THE son and successor of the famous Persian king Xerxes was Artaxerxes, surnamed Longimanus, or, in Persian, [Persian] Ardsheer Diraz dest, the long-handed Ardshur. This prince, on coming to the throne, had powerful opponents and competitors in the children of Artabanus, uncle to Xerxes, and in his own brother Hystaspes. The former, and their adherents, he overthrew in a bloody battle; and in the following year obtained a complete victory over his brother, and totally subdued the Bactrians, who had espoused his cause: and thus rendered himself the undisputed possessor of the Persian empire. About his third year, which was 462 before Christ, the history of Esther begins, which, in its connection with the Persian history, is thus ably introduced by Dr. Prideaux:—
“After Artaxerxes had obtained these successes, and thereby firmly settled himself in the peaceable possession of the whole Persian empire, (Esther i.,) he appointed a solemn rejoicing on this account: and caused it to be celebrated in the city of Shushan, or Susa, in feastings and shows, for the term of a hundred and eighty days; on the conclusion of which he gave a great feast for all the princes and people that were then in Shushan, for seven days; and Vashti, the queen, at the same time, made a like feast in her apartment for the women. On the seventh day, the king’s heart being merry with wine, he commanded the seven chamberlains to bring Queen Vashti before him, with the crown royal on her head, that he might show to the princes and people her beauty. But for her thus to show herself in such an assembly being contrary to the usage of the Persians, and appearing to her, as indeed it was, very indecent, and much unbecoming the modesty of a lady, as well as the dignity of her station, she refused to comply, and would not come; whereon the king, being very much incensed, called his seven counsellors to take advice with them about it, who, fearing this might be a bad example through the whole empire, in encouraging women to contemn and disobey their husbands, advised that the king should put Vashti away for ever from him, and give her royal state to another, that should be better than her; and by his royal edict, give command throughout the whole empire that all wives should pay honour and obedience to their husbands, and that every man should rule absolutely in his own house. Which advice pleasing the king, he commanded it accordingly to be put in execution; and Vashti never more after that came again into the king’s presence: for the decree whereby she was removed from him was registered among the laws of the Medes and Persians, and therefore it could never again be altered. After this, orders were given out through the whole empire for the gathering together at the palace at Shushan all the fair virgins in every province, that out of them one might be chosen whom the king should best like to be made queen in her place. At the time when this collection of virgins was made, (Esther ii.,) there lived in Shushan a certain Jew named Mordecai, who was of the descendants of those who had been carried captive to Babylon with Jeconiah king of Judah, and, by his attendance at the king’s gate, seems to have been one of the porters of the royal palace. He, having no children, did bring up Hadassah, his uncle’s daughter, and adopted her as his own. This young woman, being very beautiful and fair, was made choice of among other virgins on this occasion; and was carried to the king’s palace, and there committed to the care of Hege, the king’s chamberlain, who was appointed to have the custody of these virgins; whom she pleased so well by her good carriage, that he showed her favour before all the other virgins under his care; and therefore he assigned her the best apartment of the house, and provided her first with those things that were requisite for her purification: for the custom was, that every virgin thus taken into the palace for thee king’s use was to go through a course of purification, by sweet oils and perfumes, for a whole year; and therefore Hadassah, having been, by the favour of the chamberlain, of the earliest provided with these things, was one of the first that was prepared and made ready for the king’s bed, and therefore was one of the soonest that was called to it. The term, therefore, of her purification being accomplished, her turn came to go in unto the king; who was so much pleased with her that he often called her by name, which he used not to do but to those only of his women whom he was much delighted with. Esther growing still farther tn the king’s favour, and gaining his affections beyond all the rest of the women, (Esther ii.,) he advanced her to higher honour; and on the tenth day of the tenth month, which falls about the end of our year, did put the royal diadem upon her head, and declared her queen in the place of Vashti; and in consequence thereof, made a solemn feast for his princes and servants, which was called Esther’s feast; and, in honour of her, at the same time made a release of taxes to the provinces, and gave donatives and presents to all that attended him, according to the grandeur and dignity of his royal estate. Haman, an Amalekite, of the posterity of Agag, who was king of Amalek, in the time of Saul, growing to be the chief favourite of King Artaxerxes, all the king’s servants were commanded to pay reverence unto him, and bow before him; and all of them obeyed the king’s order but Mordecai the Jew, who, sitting in the king’s gate, according to his office, paid not any reverence to Haman at such times as he passed by into the palace, neither bowed he at all to him; at which, being told, he was exceedingly displeased: but scorning to lay hands on one man only, and being informed that he was a Jew, he resolved, in revenge of this affront, to destroy, not only him, but also his whole nation with him; and to this act he was not a little excited by the ancient enmity which was between them and the people of whom he was descended; and therefore, for the accomplishing of this design, on the first day of the first month, that is, in the month Nisan, he called together his diviners, to find out what day would be the most fortunate for the putting this plan into execution: and they having, according to the manner of divination then in use among those Eastern people, cast lots first upon each month, did thereby determine for the thirteenth day of the twelfth month following, called Adar, as the day which they judged would be the most lucky for the accomplishing of what he purposed: whereon he forthwith went in unto the king; and having insinuated to him that there was a certain people dispersed all over his empire who did not keep the king’s laws, but followed laws of their own, diverse from the laws of all other people, to the disturbance of the good order of his kingdom, and the breach of that uniformity whereby it ought to be governed; and that, therefore, it was not for the king’s profit that they should any longer be suffered; he proposed, and gave counsel that they should be all destroyed and extirpated out of the whole empire of Persia; and urged it as that which was necessary for the establishing of the peace and good order of his government: to which having gained the king’s consent, and an order that on the thirteenth day of Adar following, according as was determined by the divination of the lots, it should be put in execution, he called the king’s scribes together to write the decree; and it being drawn as he proposed, on the thirteenth day of the same month of Nisan copies thereof were written out, and sent into all the provinces of the empire, commanding the king’s lieutenants, governors, and all other his officers in every one of them, to destroy, kill, and cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day, even on the thirteenth day of Adar following; and to take the spoil of them for a prey: which day was full eleven months after the date of the decree. The lot which seems to have pointed out that day appears to have been directed by the special providence of God, that so long a space intervening, there might be time enough to take such measures as should be proper to prevent the mischief intended. It is hard to find a reason for Mordecai’s refusing to pay his respect to Haman, which may be sufficient to excuse him for thus exposing himself and all his nation to that destruction which it had like to have drawn upon them. That which is commonly said is, that it was the same adoration which was made to the king of Persia; and that, consisting in the bowing of the knee, and the prostration of the whole body to the ground, it was avoided by Mordecai, upon a notion which he had of its being idolatrous: but this being the common compliment paid to the kings of Persia, by all that were admitted into their presence, it was no doubt paid to this very king by Ezra and Nehemiah, when they had access to him, and after also by Mordecai himself; for otherwise he could not have obtained that admission into his presence, and that advancement in his palace, which was afterwards there granted unto him; and if it were not idolatrous to pay this adoration to the king, neither was it idolatrous to pay it to Haman. The Greeks would not pay this respect to the kings of Persia out of pride; and excepting Themistocles, and two or three others, none of them could ever be brought to it. I will not say that this was the case with Mordecai in respect to Haman: it seems most probable that it was from a cause that was personal in Haman only. Perhaps it was because Haman, being of the race of the Amalekites, he looked upon him as under the curse which God had denounced against that nation; and therefore thought himself obliged not to give that honour to him. And if all the rest of the Jews thought the same, this might seem reason enough to him to extend his wrath against the whole nation, and to meditate the destruction of them all in revenge. But whatever was the cause that induced Mordecai to refuse the payment of this respect to the king’s favourite, this provoked that favourite to procure the decree above mentioned, for the utter extirpation of the whole Jewish nation in revenge for it. When Mordecai heard of this decree, he made great lamentation, as did also all the Jews of Shushan with him; and therefore, putting on sackcloth, he sat in this mournful garb without the king’s gate, (for he would not be allowed to enter within it in that dress,) which being told Esther, she sent to him to know what the matter was. Whereon Mordecai acquainted her with the whole state of the case; and sent her a copy of the decree, that she might fully see the mischief that was intended her people; to absolutely destroy them, and root them out from the face of the earth: and therefore commanded her forthwith to go in unto the king and make supplication for them. At first she excused herself, because of the law, whereby it was ordained that whosoever, whether man or woman, should come in unto the king in the inner court who was not called for, should be put to death, excepting such only to whom the king should hold out the golden sceptre in his hand that he might live; and she was afraid of hazarding her life in this cause. Whereon Mordecai, sending to her, again told her, that the decree extended universally to all of her nation, without any exception, and that, if it came to execution, she must not expect to escape more than any other of her people; that Providence seemed to have advanced her on purpose for this work; but if she refused to act her part in it, then deliverance should come some other way, and she and her father’s house should perish; for he was fully persuaded that God would not suffer his people to be thus totally destroyed. “Whereon Esther, resolving to put her life on the hazard for the safety of her people, desired Mordecai that he and all the Jews then in Shushan should fast three days for her, and offer up prayer and humble supplication that God would prosper her in the undertaking: which being accordingly done, on the third day Esther put on her royal apparel and went in unto the king, while he was sitting upon his throne in the inner part of his palace. And as soon as he saw her standing in the court he showed favour unto her, and held out his golden sceptre; and Esther, going near and touching the top of it, had thereby her life secured unto her: and when the king asked her what her petition was, at first she only desired that he and Haman would come to a banquet which she had prepared for him. “And when Haman was called, and the king and he were at the banquet, he asked her again of her petition, promising it should be granted her to the half of his kingdom: but then she desired only that the king and Haman should come again to the like banquet on the next day, intimating that she would then make known her request unto him. Her intention in claiming thus to entertain the king twice at her banquet before she made known her petition unto him was, that thereby she might the more endear herself unto him, and dispose him the better to grant the request which she had to make unto him.
“Haman, being proud of the honour of being thus admitted alone with the king to the queen’s banquet, went home to his house much puffed up: but on his return thither, seeing Mordecai sitting at the gate of the palace, and still refusing to bow unto him; this moved his indignation to such a degree, that on his coming to his house, and calling his friends about him to relate to them the great honour that was done to him by the king and queen, and the high advancement which he had obtained in the kingdom, he could not forbear complaining of the disrespect and affront that was offered him by Mordecai. Whereon they advised him to cause a gallows to be built of fifty cubits in height, and next morning to ask the king to have Mordecai hanged thereon: and accordingly he ordered the gallows immediately to be made; and went early the next morning to the palace, for the obtaining of the grant from the king to have Mordecai hanged on it. But that morning the king awaking sooner than ordinary, and not being able to compose himself again to sleep, he called for the book of the records and chronicles of the kingdom, and caused them to be read unto him; wherein finding an account of the conspiracy of Bigthan and Teresh, and that it was discovered by Mordecai the Jew, the king inquired what honour had been done to him for the same. And being told that nothing had been done for him, he inquired who was in the court; and being told that Haman was standing there, he ordered him to be called in, and asked of him what should be done to the man whom the king delighted to honour: whereon Haman, thinking this honour was intended for himself, gave advice that the royal apparel should be brought which the king used to wear, and the horse which he kept for his own riding, and the crown which used to be set upon his head; and that this apparel and horse should be delivered into the hands of one of the king’s most noble princes, that he might array therewith the man whom the king delighted to honour, and bring him on horseback through the whole city, and proclaim before him ‘Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honour.’ Whereon the king commanded him forthwith to take the apparel and horse, and do this to Mordecai the Jew, who sat in the king’s gate, in reward for his discovery of the treason of the two eunuchs: all which Haman having been forced to do in obedience to the king’s command, he returned with great sorrow to his house, lamenting the disappointment and great mortification he had met with in being thus forced to pay such signal honour to his enemy, whom he had intended to have hanged on the gallows which he had provided for him. And on his relating this to his friends, they all told him, that if this Mordecai were of the seed of the Jews, this bad omen foreboded that he should not prevail against them, but should surely fall before him. While they were thus talking, one of the queen’s chamberlains came to Haman’s house to hasten him to the banquet: and seeing the gallows which had been set up the night before, fully informed himself of the intent for which it was prepared. On the king’s and Haman’s sitting down to the banquet, the king asked again of Esther what was her petition, with like promise that it should be granted to her to the half of his kingdom: whereon she humbly prayed the king that her life might be given her on her petition, and her people at her request; for that a design was laid for the destruction of her and all her kindred and nation. At which the king asking, with much anger, who it was that durst do this thing, she told him that Haman then present was the author of the wicked plot; and laid the whole of it open to the king. Whereon the king rose up with much wrath from the banquet, and walked out into the garden adjoining; which Haman perceiving, he fell down before the queen upon the bed on which she was sitting, to supplicate for his life; in which posture the king having found him upon his return, spoke out in great passion, What, will he force the queen before me in the house? At which words the servants present immediately covered his face, as was then the usage to condemned persons; and the chamberlain, who had that day called Haman to the banquet, acquainting the king with the gallows he saw in his house there prepared for Mordecai, who had saved the king’s life in detecting the treason of the two eunuchs, the king ordered that he should be forthwith hanged thereon, which was accordingly done; and all his house, goods, and riches, were given to Queen Esther; and she appointed Mordecai to be her steward to manage the same. On the same day the queen made the king acquainted with the relation which Mordecai had unto her; whereon the king took him into his favour, and advanced him to great power, riches, and dignity in the empire; and made him the keeper of his signet, in the same manner as Haman had been before. But still the decree for the destruction of the Jews remaining in its full force, the queen petitioned the king a second time to put away this mischief from them; but, according to the laws of the Medes and Persians, nothing being to be reversed which had been decreed and written in the king’s name, and sealed with the king’s seal, and the decree procured by Haman against the Jews having been thus written and sealed, it could not be recalled. All therefore that the king could do, in compliance with her request, was, to give the Jews, by a new decrees such a power to defend themselves against such as should assault them, as might render the former decree ineffectual: and for that end he bid Esther and Mordecai draw such a decree in words as strong as could be devised, that so the former might be hindered from being executed, though it could not be annulled. And therefore the king’s scribes being again called on the twenty-third day of the third month, a new decree was drawn just two months and ten days after the former; wherein the king granted to the Jews, which were in every city of the Persian empire, full license to gather themselves together and stand for their lives; and to destroy, slay, and cause to perish, all the power of the people and province that should assault them, with their little ones and women, and to take the spoil of them for a prey. And this decree being written in the king’s hand, and sealed with his seal, copies thereof were drawn out, and especial messengers were despatched with them into all the provinces of the empire.
“The thirteenth day of Adar drawing near, when the decree obtained by Haman for the destruction of the Jews was to be put into execution, their adversaries everywhere prepared to act against them, according to the contents of it: and the Jews, on the other hand, by virtue of the second decree which was obtained in their favour, by Esther and Mordecai, gathered themselves together in every city where they dwelt, throughout all the provinces of King Artaxerxes, to provide for their safety: so that on the said thirteenth of Adar, through the means of these two different and discordant decrees, a war was commenced between the Jews and their enemies throughout the whole Persian empire. But the rulers of the provinces, and the lieutenants, the deputies, and the other officers of the king, knowing with what power Esther and Mordecai were then invested, through fear of them so favoured the Jews, that they prevailed everywhere against those that rose against them; and on that day, throughout the whole empire, slew of their enemies seven thousand five hundred persons; and in the city of Shushan, on that day and the next, eight hundred more; among whom were the ten sons of Haman, whom by a special order from the king they caused all to be hanged; perhaps upon the same gallows on which Haman, their father, had been hanged before. These transactions took place in the thirteenth year of Artaxerxes, about four hundred and fifty-two years before Christ.” The reader is requested to refer to the notes on all these passages.
“The Jews, being delivered thus from this dangerous design which threatened them with nothing less than total extirpation, made great rejoicings for it on the two days following, that is, on the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the said month Adar: and by the order of Esther and Mordecai these two days, with the thirteenth that preceded them, were set apart, and consecrated to be annually observed for ever after in commemoration thereof; the thirteenth as a fast, because of the destruction on that day intended to have been brought upon them, and the other two as a feast because of their deliverance from it; and both this fast and feast they constantly observe every year on those days, even to this time. The fast they call the fast of Esther; and the feast, the feast of Purim, from the Persian word Purim, which signifies lots; because it was by the casting of lots that Haman did set out this time for their destruction. This feast is the Bacchanals of the Jews, which they celebrate with all manner of rejoicing, mirth, and jollity; and therein indulge themselves in all manner of luxurious excesses, especially in drinking wine, even to drunkenness; which they think part of the duty of the solemnity, because it was by means of the wine banquet, they say, that Esther made the king’s heart merry, and brought him into that good humour which inclined him to grant the request which she made unto him for their deliverance; and therefore they think they ought to make their hearts merry also, when they celebrate the commemoration of it. During this festival the book of Esther is solemnly read in all their synagogues from the beginning to the end; at which they are all to be present, men, women, children, and servants, because all these had their part in this deliverance which Esther obtained for them. And as often as the name of Haman occurs in the reading of this book, the usage is for them all to clap with their hands, and stamp with their feet, and cry out: Let his memory perish.
“This is the last feast of the year among them, for the next that follows is the Passover, which always falls in the middle of the month, which begins the Jewish year.”
THE BOOK OF ESTHER
Chronological Notes relative to this Book
-Year from the Creation, according to Archbishop Usher, 3540. -Year before the birth of Christ, 460.
-Year before the vulgar era of Christ’s nativity, 464.
-Year of the Julian Period, 4250.
-Year since the flood of Noah, 1904.
-Year of the Cali Yuga, or Indian era of the Deluge, 2638. -Year from the vocation of Abram, 1458.
-Year from the destruction of Troy, 721.
-Year from the foundation of Solomon’s temple. 547.
-Year since the division of Solomon’s monarchy into the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, 511.
-Year of the era of Iphitus, 421.
-Year since Corœbus won the prize at the Olympic games, 313. -First year of the seventy-ninth Olympiad.
-Year of the Varronian era of the building of Rome, 290.
-Year from the building of Rome, according to Cato and the Fasti Consulares, 289.
-Year from the building of Rome according to Polybius the historian, 288. -Year from the building of Rome, according to Fabius Pictor, 284. -Year of the era of Nabonassar, 284.
-Year since the commencement of the first Messenian war, 280. -Year since the destruction of the kingdom of Israel by Shalmaneser, the king of Assyria, 258.
-Year since the commencement of the second Messenian war, 222. -Year from the destruction of Solomon’s temple by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, 125.
-Year since the publication of the famous edict of Cyrus, king of Persia, empowering the Jews to rebuild their temple, 72.
-Year since the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses, 62.
-Year since the abolition of the tyranny of the Pisistratidæ at Athens, 43. -Year since the expulsion of the Tarquins from Rome, which put an end to the regal government of the Romans, 44.
-Year since the famous battle of Marathon, 26.
-Year after the commencement of the third Messenian war, 2. -Year before the commencement of the first sacred war concerning the temple at Delphi, 17.
-Year before the commencement of the celebrated Peloponnesian war, 34. -Year before the celebrated retreat of the ten thousand Greeks, and the expulsion of the thirty tyrants from Athens by Thrasybulus, 65. -Year before the commencement of the era of the Seleucidæ, 152. -Year before the formation of the famous Achæan league, 183. -Year before the commencement of the first Punic war, 200. -Year before the fall of the Macedonian empire, 296.
-Year before the destruction of Carthage by Scipio, and of Corinth by Mummius, 317.
-Year before the commencement of the Jugurthine war, which continued five years, 354.
-Year before the commencement of the Social war, which continued for five years, and was finished by Sylla, 374.
-Year before the commencement of the Mithridatic war, which continued for twenty-six years, 376.
-Year before the commencement of the Servile war, under Spartacus, 392. -Year before the extinction of the reign of the Seleucidæ in Syria, on the conquest of that country by Pompey, 399.
-Year before the era of the Roman emperors, 433.
-Year of Archidamus, king of Lacedæmon, and of the family of the Proclidæ, or Eurypontidæ, 6.
-Year of Plistoanax, king of Lacedæmon, and of the family of the Eurysthenidæ, or Agidæ, 3.
-Year of Alexander, the tenth king of Macedon, 34.
-Year of Artaxerxes Longimanus, king of Persia, 1.
-Roman Consuls, Aulus Postumius, and Sp. Furius.
Joseph Benson
Argument
BEN_VOL3.PDF, source PDF p. 67
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
ARGUMENT.
IT is uncertain (says Dr. Dodd) who was the author of this book. Some ascribe it to Ezra, others to Mordecai, (see Esther 9:20, 23,) and others to the joint labours of the great synagogue; who, from the time of Ezra to Simon the Just, superintended the edition and canon of Scripture. That the book is genuine, whoever was the author, appears from the institution and continued observation of the annual festival of Purim, (see chap. 9.,) since it is not to be conceived that a wise nation should at first appoint, and afterward continue the celebration of, this solemn time of feasting and rejoicing every year, merely because a certain man among them had once the good fortune to write an agreeable romance; much less can we conceive, from what motive a whole assembly of learned doctors should receive a writing of no better character into the canon of their Scriptures; or, to make it of more universal use, should honour it with a Greek translation. The book contains the narrative of a plot to cut off all the Jews; disappointed by a wonderful concurrence of providences: or, more particularly, it is the history of Esther, a Jewish captive, who, for her remarkable beauty, was espoused to Ahasuerus and raised to the throne of Persia, and, by her extraordinary interest with the king, rescued the Jewish nation from a general massacre, to which they were appointed by Haman, one of the king’s favourites, in memory of which the feast of Purim was appointed. This sacred record, therefore, shows us the peculiar care of God over those Israelites who were still scattered abroad among the heathen; and, indeed, also manifests that the eye of a watchful providence is constantly superintending all nations, by which the aspirings of the greatest men are often curbed and broken, wicked designs blasted, piety and virtue protected, and God declared to be the Almighty Defender of good men, and of the true religion, in all ages and generations. It is remarkable that the name of God is not found in this book; but the finger of God is, directing so many minute events for the deliverance of his people; the particulars of which are calculated to give them very great encouragement in the most difficult and dangerous times. Here we are told how Esther came to be queen, and Mordecai to be great at court, chap. 1., 2.; how Haman obtained an order for the destruction of the Jews, chap. 3.; the distress of the Jews thereupon, chap. 4.; the defeat of Haman’s plot against Mordecai, chap. 5.-7.; the defeating of his plot against the Jews, chap. 8.; the care taken to perpetuate the memory of this, chap. 9., 10. That this history fell out after the captivity of Babylon was ended, and after the time of Darius the Mede, is very evident: for Shushan was not the royal city of the Medes, but of the Persians. Nor had the Medes so large a dominion as from India to Ethiopia. But in what reign of the Persian kings these things were done is hard to determine.
Joseph Sutcliffe
The Book of Esther.
SUT_VOL2.PDF, source PDF p. 299
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
The book of Esther, called in the Hebrew, מגילה MEGILLAH, the volume, from the custom of rolling the parchments on a staff, is placed by critics in the second class of Canonical Books. It contains a most admirable series of providences in the elevation of Esther, the preservation of the Jews, and the ruin of Haman. Ahasuérus is allowed to be the Artaxerxes who issued an edict in favour of the Jews. He reigned twenty, or as some say twenty two, and others forty two years. In the third year of his reign he repudiated Vashti: chap. 1. In the seventh year he married Esther 2:16: and in the twelfth, Haman destroyed himself by plotting the destruction of the Jews: Esther 3:7. During most of those years Mordecai was in high esteem at court. Not one of the names of God is used in this book, but it is full of his works. The Persians used the name of the God of heaven, but probably in an acceptation somewhat differing from that of the Hebrews. Hence the omission may have been designed to avoid offending the Persian reader. The author is not named, nor are the ancients agreed on that subject; but the book, abounding with the manners and customs of Persia, was obviously written by a resident of that nation: and consequently Mordecai and Esther have the fairest claims to the work. This queen some supposed to be the Amestris of profane authors: yet they report many things of her which cannot be credited of Esther.
Daniel Whedon
Introduction.
WHD_CO04.PDF, source PDF p. 693
ESTHER
INTRODUCTION.
General Character of the Work.
THIS book takes its name from the distinguished woman who is the heroine of its narrative. It is called by the Jews the Megillah, (מגלה,) or Roll of Esther, from its being written on a special roll. In our Bibles it stands as the last of the historical books, but in the Hebrew Canon it is placed in the Hagiographa, between the Books of Ecclesiastes and Daniel. The book belongs to the latest Hebrew literature of the Old Testament, and is to be classed, in respect to age, with the Books of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. But in character it is altogether unique. It reads like an oriental romance. The great king, sitting on “the throne of his kingdom,” holding the golden sceptre, revelling in every carnal luxury and pleasure, feasting thousands of nobles and princes, and knowing no bounds to extravagance and folly; the palace, the court of the garden, the various coloured awnings attached to marble pillars, the tessellated pavement, and the couches of gold; the magnificent robes and royal splendour of the chief ministers of State — all these pass before us like the visions of enchantment. Though commemorating events of the greatest interest to the Jews, it is noticeably wanting in the high theocratic spirit which is so conspicuous in the other historical books of Israel. The name of God, it has often been remarked, is not once mentioned. No yearning for the fatherland of the exiles, as in Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah; no reference to temple, priest, or sacrifice, is to be found; but rather an effort on the part of both Mordecai and Esther to conceal their Jewish origin, in order to obtain favour and advancement in the Persian court.
These facts would naturally subject the Book of Esther to a vast amount of criticism; and the enemies of the Bible have not failed to make the most of them. They have also averred that the whole narrative breathes a revengeful spirit, that many of the acts attributed to Ahasuerus are incredible and absurd, and that the elevation of a Jew to be prime minister of Persia is without parallel or evidence in history. All objections based on particular parts of the narrative will be noticed in the textual notes; other questions involved in the criticism of the book may be more conveniently discussed in this Introduction.
Credibility.
The work is certainly characterized by a spirit different from that of the other sacred books, but this fact, instead of being an objection to its truly historical character, is rather an evidence in its favour. A writer born and bred at Shushan, the Persian capital, would not be likely to be very familiar with Jewish institutions, especially as they existed in Palestine and at Jerusalem; and in composing a history of the origin of the feast of Purim, he had no occasion to make mention of other Jewish institutions. The same reserve and policy which he describes in Mordecai and Esther, in concealing their Jewish origin, may have influenced him as a writer. He shows a reticence in treating of his religion, and an untheocratic spirit unusual for a Jew of any age or country; but this very fact is a weighty argument for the authenticity and genuineness of his work. This is the more strikingly seen when we compare his work with the later and spurious additions to it which are found in the Apocrypha. The author of these apocryphal additions seems to have felt the lack of the theocratic spirit in this ancient book, and aimed to supply what he supposed was wanting. The feast of Purim, universally observed at the present day, is a monumental evidence of the truth of this history. It has been confessedly observed by the Jews since the times of the Persian empire. In 2 Maccabees 15:36 it is called Mordecai’s Day; and Josephus writes that it was carefully observed in his time. The name Purim admits of no other explanation than that furnished in this book. Here, then, is the same kind of evidence as the passover furnishes to the truth of the Exodus, or that our celebration of the fourth of July yields to the historical fact of the Declaration of Independence.
Another evidence of its credibility is, the intimate acquaintance which the author shows with Persian customs and the Persian court. The royal palace and its garden, to which so much interest has been given in recent years by the exhuming of the great hall at Susa, with its “pillars of marble,” the use of vessels and couches of gold, the levity and drinking at the feast, the “seven princes,” the many Persian names throughout the book, the eunuchs and the harem, the conspiracy against the king and its punishment, the impaling of offenders, the royal posts, the inviolability of Medo-Persian laws, and the capricious acts of the king — these and other things are all in perfect keeping with what we learn of Persian life and customs from Herodotus and other sources. No person writing at a later age, and far removed from the scenes he describes, could have incorporated all these things into a fictitious narrative with such an unconscious simplicity and accuracy. Then, too, the parts of the narrative which have been pronounced incredible and absurd a romance writer would have been careful to avoid. He would have seen their absurdity as quickly as any of his critics, and would never have ventured the publication of a work so full of falsehood and folly. Hence additional evidence of the credibility of this history may be found in the identification of the monarch who reigned at Shushan, and did the things ascribed to him in this book. We pass, then, to inquire —
Who was Ahasuerus?
In the endeavour to answer this question, almost every king of Persia, from Darius the Mede down to Darius Nothus has had his claims urged by different writers and by a variety of arguments. The Book of Esther itself furnishes data which clearly exclude every Persian or Medo-Persian monarch before Darius Hystaspes. For of Ahasuerus it must be observed, 1) That his royal residence was Shushan; 2) His dominion extended “from India even unto Ethiopia,” that is, from the river Indus to the Upper Nile; 3) He reigned at least twelve years, (Esther 3:7;) 4) He reigned at a period when the Persians had pre-eminence over the Medes. This last is seen in the writer’s use of the term Persian and Medes, (Esther 1:3, 14, 18, 19,) naming Persia first, and thereby implying Persian supremacy. The passage in chap. 10:2, is no real exception, for there the book of national annals is mentioned, in which the records of Media doubtless chronologically preceded those of Persia. In the Book of Daniel, written earlier, and near the time when Darius the Median took the kingdom, we find this expression reversed, and written Medes and Persians, (Daniel 5:28; 6:8, 12, 15; 8:20.) In Daniel’s vision of the ram which had two horns, and symbolized the Medo-Persian empire, the Persian horn was higher than the other, and came up last. Daniel 8:3. The Persian kings, from Darius Hystaspes downward, made Shushan their principal residence; but Achmetha, (Ezra 6:2,) or Ecbatana, was the royal residence of the kings of Media. Ahasuerus, then, could have been no Median king, and no Mede ever ruled from India unto Ethiopia. Neither did Cyrus, the first Persian monarch, extend his dominion to Ethiopia. Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, was the first to extend the Persian empire as far as Ethiopia, but he never returned alive from that expedition, and his whole reign was less than eight years. Smerdis, the Magian, reigned less than a year; so that all these kings who preceded Darius Hystaspes are excluded from further discussion. Neither is it possible to identify Ahasuerus with any Persian monarch later than Artaxerxes Longimanus, for with Darius Nothus the Persian empire seriously declined, and his reign of nineteen years was a constant scene of insurrections and revolts.
The discussion is thus narrowed to three Persian kings — Darius Hystaspes, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes Longimanus — each of whom had his royal residence at Shushan, reigned more than twelve years, and ruled from the Indus to the Upper Nile.
According to Josephus, Prideaux, and some recent critics, Esther’s Ahasuerus is to be identified with Artaxerxes, surnamed by the Greek historians Longimanus — the long-handed. This monarch was the patron of Ezra and Nehemiah, and it may seem plausible to suppose that Esther was the queen who sat by his side when Nehemiah sought permission to go to build the city of his fathers’ sepulchres. Nehemiah 2:6. But this opinion is quite generally rejected, and for the following reasons: 1. Artaxerxes was certainly not the first who reigned from India to Ethiopia. His two next immediate predecessors ruled over the same extent of country, and either of them was in other respects more illustrious than he. Hence it would hardly be proper to designate him as specially famous from the extent of his dominion. 2. He seems to have lived too late to be contemporary with Mordecai and Esther. According to Esther 2:5, Mordecai’s great-grandfather, Kish, was taken captive to Babylon with Jeconiah (that is, Jehoiachin) in the eighth year of Nebuchadnezzar. Compare 2 Kings 24:12. From that date to the beginning of Artaxerxes’ reign was about one hundred and fifty years, too long a period to be naturally measured by four generations. Esther may easily have been a youthful virgin at the beginning of Xerxes’ reign, or during the reign of Darius Hystaspes; but she must have been far advanced in life in Artaxerxes’ time, and Mordecai could scarcely have been living. Then, 3. The general character of Artaxerxes for clemency and magnanimity, and his attitude toward the Jews, are very incompatible with what is recorded of Ahasuerus. It is hardly credible that the king who, in his seventh year, sent a colony of Jewish exiles to their fatherland, and issued for their benefit a decree so comprehensive and favourable as that recorded in Ezra 7:11-26, would, in his twelfth year, yield, without a word, to Haman’s infamous proposal for the universal massacre of this same race of people.
4. It is also difficult to understand why the sacred writer should call Artaxerxes Ahasuerus. The names are not cognate, and if they were different names of the same individual, the sacred writer would have been very likely to have said so.
Mr. Tyrwhitt devotes a large work to the discussion of this question, and argues that Ahasuerus must be identified with Darius Hystaspes. He urges that Darius was the first of the Persian kings who ruled from India to Ethiopia, and that his generation was contemporary with that of Esther, so that he neither died too early nor was born too late to have seen her in her bloom of youth. The tribute laid, after his twelfth year, “upon the land, and upon the isles of the sea,” (Esther 10:1,) could not have been laid after the twelfth year of Xerxes, or of Artaxerxes, because at that date “the isles of the sea” had become free from Persian control. Hence Darius Hystaspes was the only Persian monarch who could have exacted such a tribute subsequent to the twelfth year of his reign. This writer also labours to show that Esther is to be identified with Atossa, whom Darius married after his accession to the throne of Persia. Herodotus 7:2. He regards Hadassah (Esther 2:7) as the court name of the queen, and urges its identity with Atossa. To the objection that Atossa was the daughter of Cyrus, and widow of Cambyses, he replies by the supposition that “daughter of Cyrus” is a regal title of the principal wife, and equivalent to “daughter of the sun.”
But this hypothesis, and the whole argument of Mr. Tyrwhitt, fails to meet the following objections: 1) The first six years of his reign Darius could hardly be said to rule from India to Ethiopia. Those years were one continued scene of revolts, and the new king was kept constantly employed in reducing the provinces, one after another, to submission. 2) The supposition that “daughter of Cyrus” is only a regal title is inadmissible in face of Herodotus’ explicit statement, (Bk. 3:88,) that Atossa was not only daughter of Cyrus, but sister of Cambyses, and had been married to her own brother, and also to the Magian usurper, previous to her marriage with Darius. These facts utterly forbid her identification with the Jewish maiden Hadassah, even though the names seem to be exact equivalents. 3) Another insuperable difficulty in identifying Ahasuerus with Darius is the noticeable contrast in their characters. Darius Hystaspes was distinguished for persevering energy, caution, sagacity, and prudence — qualities entirely wanting in the capricious and passionate tyrant presented to us in the Book of Esther. We find it difficult to conceive such a warlike and sagacious monarch as Darius manipulated and controlled by such a rash and unprincipled favourite as Haman. 4) Add to all this, that under the favourable rule of Darius the Jews resumed and completed the building of their temple at Jerusalem, and the king issued a most memorable decree in their interest, warning and admonishing the enemies to refrain from all interference with their affairs. Ezra 6. 5) It is also difficult to give any reason why this king should be called Darius in the Book of Ezra, and Ahasuerus in the Book of Esther. If these names belonged to the same person we certainly should expect to find some intimation of it in one or the other of these books.
We seem from the above argument to be shut up to the conclusion that Ahasuerus was Xerxes, the son and successor of Darius Hystaspes. None of the objections we have urged against Darius and Artaxerxes can be made against Xerxes. We notice, 1) The resemblance in name. The form of the name is in Hebrew Akhashverosh, and in Persian, as it appears in the cuneiform inscriptions, Khshayarsha. This latter the Greeks would very naturally abridge and express by Xerxes. 2) It is generally agreed among all expositors that Xerxes is the fourth king described in the prophecy of Daniel, (Daniel 11:2,) “There shall stand up yet three kings in Persia; and the fourth shall be far richer than they all: and by his strength through his riches he shall stir up all against the realm of Grecia.” This corresponds very noticeably with what is said of the extent of Ahasuerus’ empire, and “the riches of his glorious kingdom.” Though his father Darius, and his son Artaxerxes, ruled over the same territory, neither of them possessed it so securely, or made such a world-wide display of power and riches, as did Xerxes. 3) But especially is it to be observed of Xerxes that his capricious temper, passionate violence, ostentatious prodigality, and unblushing licentiousness, find a complete parallel in the Ahasuerus of the Book of Esther.
Mr. Tyrwhitt seeks to invalidate this evidence for Xerxes by a variety of arguments, all of which, however, are easily shown to be inconclusive. 1) He attempts to prove that Esther could not have been a youthful virgin in the seventh year of Xerxes, but he seems not to have observed that his argument assumes that the members of the fourth generation from Kish were all of the same age. Mordecai was Esther’s cousin, and also her foster-father. He “brought her up;” and it is easy to understand that of these, as of other cousins, one might have been a mere child when the other had attained mature manhood. 2) A greater difficulty in identifying Xerxes with the husband of Esther is the fact that before and after the seventh year of his reign his wife was the cruel and licentious Amestris. No one would now think of identifying Esther with Amestris, and there is no need of supposing that Vashti and Amestris were the same. It is not necessary to suppose that either Vashti or Esther was the principal wife of the king. They may have been only favourite and highly-honoured concubines, on whom the king at times delighted to set the royal crown. It is a well-known fact that the Persian kings had many wives and many concubines. But the wives were selected from royal houses, (Herod., 3:84,) not indiscriminately from the virgins of the provinces. Hence the gathering of fair young virgins from all parts of the empire shows that it was not a queen consort that was sought, but a favourite concubine. It is no more strange that such a favourite should be honoured with a royal crown, and allowed to preside at feasts in the royal house, than that a favourite officer of the court should be clothed with the royal apparel, and ride on the king’s horse, and have a noble prince lead him through the streets and cry, “Thus shall it be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour.” 3) Again, Esther was introduced to Ahasuerus in the seventh year of his reign. But according to Herodotus, the seventh year of Xerxes must have been the year he returned defeated into Asia. For he spent the second year of his reign in subjugating a rebellion in Egypt, (Herod., 7:7, 8,) and was four years making his preparations to invade Greece, (Herod., 7:20,) so that it must have been in the sixth year of his reign when he set out on the expedition, and he could not well have returned to his capital within less than two years. This would bring us to the close of the seventh or the beginning of the eighth year of his reign. Moreover, Esther and the other maidens were required to go through a twelve months’ preparation before they saw the king. Thus, according to the chronology of Herodotus, it would seem that the earliest date at which Esther could have been introduced to Xerxes was near the close of the eighth year of his reign.
Here, indeed, is a difficulty, but a few considerations will show that it is far from weighty, and affords no conclusive objection to identifying Xerxes with Ahasuerus. 1) The order for gathering the virgins from all the provinces unto Shushan was probably made before Xerxes set out on his Grecian campaign, and during the two years of his absence they were being sought out and brought under the custody of the king’s chamberlain. See notes on Esther 2:1, 16. 2) The chronology of Herodotus is not to be assumed as absolutely correct. His dates may be often considerably out of the way. 3) And especially should we bear in mind in such an argument that Jewish and Greek writers might easily have adopted different methods of reckoning, so that the seventh year of one would be the eighth year of another.
The objection that no isles of the sea were subject to Xerxes after the twelfth year of his reign is sufficiently noticed in the note on Esther 10:1.
We conclude, then, that Esther’s Ahasuerus was no other than Xerxes, the son and successor of Darius Hystaspes. The difficulties in the way of this identification are few and of little weight, while the arguments in its favour are many and striking. But the objections to identifying Ahasuerus with any other monarch seem to be insuperable.
This identification is a weighty argument for the historical truth of the Book of Esther. Even De Wette admits that the summoning of Vashti to a carousal, Esther’s marriage with the king, though not of the families of the seven princes, Haman’s edict, to destroy the Jews, and Mordecai’s counter edict, are all possible under Xerxes’ rule; and Rawlinson well remarks: “Had the work been composed by a Jewish romancer, at the distance of a century and a half or two centuries from the events, and been merely based upon traditional recollections of a great danger and a great deliverance, (which is the hypothesis of De Wette and Davidson,) it is inconceivable that the character of Xerxes should have been hit off so exactly, and that the picture of Persian manners should have been at once so vivid and so correct.”
Date and Authorship.
The rationalistic critics have generally assigned a late date to the book, and supposed it to be the work of some unknown writer in the times of the Seleucidae and the Ptolemies. All the arguments, however, for such a late date are weak and futile. The language used in Esther 1:1 and 10:2 naturally indicates that the reign of Ahasuerus was past, but it would be perfectly natural and appropriate for a writer living under the reign of his immediate successor. The intimate acquaintance with the Persian court and customs, and the vivid descriptions of various events, indicate that the author was a contemporary of Mordecai and Esther, and an eye-witness of many things which he narrates. These facts, in the absence of any thing of weight to the contrary, seem sufficient to fix the date somewhere in the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus, the son and successor of Xerxes the Great.
The authorship has been attributed variously: to the men of the Great Synagogue; to Joiachim the high priest; to Ezra the scribe; and to Mordecai. The question cannot be decided with certainty, but it is very probable that Mordecai either wrote the book himself, or caused it to be written by one of his contemporaries. With the death of Xerxes, or soon after, he doubtless lost his high position in the Persian court, and then it would be a solace and pleasure for him to write, or procure the writing, of his history as presented in the Book of Esther.
Sacred Character and Worth.
While it is admitted that this book exhibits the spirit of Jewish vindictiveness toward enemies, and is noticeably secular or untheocratic as compared with the other historical books of the Old Testament, we must not fail to see that it has also a sacred character and worth. The very reticence on religion and Judaism, which has been thought so strange, may have its lessons. The caution of the writer has its perfect parallel in Mordecai and Esther. They, too, are very reticent about their race and religion. They even concert together to conceal their Jewish affinities. Here, then, we doubtless have a truthful portraiture of many of the Jews of the dispersion. They lost, by their long exile and familiarity with other races and customs, their ancient national spirit; and while they remained true to the great principles of their religion, they were usually very cautious about making them known. Whatever may be thought of this kind of caution, it is evidence of the writer’s historical fidelity. When the sheep are scattered in the wilderness, and often hear the stranger’s voice, and know the wolf is near, they may do well to keep silent.
We must not overlook the fact that the book bears evidence of the faith and piety of Mordecai and Esther. Mordecai will not compromise his religion by bowing down to a mortal, (note on Esther 3:2, 3,) and when his nation is threatened with destruction he is confident that Divine help will come from some place. Esther 4:14. And before Esther will hazard her life, and seek the salvation of her people before the king, she and her maidens, and all the Jews of Shushan, observe a solemn fast for three days. Esther 4:16.
The lessons of Divine Providence, as exhibited in this book, are striking. Though the name of God is not expressed, his presence and power are everywhere felt. We trace the Divine hand in all the events that conspire to elevate Esther and Mordecai to positions of power just at the moment when there seemed no earthly power to help the Jews. The follies of Xerxes and the wickedness of Haman were not caused or sanctioned by God, but they were divinely overruled. The divorce of Vashti prepared the way for Esther. The favour which the latter received, both at the hand of Hegai and of the king, is to be ascribed to Him who “brought Daniel into favour and tender love with the prince of the eunuchs.” Daniel 1:9. The sleepless night which led to the discovery of Mordecai’s unrewarded services was no less ordered of God than the dreams of Pharaoh, (Genesis 41:25,) or of Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel 2:28. The sudden fall of Haman, and his execution upon the very post he had erected for Mordecai; the promotion of the Jew, and the edict that nullified the device of Haman and saved the Jews from helpless massacre — all showed most strikingly that “promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another.” Psalm 75:6, 7.
The Book of Esther is an invaluable counterpart to the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah. These latter show how God was careful to open the way for the restoration of Israel to the fatherland. They show the zeal and love that led so many of the exiles to return and build again the temple and the holy city. But this book shows the character of many who were not disposed to return from exile. No doubt there was in them a want of love for Zion. Multitudes preferred the lands of exile to the land of Israel. And the result of this may be discerned in the tone and spirit of our book. Its secular style, as compared with Ezra and Nehemiah, may have for us profound suggestions. “There is inspiration in silence,” says Wordsworth. “If we loiter in Persia when we ought to return to Jerusalem; if we love the courts of earthly princes more than the Church of the living God; if we prefer earth to heaven, and time to eternity, then our moral and religious tone will infallibly decline.” But while the reformed and restored Church at Jerusalem receives great blessings, and shows a purer faith, the Church of the dispersion, the twelve tribes still scattered abroad, though they do not “prefer Jerusalem above their chief joy,” are yet not without Divine oversight and care.
Adam Clarke
Introduction to the Book of Esther
CLA_EST.PDF, source PDF p. 3
INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF ESTHER
THE son and successor of the famous Persian king Xerxes was Artaxerxes, surnamed Longimanus, or, in Persian, [Persian] Ardsheer Diraz dest, the long-handed Ardshur. This prince, on coming to the throne, had powerful opponents and competitors in the children of Artabanus, uncle to Xerxes, and in his own brother Hystaspes. The former, and their adherents, he overthrew in a bloody battle; and in the following year obtained a complete victory over his brother, and totally subdued the Bactrians, who had espoused his cause: and thus rendered himself the undisputed possessor of the Persian empire. About his third year, which was 462 before Christ, the history of Esther begins, which, in its connection with the Persian history, is thus ably introduced by Dr. Prideaux:—
“After Artaxerxes had obtained these successes, and thereby firmly settled himself in the peaceable possession of the whole Persian empire, (Esther i.,) he appointed a solemn rejoicing on this account: and caused it to be celebrated in the city of Shushan, or Susa, in feastings and shows, for the term of a hundred and eighty days; on the conclusion of which he gave a great feast for all the princes and people that were then in Shushan, for seven days; and Vashti, the queen, at the same time, made a like feast in her apartment for the women. On the seventh day, the king’s heart being merry with wine, he commanded the seven chamberlains to bring Queen Vashti before him, with the crown royal on her head, that he might show to the princes and people her beauty. But for her thus to show herself in such an assembly being contrary to the usage of the Persians, and appearing to her, as indeed it was, very indecent, and much unbecoming the modesty of a lady, as well as the dignity of her station, she refused to comply, and would not come; whereon the king, being very much incensed, called his seven counsellors to take advice with them about it, who, fearing this might be a bad example through the whole empire, in encouraging women to contemn and disobey their husbands, advised that the king should put Vashti away for ever from him, and give her royal state to another, that should be better than her; and by his royal edict, give command throughout the whole empire that all wives should pay honour and obedience to their husbands, and that every man should rule absolutely in his own house. Which advice pleasing the king, he commanded it accordingly to be put in execution; and Vashti never more after that came again into the king’s presence: for the decree whereby she was removed from him was registered among the laws of the Medes and Persians, and therefore it could never again be altered. After this, orders were given out through the whole empire for the gathering together at the palace at Shushan all the fair virgins in every province, that out of them one might be chosen whom the king should best like to be made queen in her place. At the time when this collection of virgins was made, (Esther ii.,) there lived in Shushan a certain Jew named Mordecai, who was of the descendants of those who had been carried captive to Babylon with Jeconiah king of Judah, and, by his attendance at the king’s gate, seems to have been one of the porters of the royal palace. He, having no children, did bring up Hadassah, his uncle’s daughter, and adopted her as his own. This young woman, being very beautiful and fair, was made choice of among other virgins on this occasion; and was carried to the king’s palace, and there committed to the care of Hege, the king’s chamberlain, who was appointed to have the custody of these virgins; whom she pleased so well by her good carriage, that he showed her favour before all the other virgins under his care; and therefore he assigned her the best apartment of the house, and provided her first with those things that were requisite for her purification: for the custom was, that every virgin thus taken into the palace for thee king’s use was to go through a course of purification, by sweet oils and perfumes, for a whole year; and therefore Hadassah, having been, by the favour of the chamberlain, of the earliest provided with these things, was one of the first that was prepared and made ready for the king’s bed, and therefore was one of the soonest that was called to it. The term, therefore, of her purification being accomplished, her turn came to go in unto the king; who was so much pleased with her that he often called her by name, which he used not to do but to those only of his women whom he was much delighted with. Esther growing still farther tn the king’s favour, and gaining his affections beyond all the rest of the women, (Esther ii.,) he advanced her to higher honour; and on the tenth day of the tenth month, which falls about the end of our year, did put the royal diadem upon her head, and declared her queen in the place of Vashti; and in consequence thereof, made a solemn feast for his princes and servants, which was called Esther’s feast; and, in honour of her, at the same time made a release of taxes to the provinces, and gave donatives and presents to all that attended him, according to the grandeur and dignity of his royal estate. Haman, an Amalekite, of the posterity of Agag, who was king of Amalek, in the time of Saul, growing to be the chief favourite of King Artaxerxes, all the king’s servants were commanded to pay reverence unto him, and bow before him; and all of them obeyed the king’s order but Mordecai the Jew, who, sitting in the king’s gate, according to his office, paid not any reverence to Haman at such times as he passed by into the palace, neither bowed he at all to him; at which, being told, he was exceedingly displeased: but scorning to lay hands on one man only, and being informed that he was a Jew, he resolved, in revenge of this affront, to destroy, not only him, but also his whole nation with him; and to this act he was not a little excited by the ancient enmity which was between them and the people of whom he was descended; and therefore, for the accomplishing of this design, on the first day of the first month, that is, in the month Nisan, he called together his diviners, to find out what day would be the most fortunate for the putting this plan into execution: and they having, according to the manner of divination then in use among those Eastern people, cast lots first upon each month, did thereby determine for the thirteenth day of the twelfth month following, called Adar, as the day which they judged would be the most lucky for the accomplishing of what he purposed: whereon he forthwith went in unto the king; and having insinuated to him that there was a certain people dispersed all over his empire who did not keep the king’s laws, but followed laws of their own, diverse from the laws of all other people, to the disturbance of the good order of his kingdom, and the breach of that uniformity whereby it ought to be governed; and that, therefore, it was not for the king’s profit that they should any longer be suffered; he proposed, and gave counsel that they should be all destroyed and extirpated out of the whole empire of Persia; and urged it as that which was necessary for the establishing of the peace and good order of his government: to which having gained the king’s consent, and an order that on the thirteenth day of Adar following, according as was determined by the divination of the lots, it should be put in execution, he called the king’s scribes together to write the decree; and it being drawn as he proposed, on the thirteenth day of the same month of Nisan copies thereof were written out, and sent into all the provinces of the empire, commanding the king’s lieutenants, governors, and all other his officers in every one of them, to destroy, kill, and cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day, even on the thirteenth day of Adar following; and to take the spoil of them for a prey: which day was full eleven months after the date of the decree. The lot which seems to have pointed out that day appears to have been directed by the special providence of God, that so long a space intervening, there might be time enough to take such measures as should be proper to prevent the mischief intended. It is hard to find a reason for Mordecai’s refusing to pay his respect to Haman, which may be sufficient to excuse him for thus exposing himself and all his nation to that destruction which it had like to have drawn upon them. That which is commonly said is, that it was the same adoration which was made to the king of Persia; and that, consisting in the bowing of the knee, and the prostration of the whole body to the ground, it was avoided by Mordecai, upon a notion which he had of its being idolatrous: but this being the common compliment paid to the kings of Persia, by all that were admitted into their presence, it was no doubt paid to this very king by Ezra and Nehemiah, when they had access to him, and after also by Mordecai himself; for otherwise he could not have obtained that admission into his presence, and that advancement in his palace, which was afterwards there granted unto him; and if it were not idolatrous to pay this adoration to the king, neither was it idolatrous to pay it to Haman. The Greeks would not pay this respect to the kings of Persia out of pride; and excepting Themistocles, and two or three others, none of them could ever be brought to it. I will not say that this was the case with Mordecai in respect to Haman: it seems most probable that it was from a cause that was personal in Haman only. Perhaps it was because Haman, being of the race of the Amalekites, he looked upon him as under the curse which God had denounced against that nation; and therefore thought himself obliged not to give that honour to him. And if all the rest of the Jews thought the same, this might seem reason enough to him to extend his wrath against the whole nation, and to meditate the destruction of them all in revenge. But whatever was the cause that induced Mordecai to refuse the payment of this respect to the king’s favourite, this provoked that favourite to procure the decree above mentioned, for the utter extirpation of the whole Jewish nation in revenge for it. When Mordecai heard of this decree, he made great lamentation, as did also all the Jews of Shushan with him; and therefore, putting on sackcloth, he sat in this mournful garb without the king’s gate, (for he would not be allowed to enter within it in that dress,) which being told Esther, she sent to him to know what the matter was. Whereon Mordecai acquainted her with the whole state of the case; and sent her a copy of the decree, that she might fully see the mischief that was intended her people; to absolutely destroy them, and root them out from the face of the earth: and therefore commanded her forthwith to go in unto the king and make supplication for them. At first she excused herself, because of the law, whereby it was ordained that whosoever, whether man or woman, should come in unto the king in the inner court who was not called for, should be put to death, excepting such only to whom the king should hold out the golden sceptre in his hand that he might live; and she was afraid of hazarding her life in this cause. Whereon Mordecai, sending to her, again told her, that the decree extended universally to all of her nation, without any exception, and that, if it came to execution, she must not expect to escape more than any other of her people; that Providence seemed to have advanced her on purpose for this work; but if she refused to act her part in it, then deliverance should come some other way, and she and her father’s house should perish; for he was fully persuaded that God would not suffer his people to be thus totally destroyed. “Whereon Esther, resolving to put her life on the hazard for the safety of her people, desired Mordecai that he and all the Jews then in Shushan should fast three days for her, and offer up prayer and humble supplication that God would prosper her in the undertaking: which being accordingly done, on the third day Esther put on her royal apparel and went in unto the king, while he was sitting upon his throne in the inner part of his palace. And as soon as he saw her standing in the court he showed favour unto her, and held out his golden sceptre; and Esther, going near and touching the top of it, had thereby her life secured unto her: and when the king asked her what her petition was, at first she only desired that he and Haman would come to a banquet which she had prepared for him. “And when Haman was called, and the king and he were at the banquet, he asked her again of her petition, promising it should be granted her to the half of his kingdom: but then she desired only that the king and Haman should come again to the like banquet on the next day, intimating that she would then make known her request unto him. Her intention in claiming thus to entertain the king twice at her banquet before she made known her petition unto him was, that thereby she might the more endear herself unto him, and dispose him the better to grant the request which she had to make unto him.
“Haman, being proud of the honour of being thus admitted alone with the king to the queen’s banquet, went home to his house much puffed up: but on his return thither, seeing Mordecai sitting at the gate of the palace, and still refusing to bow unto him; this moved his indignation to such a degree, that on his coming to his house, and calling his friends about him to relate to them the great honour that was done to him by the king and queen, and the high advancement which he had obtained in the kingdom, he could not forbear complaining of the disrespect and affront that was offered him by Mordecai. Whereon they advised him to cause a gallows to be built of fifty cubits in height, and next morning to ask the king to have Mordecai hanged thereon: and accordingly he ordered the gallows immediately to be made; and went early the next morning to the palace, for the obtaining of the grant from the king to have Mordecai hanged on it. But that morning the king awaking sooner than ordinary, and not being able to compose himself again to sleep, he called for the book of the records and chronicles of the kingdom, and caused them to be read unto him; wherein finding an account of the conspiracy of Bigthan and Teresh, and that it was discovered by Mordecai the Jew, the king inquired what honour had been done to him for the same. And being told that nothing had been done for him, he inquired who was in the court; and being told that Haman was standing there, he ordered him to be called in, and asked of him what should be done to the man whom the king delighted to honour: whereon Haman, thinking this honour was intended for himself, gave advice that the royal apparel should be brought which the king used to wear, and the horse which he kept for his own riding, and the crown which used to be set upon his head; and that this apparel and horse should be delivered into the hands of one of the king’s most noble princes, that he might array therewith the man whom the king delighted to honour, and bring him on horseback through the whole city, and proclaim before him ‘Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honour.’ Whereon the king commanded him forthwith to take the apparel and horse, and do this to Mordecai the Jew, who sat in the king’s gate, in reward for his discovery of the treason of the two eunuchs: all which Haman having been forced to do in obedience to the king’s command, he returned with great sorrow to his house, lamenting the disappointment and great mortification he had met with in being thus forced to pay such signal honour to his enemy, whom he had intended to have hanged on the gallows which he had provided for him. And on his relating this to his friends, they all told him, that if this Mordecai were of the seed of the Jews, this bad omen foreboded that he should not prevail against them, but should surely fall before him. While they were thus talking, one of the queen’s chamberlains came to Haman’s house to hasten him to the banquet: and seeing the gallows which had been set up the night before, fully informed himself of the intent for which it was prepared. On the king’s and Haman’s sitting down to the banquet, the king asked again of Esther what was her petition, with like promise that it should be granted to her to the half of his kingdom: whereon she humbly prayed the king that her life might be given her on her petition, and her people at her request; for that a design was laid for the destruction of her and all her kindred and nation. At which the king asking, with much anger, who it was that durst do this thing, she told him that Haman then present was the author of the wicked plot; and laid the whole of it open to the king. Whereon the king rose up with much wrath from the banquet, and walked out into the garden adjoining; which Haman perceiving, he fell down before the queen upon the bed on which she was sitting, to supplicate for his life; in which posture the king having found him upon his return, spoke out in great passion, What, will he force the queen before me in the house? At which words the servants present immediately covered his face, as was then the usage to condemned persons; and the chamberlain, who had that day called Haman to the banquet, acquainting the king with the gallows he saw in his house there prepared for Mordecai, who had saved the king’s life in detecting the treason of the two eunuchs, the king ordered that he should be forthwith hanged thereon, which was accordingly done; and all his house, goods, and riches, were given to Queen Esther; and she appointed Mordecai to be her steward to manage the same. On the same day the queen made the king acquainted with the relation which Mordecai had unto her; whereon the king took him into his favour, and advanced him to great power, riches, and dignity in the empire; and made him the keeper of his signet, in the same manner as Haman had been before. But still the decree for the destruction of the Jews remaining in its full force, the queen petitioned the king a second time to put away this mischief from them; but, according to the laws of the Medes and Persians, nothing being to be reversed which had been decreed and written in the king’s name, and sealed with the king’s seal, and the decree procured by Haman against the Jews having been thus written and sealed, it could not be recalled. All therefore that the king could do, in compliance with her request, was, to give the Jews, by a new decrees such a power to defend themselves against such as should assault them, as might render the former decree ineffectual: and for that end he bid Esther and Mordecai draw such a decree in words as strong as could be devised, that so the former might be hindered from being executed, though it could not be annulled. And therefore the king’s scribes being again called on the twenty-third day of the third month, a new decree was drawn just two months and ten days after the former; wherein the king granted to the Jews, which were in every city of the Persian empire, full license to gather themselves together and stand for their lives; and to destroy, slay, and cause to perish, all the power of the people and province that should assault them, with their little ones and women, and to take the spoil of them for a prey. And this decree being written in the king’s hand, and sealed with his seal, copies thereof were drawn out, and especial messengers were despatched with them into all the provinces of the empire.
“The thirteenth day of Adar drawing near, when the decree obtained by Haman for the destruction of the Jews was to be put into execution, their adversaries everywhere prepared to act against them, according to the contents of it: and the Jews, on the other hand, by virtue of the second decree which was obtained in their favour, by Esther and Mordecai, gathered themselves together in every city where they dwelt, throughout all the provinces of King Artaxerxes, to provide for their safety: so that on the said thirteenth of Adar, through the means of these two different and discordant decrees, a war was commenced between the Jews and their enemies throughout the whole Persian empire. But the rulers of the provinces, and the lieutenants, the deputies, and the other officers of the king, knowing with what power Esther and Mordecai were then invested, through fear of them so favoured the Jews, that they prevailed everywhere against those that rose against them; and on that day, throughout the whole empire, slew of their enemies seven thousand five hundred persons; and in the city of Shushan, on that day and the next, eight hundred more; among whom were the ten sons of Haman, whom by a special order from the king they caused all to be hanged; perhaps upon the same gallows on which Haman, their father, had been hanged before. These transactions took place in the thirteenth year of Artaxerxes, about four hundred and fifty-two years before Christ.” The reader is requested to refer to the notes on all these passages.
“The Jews, being delivered thus from this dangerous design which threatened them with nothing less than total extirpation, made great rejoicings for it on the two days following, that is, on the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the said month Adar: and by the order of Esther and Mordecai these two days, with the thirteenth that preceded them, were set apart, and consecrated to be annually observed for ever after in commemoration thereof; the thirteenth as a fast, because of the destruction on that day intended to have been brought upon them, and the other two as a feast because of their deliverance from it; and both this fast and feast they constantly observe every year on those days, even to this time. The fast they call the fast of Esther; and the feast, the feast of Purim, from the Persian word Purim, which signifies lots; because it was by the casting of lots that Haman did set out this time for their destruction. This feast is the Bacchanals of the Jews, which they celebrate with all manner of rejoicing, mirth, and jollity; and therein indulge themselves in all manner of luxurious excesses, especially in drinking wine, even to drunkenness; which they think part of the duty of the solemnity, because it was by means of the wine banquet, they say, that Esther made the king’s heart merry, and brought him into that good humour which inclined him to grant the request which she made unto him for their deliverance; and therefore they think they ought to make their hearts merry also, when they celebrate the commemoration of it. During this festival the book of Esther is solemnly read in all their synagogues from the beginning to the end; at which they are all to be present, men, women, children, and servants, because all these had their part in this deliverance which Esther obtained for them. And as often as the name of Haman occurs in the reading of this book, the usage is for them all to clap with their hands, and stamp with their feet, and cry out: Let his memory perish.
“This is the last feast of the year among them, for the next that follows is the Passover, which always falls in the middle of the month, which begins the Jewish year.”
THE BOOK OF ESTHER
Chronological Notes relative to this Book
-Year from the Creation, according to Archbishop Usher, 3540. -Year before the birth of Christ, 460.
-Year before the vulgar era of Christ’s nativity, 464.
-Year of the Julian Period, 4250.
-Year since the flood of Noah, 1904.
-Year of the Cali Yuga, or Indian era of the Deluge, 2638. -Year from the vocation of Abram, 1458.
-Year from the destruction of Troy, 721.
-Year from the foundation of Solomon’s temple. 547.
-Year since the division of Solomon’s monarchy into the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, 511.
-Year of the era of Iphitus, 421.
-Year since Corœbus won the prize at the Olympic games, 313. -First year of the seventy-ninth Olympiad.
-Year of the Varronian era of the building of Rome, 290.
-Year from the building of Rome, according to Cato and the Fasti Consulares, 289.
-Year from the building of Rome according to Polybius the historian, 288. -Year from the building of Rome, according to Fabius Pictor, 284. -Year of the era of Nabonassar, 284.
-Year since the commencement of the first Messenian war, 280. -Year since the destruction of the kingdom of Israel by Shalmaneser, the king of Assyria, 258.
-Year since the commencement of the second Messenian war, 222. -Year from the destruction of Solomon’s temple by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, 125.
-Year since the publication of the famous edict of Cyrus, king of Persia, empowering the Jews to rebuild their temple, 72.
-Year since the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses, 62.
-Year since the abolition of the tyranny of the Pisistratidæ at Athens, 43. -Year since the expulsion of the Tarquins from Rome, which put an end to the regal government of the Romans, 44.
-Year since the famous battle of Marathon, 26.
-Year after the commencement of the third Messenian war, 2. -Year before the commencement of the first sacred war concerning the temple at Delphi, 17.
-Year before the commencement of the celebrated Peloponnesian war, 34. -Year before the celebrated retreat of the ten thousand Greeks, and the expulsion of the thirty tyrants from Athens by Thrasybulus, 65. -Year before the commencement of the era of the Seleucidæ, 152. -Year before the formation of the famous Achæan league, 183. -Year before the commencement of the first Punic war, 200. -Year before the fall of the Macedonian empire, 296.
-Year before the destruction of Carthage by Scipio, and of Corinth by Mummius, 317.
-Year before the commencement of the Jugurthine war, which continued five years, 354.
-Year before the commencement of the Social war, which continued for five years, and was finished by Sylla, 374.
-Year before the commencement of the Mithridatic war, which continued for twenty-six years, 376.
-Year before the commencement of the Servile war, under Spartacus, 392. -Year before the extinction of the reign of the Seleucidæ in Syria, on the conquest of that country by Pompey, 399.
-Year before the era of the Roman emperors, 433.
-Year of Archidamus, king of Lacedæmon, and of the family of the Proclidæ, or Eurypontidæ, 6.
-Year of Plistoanax, king of Lacedæmon, and of the family of the Eurysthenidæ, or Agidæ, 3.
-Year of Alexander, the tenth king of Macedon, 34.
-Year of Artaxerxes Longimanus, king of Persia, 1.
-Roman Consuls, Aulus Postumius, and Sp. Furius.
Joseph Benson
Argument
BEN_VOL3.PDF, source PDF p. 67
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
ARGUMENT.
IT is uncertain (says Dr. Dodd) who was the author of this book. Some ascribe it to Ezra, others to Mordecai, (see Esther 9:20, 23,) and others to the joint labours of the great synagogue; who, from the time of Ezra to Simon the Just, superintended the edition and canon of Scripture. That the book is genuine, whoever was the author, appears from the institution and continued observation of the annual festival of Purim, (see chap. 9.,) since it is not to be conceived that a wise nation should at first appoint, and afterward continue the celebration of, this solemn time of feasting and rejoicing every year, merely because a certain man among them had once the good fortune to write an agreeable romance; much less can we conceive, from what motive a whole assembly of learned doctors should receive a writing of no better character into the canon of their Scriptures; or, to make it of more universal use, should honour it with a Greek translation. The book contains the narrative of a plot to cut off all the Jews; disappointed by a wonderful concurrence of providences: or, more particularly, it is the history of Esther, a Jewish captive, who, for her remarkable beauty, was espoused to Ahasuerus and raised to the throne of Persia, and, by her extraordinary interest with the king, rescued the Jewish nation from a general massacre, to which they were appointed by Haman, one of the king’s favourites, in memory of which the feast of Purim was appointed. This sacred record, therefore, shows us the peculiar care of God over those Israelites who were still scattered abroad among the heathen; and, indeed, also manifests that the eye of a watchful providence is constantly superintending all nations, by which the aspirings of the greatest men are often curbed and broken, wicked designs blasted, piety and virtue protected, and God declared to be the Almighty Defender of good men, and of the true religion, in all ages and generations. It is remarkable that the name of God is not found in this book; but the finger of God is, directing so many minute events for the deliverance of his people; the particulars of which are calculated to give them very great encouragement in the most difficult and dangerous times. Here we are told how Esther came to be queen, and Mordecai to be great at court, chap. 1., 2.; how Haman obtained an order for the destruction of the Jews, chap. 3.; the distress of the Jews thereupon, chap. 4.; the defeat of Haman’s plot against Mordecai, chap. 5.-7.; the defeating of his plot against the Jews, chap. 8.; the care taken to perpetuate the memory of this, chap. 9., 10. That this history fell out after the captivity of Babylon was ended, and after the time of Darius the Mede, is very evident: for Shushan was not the royal city of the Medes, but of the Persians. Nor had the Medes so large a dominion as from India to Ethiopia. But in what reign of the Persian kings these things were done is hard to determine.
Joseph Sutcliffe
The Book of Esther.
SUT_VOL2.PDF, source PDF p. 299
THE BOOK OF ESTHER.
The book of Esther, called in the Hebrew, מגילה MEGILLAH, the volume, from the custom of rolling the parchments on a staff, is placed by critics in the second class of Canonical Books. It contains a most admirable series of providences in the elevation of Esther, the preservation of the Jews, and the ruin of Haman. Ahasuérus is allowed to be the Artaxerxes who issued an edict in favour of the Jews. He reigned twenty, or as some say twenty two, and others forty two years. In the third year of his reign he repudiated Vashti: chap. 1. In the seventh year he married Esther 2:16: and in the twelfth, Haman destroyed himself by plotting the destruction of the Jews: Esther 3:7. During most of those years Mordecai was in high esteem at court. Not one of the names of God is used in this book, but it is full of his works. The Persians used the name of the God of heaven, but probably in an acceptation somewhat differing from that of the Hebrews. Hence the omission may have been designed to avoid offending the Persian reader. The author is not named, nor are the ancients agreed on that subject; but the book, abounding with the manners and customs of Persia, was obviously written by a resident of that nation: and consequently Mordecai and Esther have the fairest claims to the work. This queen some supposed to be the Amestris of profane authors: yet they report many things of her which cannot be credited of Esther.
Daniel Whedon
Introduction.
WHD_CO04.PDF, source PDF p. 693
ESTHER
INTRODUCTION.
General Character of the Work.
THIS book takes its name from the distinguished woman who is the heroine of its narrative. It is called by the Jews the Megillah, (מגלה,) or Roll of Esther, from its being written on a special roll. In our Bibles it stands as the last of the historical books, but in the Hebrew Canon it is placed in the Hagiographa, between the Books of Ecclesiastes and Daniel. The book belongs to the latest Hebrew literature of the Old Testament, and is to be classed, in respect to age, with the Books of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. But in character it is altogether unique. It reads like an oriental romance. The great king, sitting on “the throne of his kingdom,” holding the golden sceptre, revelling in every carnal luxury and pleasure, feasting thousands of nobles and princes, and knowing no bounds to extravagance and folly; the palace, the court of the garden, the various coloured awnings attached to marble pillars, the tessellated pavement, and the couches of gold; the magnificent robes and royal splendour of the chief ministers of State — all these pass before us like the visions of enchantment. Though commemorating events of the greatest interest to the Jews, it is noticeably wanting in the high theocratic spirit which is so conspicuous in the other historical books of Israel. The name of God, it has often been remarked, is not once mentioned. No yearning for the fatherland of the exiles, as in Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah; no reference to temple, priest, or sacrifice, is to be found; but rather an effort on the part of both Mordecai and Esther to conceal their Jewish origin, in order to obtain favour and advancement in the Persian court.
These facts would naturally subject the Book of Esther to a vast amount of criticism; and the enemies of the Bible have not failed to make the most of them. They have also averred that the whole narrative breathes a revengeful spirit, that many of the acts attributed to Ahasuerus are incredible and absurd, and that the elevation of a Jew to be prime minister of Persia is without parallel or evidence in history. All objections based on particular parts of the narrative will be noticed in the textual notes; other questions involved in the criticism of the book may be more conveniently discussed in this Introduction.
Credibility.
The work is certainly characterized by a spirit different from that of the other sacred books, but this fact, instead of being an objection to its truly historical character, is rather an evidence in its favour. A writer born and bred at Shushan, the Persian capital, would not be likely to be very familiar with Jewish institutions, especially as they existed in Palestine and at Jerusalem; and in composing a history of the origin of the feast of Purim, he had no occasion to make mention of other Jewish institutions. The same reserve and policy which he describes in Mordecai and Esther, in concealing their Jewish origin, may have influenced him as a writer. He shows a reticence in treating of his religion, and an untheocratic spirit unusual for a Jew of any age or country; but this very fact is a weighty argument for the authenticity and genuineness of his work. This is the more strikingly seen when we compare his work with the later and spurious additions to it which are found in the Apocrypha. The author of these apocryphal additions seems to have felt the lack of the theocratic spirit in this ancient book, and aimed to supply what he supposed was wanting. The feast of Purim, universally observed at the present day, is a monumental evidence of the truth of this history. It has been confessedly observed by the Jews since the times of the Persian empire. In 2 Maccabees 15:36 it is called Mordecai’s Day; and Josephus writes that it was carefully observed in his time. The name Purim admits of no other explanation than that furnished in this book. Here, then, is the same kind of evidence as the passover furnishes to the truth of the Exodus, or that our celebration of the fourth of July yields to the historical fact of the Declaration of Independence.
Another evidence of its credibility is, the intimate acquaintance which the author shows with Persian customs and the Persian court. The royal palace and its garden, to which so much interest has been given in recent years by the exhuming of the great hall at Susa, with its “pillars of marble,” the use of vessels and couches of gold, the levity and drinking at the feast, the “seven princes,” the many Persian names throughout the book, the eunuchs and the harem, the conspiracy against the king and its punishment, the impaling of offenders, the royal posts, the inviolability of Medo-Persian laws, and the capricious acts of the king — these and other things are all in perfect keeping with what we learn of Persian life and customs from Herodotus and other sources. No person writing at a later age, and far removed from the scenes he describes, could have incorporated all these things into a fictitious narrative with such an unconscious simplicity and accuracy. Then, too, the parts of the narrative which have been pronounced incredible and absurd a romance writer would have been careful to avoid. He would have seen their absurdity as quickly as any of his critics, and would never have ventured the publication of a work so full of falsehood and folly. Hence additional evidence of the credibility of this history may be found in the identification of the monarch who reigned at Shushan, and did the things ascribed to him in this book. We pass, then, to inquire —
Who was Ahasuerus?
In the endeavour to answer this question, almost every king of Persia, from Darius the Mede down to Darius Nothus has had his claims urged by different writers and by a variety of arguments. The Book of Esther itself furnishes data which clearly exclude every Persian or Medo-Persian monarch before Darius Hystaspes. For of Ahasuerus it must be observed, 1) That his royal residence was Shushan; 2) His dominion extended “from India even unto Ethiopia,” that is, from the river Indus to the Upper Nile; 3) He reigned at least twelve years, (Esther 3:7;) 4) He reigned at a period when the Persians had pre-eminence over the Medes. This last is seen in the writer’s use of the term Persian and Medes, (Esther 1:3, 14, 18, 19,) naming Persia first, and thereby implying Persian supremacy. The passage in chap. 10:2, is no real exception, for there the book of national annals is mentioned, in which the records of Media doubtless chronologically preceded those of Persia. In the Book of Daniel, written earlier, and near the time when Darius the Median took the kingdom, we find this expression reversed, and written Medes and Persians, (Daniel 5:28; 6:8, 12, 15; 8:20.) In Daniel’s vision of the ram which had two horns, and symbolized the Medo-Persian empire, the Persian horn was higher than the other, and came up last. Daniel 8:3. The Persian kings, from Darius Hystaspes downward, made Shushan their principal residence; but Achmetha, (Ezra 6:2,) or Ecbatana, was the royal residence of the kings of Media. Ahasuerus, then, could have been no Median king, and no Mede ever ruled from India unto Ethiopia. Neither did Cyrus, the first Persian monarch, extend his dominion to Ethiopia. Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, was the first to extend the Persian empire as far as Ethiopia, but he never returned alive from that expedition, and his whole reign was less than eight years. Smerdis, the Magian, reigned less than a year; so that all these kings who preceded Darius Hystaspes are excluded from further discussion. Neither is it possible to identify Ahasuerus with any Persian monarch later than Artaxerxes Longimanus, for with Darius Nothus the Persian empire seriously declined, and his reign of nineteen years was a constant scene of insurrections and revolts.
The discussion is thus narrowed to three Persian kings — Darius Hystaspes, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes Longimanus — each of whom had his royal residence at Shushan, reigned more than twelve years, and ruled from the Indus to the Upper Nile.
According to Josephus, Prideaux, and some recent critics, Esther’s Ahasuerus is to be identified with Artaxerxes, surnamed by the Greek historians Longimanus — the long-handed. This monarch was the patron of Ezra and Nehemiah, and it may seem plausible to suppose that Esther was the queen who sat by his side when Nehemiah sought permission to go to build the city of his fathers’ sepulchres. Nehemiah 2:6. But this opinion is quite generally rejected, and for the following reasons: 1. Artaxerxes was certainly not the first who reigned from India to Ethiopia. His two next immediate predecessors ruled over the same extent of country, and either of them was in other respects more illustrious than he. Hence it would hardly be proper to designate him as specially famous from the extent of his dominion. 2. He seems to have lived too late to be contemporary with Mordecai and Esther. According to Esther 2:5, Mordecai’s great-grandfather, Kish, was taken captive to Babylon with Jeconiah (that is, Jehoiachin) in the eighth year of Nebuchadnezzar. Compare 2 Kings 24:12. From that date to the beginning of Artaxerxes’ reign was about one hundred and fifty years, too long a period to be naturally measured by four generations. Esther may easily have been a youthful virgin at the beginning of Xerxes’ reign, or during the reign of Darius Hystaspes; but she must have been far advanced in life in Artaxerxes’ time, and Mordecai could scarcely have been living. Then, 3. The general character of Artaxerxes for clemency and magnanimity, and his attitude toward the Jews, are very incompatible with what is recorded of Ahasuerus. It is hardly credible that the king who, in his seventh year, sent a colony of Jewish exiles to their fatherland, and issued for their benefit a decree so comprehensive and favourable as that recorded in Ezra 7:11-26, would, in his twelfth year, yield, without a word, to Haman’s infamous proposal for the universal massacre of this same race of people.
4. It is also difficult to understand why the sacred writer should call Artaxerxes Ahasuerus. The names are not cognate, and if they were different names of the same individual, the sacred writer would have been very likely to have said so.
Mr. Tyrwhitt devotes a large work to the discussion of this question, and argues that Ahasuerus must be identified with Darius Hystaspes. He urges that Darius was the first of the Persian kings who ruled from India to Ethiopia, and that his generation was contemporary with that of Esther, so that he neither died too early nor was born too late to have seen her in her bloom of youth. The tribute laid, after his twelfth year, “upon the land, and upon the isles of the sea,” (Esther 10:1,) could not have been laid after the twelfth year of Xerxes, or of Artaxerxes, because at that date “the isles of the sea” had become free from Persian control. Hence Darius Hystaspes was the only Persian monarch who could have exacted such a tribute subsequent to the twelfth year of his reign. This writer also labours to show that Esther is to be identified with Atossa, whom Darius married after his accession to the throne of Persia. Herodotus 7:2. He regards Hadassah (Esther 2:7) as the court name of the queen, and urges its identity with Atossa. To the objection that Atossa was the daughter of Cyrus, and widow of Cambyses, he replies by the supposition that “daughter of Cyrus” is a regal title of the principal wife, and equivalent to “daughter of the sun.”
But this hypothesis, and the whole argument of Mr. Tyrwhitt, fails to meet the following objections: 1) The first six years of his reign Darius could hardly be said to rule from India to Ethiopia. Those years were one continued scene of revolts, and the new king was kept constantly employed in reducing the provinces, one after another, to submission. 2) The supposition that “daughter of Cyrus” is only a regal title is inadmissible in face of Herodotus’ explicit statement, (Bk. 3:88,) that Atossa was not only daughter of Cyrus, but sister of Cambyses, and had been married to her own brother, and also to the Magian usurper, previous to her marriage with Darius. These facts utterly forbid her identification with the Jewish maiden Hadassah, even though the names seem to be exact equivalents. 3) Another insuperable difficulty in identifying Ahasuerus with Darius is the noticeable contrast in their characters. Darius Hystaspes was distinguished for persevering energy, caution, sagacity, and prudence — qualities entirely wanting in the capricious and passionate tyrant presented to us in the Book of Esther. We find it difficult to conceive such a warlike and sagacious monarch as Darius manipulated and controlled by such a rash and unprincipled favourite as Haman. 4) Add to all this, that under the favourable rule of Darius the Jews resumed and completed the building of their temple at Jerusalem, and the king issued a most memorable decree in their interest, warning and admonishing the enemies to refrain from all interference with their affairs. Ezra 6. 5) It is also difficult to give any reason why this king should be called Darius in the Book of Ezra, and Ahasuerus in the Book of Esther. If these names belonged to the same person we certainly should expect to find some intimation of it in one or the other of these books.
We seem from the above argument to be shut up to the conclusion that Ahasuerus was Xerxes, the son and successor of Darius Hystaspes. None of the objections we have urged against Darius and Artaxerxes can be made against Xerxes. We notice, 1) The resemblance in name. The form of the name is in Hebrew Akhashverosh, and in Persian, as it appears in the cuneiform inscriptions, Khshayarsha. This latter the Greeks would very naturally abridge and express by Xerxes. 2) It is generally agreed among all expositors that Xerxes is the fourth king described in the prophecy of Daniel, (Daniel 11:2,) “There shall stand up yet three kings in Persia; and the fourth shall be far richer than they all: and by his strength through his riches he shall stir up all against the realm of Grecia.” This corresponds very noticeably with what is said of the extent of Ahasuerus’ empire, and “the riches of his glorious kingdom.” Though his father Darius, and his son Artaxerxes, ruled over the same territory, neither of them possessed it so securely, or made such a world-wide display of power and riches, as did Xerxes. 3) But especially is it to be observed of Xerxes that his capricious temper, passionate violence, ostentatious prodigality, and unblushing licentiousness, find a complete parallel in the Ahasuerus of the Book of Esther.
Mr. Tyrwhitt seeks to invalidate this evidence for Xerxes by a variety of arguments, all of which, however, are easily shown to be inconclusive. 1) He attempts to prove that Esther could not have been a youthful virgin in the seventh year of Xerxes, but he seems not to have observed that his argument assumes that the members of the fourth generation from Kish were all of the same age. Mordecai was Esther’s cousin, and also her foster-father. He “brought her up;” and it is easy to understand that of these, as of other cousins, one might have been a mere child when the other had attained mature manhood. 2) A greater difficulty in identifying Xerxes with the husband of Esther is the fact that before and after the seventh year of his reign his wife was the cruel and licentious Amestris. No one would now think of identifying Esther with Amestris, and there is no need of supposing that Vashti and Amestris were the same. It is not necessary to suppose that either Vashti or Esther was the principal wife of the king. They may have been only favourite and highly-honoured concubines, on whom the king at times delighted to set the royal crown. It is a well-known fact that the Persian kings had many wives and many concubines. But the wives were selected from royal houses, (Herod., 3:84,) not indiscriminately from the virgins of the provinces. Hence the gathering of fair young virgins from all parts of the empire shows that it was not a queen consort that was sought, but a favourite concubine. It is no more strange that such a favourite should be honoured with a royal crown, and allowed to preside at feasts in the royal house, than that a favourite officer of the court should be clothed with the royal apparel, and ride on the king’s horse, and have a noble prince lead him through the streets and cry, “Thus shall it be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour.” 3) Again, Esther was introduced to Ahasuerus in the seventh year of his reign. But according to Herodotus, the seventh year of Xerxes must have been the year he returned defeated into Asia. For he spent the second year of his reign in subjugating a rebellion in Egypt, (Herod., 7:7, 8,) and was four years making his preparations to invade Greece, (Herod., 7:20,) so that it must have been in the sixth year of his reign when he set out on the expedition, and he could not well have returned to his capital within less than two years. This would bring us to the close of the seventh or the beginning of the eighth year of his reign. Moreover, Esther and the other maidens were required to go through a twelve months’ preparation before they saw the king. Thus, according to the chronology of Herodotus, it would seem that the earliest date at which Esther could have been introduced to Xerxes was near the close of the eighth year of his reign.
Here, indeed, is a difficulty, but a few considerations will show that it is far from weighty, and affords no conclusive objection to identifying Xerxes with Ahasuerus. 1) The order for gathering the virgins from all the provinces unto Shushan was probably made before Xerxes set out on his Grecian campaign, and during the two years of his absence they were being sought out and brought under the custody of the king’s chamberlain. See notes on Esther 2:1, 16. 2) The chronology of Herodotus is not to be assumed as absolutely correct. His dates may be often considerably out of the way. 3) And especially should we bear in mind in such an argument that Jewish and Greek writers might easily have adopted different methods of reckoning, so that the seventh year of one would be the eighth year of another.
The objection that no isles of the sea were subject to Xerxes after the twelfth year of his reign is sufficiently noticed in the note on Esther 10:1.
We conclude, then, that Esther’s Ahasuerus was no other than Xerxes, the son and successor of Darius Hystaspes. The difficulties in the way of this identification are few and of little weight, while the arguments in its favour are many and striking. But the objections to identifying Ahasuerus with any other monarch seem to be insuperable.
This identification is a weighty argument for the historical truth of the Book of Esther. Even De Wette admits that the summoning of Vashti to a carousal, Esther’s marriage with the king, though not of the families of the seven princes, Haman’s edict, to destroy the Jews, and Mordecai’s counter edict, are all possible under Xerxes’ rule; and Rawlinson well remarks: “Had the work been composed by a Jewish romancer, at the distance of a century and a half or two centuries from the events, and been merely based upon traditional recollections of a great danger and a great deliverance, (which is the hypothesis of De Wette and Davidson,) it is inconceivable that the character of Xerxes should have been hit off so exactly, and that the picture of Persian manners should have been at once so vivid and so correct.”
Date and Authorship.
The rationalistic critics have generally assigned a late date to the book, and supposed it to be the work of some unknown writer in the times of the Seleucidae and the Ptolemies. All the arguments, however, for such a late date are weak and futile. The language used in Esther 1:1 and 10:2 naturally indicates that the reign of Ahasuerus was past, but it would be perfectly natural and appropriate for a writer living under the reign of his immediate successor. The intimate acquaintance with the Persian court and customs, and the vivid descriptions of various events, indicate that the author was a contemporary of Mordecai and Esther, and an eye-witness of many things which he narrates. These facts, in the absence of any thing of weight to the contrary, seem sufficient to fix the date somewhere in the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus, the son and successor of Xerxes the Great.
The authorship has been attributed variously: to the men of the Great Synagogue; to Joiachim the high priest; to Ezra the scribe; and to Mordecai. The question cannot be decided with certainty, but it is very probable that Mordecai either wrote the book himself, or caused it to be written by one of his contemporaries. With the death of Xerxes, or soon after, he doubtless lost his high position in the Persian court, and then it would be a solace and pleasure for him to write, or procure the writing, of his history as presented in the Book of Esther.
Sacred Character and Worth.
While it is admitted that this book exhibits the spirit of Jewish vindictiveness toward enemies, and is noticeably secular or untheocratic as compared with the other historical books of the Old Testament, we must not fail to see that it has also a sacred character and worth. The very reticence on religion and Judaism, which has been thought so strange, may have its lessons. The caution of the writer has its perfect parallel in Mordecai and Esther. They, too, are very reticent about their race and religion. They even concert together to conceal their Jewish affinities. Here, then, we doubtless have a truthful portraiture of many of the Jews of the dispersion. They lost, by their long exile and familiarity with other races and customs, their ancient national spirit; and while they remained true to the great principles of their religion, they were usually very cautious about making them known. Whatever may be thought of this kind of caution, it is evidence of the writer’s historical fidelity. When the sheep are scattered in the wilderness, and often hear the stranger’s voice, and know the wolf is near, they may do well to keep silent.
We must not overlook the fact that the book bears evidence of the faith and piety of Mordecai and Esther. Mordecai will not compromise his religion by bowing down to a mortal, (note on Esther 3:2, 3,) and when his nation is threatened with destruction he is confident that Divine help will come from some place. Esther 4:14. And before Esther will hazard her life, and seek the salvation of her people before the king, she and her maidens, and all the Jews of Shushan, observe a solemn fast for three days. Esther 4:16.
The lessons of Divine Providence, as exhibited in this book, are striking. Though the name of God is not expressed, his presence and power are everywhere felt. We trace the Divine hand in all the events that conspire to elevate Esther and Mordecai to positions of power just at the moment when there seemed no earthly power to help the Jews. The follies of Xerxes and the wickedness of Haman were not caused or sanctioned by God, but they were divinely overruled. The divorce of Vashti prepared the way for Esther. The favour which the latter received, both at the hand of Hegai and of the king, is to be ascribed to Him who “brought Daniel into favour and tender love with the prince of the eunuchs.” Daniel 1:9. The sleepless night which led to the discovery of Mordecai’s unrewarded services was no less ordered of God than the dreams of Pharaoh, (Genesis 41:25,) or of Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel 2:28. The sudden fall of Haman, and his execution upon the very post he had erected for Mordecai; the promotion of the Jew, and the edict that nullified the device of Haman and saved the Jews from helpless massacre — all showed most strikingly that “promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another.” Psalm 75:6, 7.
The Book of Esther is an invaluable counterpart to the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah. These latter show how God was careful to open the way for the restoration of Israel to the fatherland. They show the zeal and love that led so many of the exiles to return and build again the temple and the holy city. But this book shows the character of many who were not disposed to return from exile. No doubt there was in them a want of love for Zion. Multitudes preferred the lands of exile to the land of Israel. And the result of this may be discerned in the tone and spirit of our book. Its secular style, as compared with Ezra and Nehemiah, may have for us profound suggestions. “There is inspiration in silence,” says Wordsworth. “If we loiter in Persia when we ought to return to Jerusalem; if we love the courts of earthly princes more than the Church of the living God; if we prefer earth to heaven, and time to eternity, then our moral and religious tone will infallibly decline.” But while the reformed and restored Church at Jerusalem receives great blessings, and shows a purer faith, the Church of the dispersion, the twelve tribes still scattered abroad, though they do not “prefer Jerusalem above their chief joy,” are yet not without Divine oversight and care.
Contents.
The Royal Feast at Shushan Esther 1:1-9
Divorce of Vasht Esther 2:10-22
Esther made Queen Esther 2:1-18
Mordecai Exposes a Court Conspiracy Esther 2:19-23 Haman’s Promotion and the Edict against the Jews Esther 3:1-15
The Mourning and Fasting Esther 4:1-17
Esther’s Reception and the Banquet Esther 5:1-8
Haman’s Indication at Mordecai Esther 5:9-14
Mordecai Honoured Esther 6:1-14
Haman Convicted and Hanged Esther 7:1-10
Mordecai’s Promotion and the Edict in behalf of the Jews
Esther 8:1-17
The Two Days of Vengeance Esther 9:1-19
The Feast of Purim Esther 9:20-32
Mordecai’s Greatness Esther 10:1-3