Thy hands are digging the pit into which thou shalt fall. Thy minions are already preparing the gallows on which thou thyself shalt be hung. (a) Prosperity has its drawbacks. This is true of all prosperity, but more especially of the prosperity of the wicked. The triumphing of the wicked shall be short. Greatness purchased by the sacrifice of goodness must bring trouble to its possessor sooner or later. (b)" Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud. Haman and his flatterers were dividing the spoil, but they were not happy. Mordecai was of a humble spirit, and enjoyed peace of mind. (c) That our greatest troubles often spring from our own depraved natures. Haman's depravity worked him misery and ruin in the end. "Heaven is most just, and of our pleasant vices Makes instruments to scourge us." reverence. He was as nearly happy as a man can be whose ruling passion is vanity; but such men hold their happiness by a very frail tenure. It does not look altogether well that Ahasuerus should have needed to give special orders about his servants bowing to Haman. Darius had not needed to do this in the case of Daniel. Had the favourite been respected and liked, men would have given him all seemly honour unbidden. But this was a very different case. Daniel carried that within himself which secured his peace, even when suddenly flung down from lofty station to the lions' den; but this little-great man was made miserable by discovering that there was a single porter who did not prostrate himself before him. "But Mordecai bowed not, nor did him reverence." It does seem a very small matter, but when such a man as Mordecai attached importance to it, we must pause and consider whether the matter was really so small as it seemed. For it is an unsafe way of reasoning to say about anything, It is only one little act; why scruple over it? If it does no good, it can do no harm; and so forth. By such reasoning habits of untruth and intemperance have many a time been formed, and what was perhaps little in itself, if it had been possible to separate it from all else, has been found to be anything but little in its results. The truth is, we cannot separate any single action from the rest of our lives, so that the importance of an action depends not on its greatness or its littleness, but on many other circumstances, such as, how often we do it, the effect it has on others, particularly its influence on our own consciences. In this case it so happened that what Mordecai did— rather what he determined not to doproved to be of very great importance to the whole Persian empire; but he could not know that. What he did know was, that if he had once bowed to Haman his conscience would have been defiled, as surely as Daniel's would have been if he had eaten the king's meat; and a polluted conscience is no trifle. A man has to carry it about with him all day, to go to sleep with it if he can, to encounter it again when he awakes, until God purges out the stain. A. M. Symington, B.A. True religion does not interfere with the ordinary courtesies of life, nor does it forbid our rendering that honour to rank and station which is their due. But when vice and real infamy are shrouded under high rank, the Christian must beware of acting so as to make it supposed that the rank forms an apology for the vice and infamy, or renders them less hateful than they really are. It is to be regarded as a kind of retribution, in the case of ungodly and wicked men, that the very irregularity and violence of their passions contains in itself what is sufficient to embitter the whole cup of their enjoyment. This is matter of universal experience. In the instance before us, it is very plain that Mordecai's unbending and contemptuous attitude rendered Haman altogether indifferent to the homage which was rendered to him by others. Formerly he had retired from his attendance upon the king, through the crowd of obsequious and prostrate slaves, with the highest desires of his heart gratified. His greatness was acknowledged. His will was law. There was no man in the kingdom, next to the sovereign himself, to whom such incense was offered by all. He had reached a higher elevation than the greatest nobles of the kingdom occupied. Unbounded power and wealth were within his grasp, and what more could he wish for! But now one incident, in itself so trifling that we wonder it could have even occasioned him pain for a moment, strips his grandeur and power of all their charms. Mordecai will not bow to him, nor do him reverence. The slavish homage of thousands ceases to gratify him because this one man a Jew will not recognize his greatness, nor honour him. His feeling is brought out afterwards very graphically in the history when, after recounting to his family and friends all the dignities and advantages which, through the favour of the king, he enjoyed, he says, "All this availeth me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king's gate." The wicked always receive part of their punishment in the violence of some unhallowed passion which blinds them to all the real benefits of their lot. Is there not a gnawing disease in the heart of the covetous man, for example, which prevents him from enjoying the good things which are placed within his reach, just because he has not yet acquired all that he wishes to possess? And still, as he gets more and more, is he not as far as ever from being satisfied, since he has not yet reached the point at which he aims? Or, again, look to the man who is the slave of envy, and mark how miserable this base passion makes him. He has ample means of enjoyment which he can call his own, but his neighbour has something which pleases him better, and just because that one thing is awanting to himself, he can find no satisfaction in the varied blessings which a kind Providence has showered upon him. His neighbour's good is to him what Mordecai at the king's gate was to Haman. In like manner, I might advert to the working of the more violent passions of anger and revenge, as a cause of intense torment to those who cherish them, and as altogether preventing them from taking advantage of many sources of happiness which lie open to them on every side. I might also allude to the misery which wounded vanity and affronted pride often bring to those who have high notions of their own importance, as when a trifling word or action will discompose them for many days together, and deprive them of their relish for the things that formerly pleased and made them happy. But enough has been said to show how by a just retribution the ungodly, following out their natural tendencies and passions, work out their own punishment. How different is the picture presented to us where grace reigns in the heart. Although corruption is not altogether eradicated from the spiritual man, yet its power is subdued; the fierce passions are tamed; love takes the place of envy, malignity, and wrath; and the believer, seeking and finding his chief enjoyment in God, remains comparatively unruffled by those incidents which breed so much vexation and disquietude in the breast of the ungodly. The wise man says that "he who is of a merry heart hath a continual feast ;" and emphatically it may be said that the heart in which the Spirit of God dwells is a peaceful sanctuary-the seat of pure enjoyment. It Satan is always ready to take advantage of the season when the mind is perturbed by any strong passion, in order to hurry his victims onward to some act of violence from which in other circumstances they would have shrunk. Haman at this time was precisely in such a mood as made him an easy prey to the enemy. His self-importance, his worldly grandeur, the king's favour, all set at nought by Mordecai, aggravated his deadly resentment, and made him seek the destruction of the whole Jewish race. could not have been but by Satanic influence that a scheme of such vast and daring atrocity was devised. There is nothing said in the history to show that the disposition of Haman was habitually cruel, that he was one who would have taken pleasure in inflicting pain for no reason but to gratify a propensity of his nature. From the brief glances we obtain of his domestic life, he seems to have enjoyed the confidence and affection of his family, as far as was compatible with the usages of the age and country; a circumstance which certainly seems to warrant the conclusion that he was not of a temper unmixedly cruel and tyrannical. But when the master passion of revenge took possession of him, then by working upon it Satan transformed him into a very fiend. And it has always been one of the devices of the enemy to drive men into criminal excesses to their own ruin through the instrumentality of some favourite lust or appetite. It was the covetous spirit of Judas that opened a way to the tempter to hurry him to betray the Saviour. It was an unmanly fear on the part of Pilate, lest he should be misrepresented to the Roman emperor, that the tempter took occasion of to lead him, in opposition to all his convictions, to deliver up Jesus to be crucified. need to be upon their guard, then, against the wiles of the crafty adversary, and to strive to have their desires and feelings so kept under the control of the All |