28.  This book, the author of which is unknown, records the wonderful manner in which the plot of Haman the Agagite to destroy the Jews was not only overthrown, but turned to their enlargement and honor.  It is remarkable that the author refrains throughout from mentioning the name of God, although he manifestly designs to represent this deliverance as effected by his providence, and that too in answer to the fervent prayers of the Jews in connection with a fast of three days’ continuance.  He prefers, as it would seem, to let the facts speak for themselves.  The book closes with an account of the establishment, under the auspices of Mordecai and Esther, of the feast of Purim, in commemoration of the deliverance which it records; and we are perhaps warranted in saying that the immediate occasion of writing the book was to show the historic origin of that festival—­a festival mentioned in the second book of Maccabees, under the title of Mordecai’s day (chap. 15:36), and observed, according to Josephus, by the Jews throughout the whole world.  Antiq., 11, 6. 13.

29.  Among the various opinions respecting the Ahasuerus of this book, the best sustained is that which identifies him with the celebrated Xerxes of profane history.  With this agrees all that is said of the splendor and extent of his dominions, extending “from India even unto Ethiopia, over a hundred and seven and twenty provinces” (1:1), and of his passionate, capricious, and sensual character.

To us, who are accustomed to a government of law, in which the rulers are restrained from the exercise of arbitrary power, and are kept under constant restraint by popular opinion, the incidents recorded in this book seem very strange.  But it gives a true and faithful portraiture of the course of affairs at the court of a Persian despot, where the monarch knows no law but his own arbitrary will, suddenly elevates his favorites to the highest places of power and trust, as suddenly consigns them to the hand of the executioner, and gives himself up to the unbridled indulgence of his passions.  The history of Haman’s sudden rise and fall is that of many an oriental courtier since his day.  The Jews, we are told, “slew of their foes seventy and five thousand.”  This was a very great slaughter; but we must remember that it was distributed through all the provinces of the kingdom.  Ch. 9:16.  The permission which they had received was “in every city to gather themselves together, and to stand for their life; to destroy, to slay, and to cause to perish, all the power of the people and province that would assault them, both little ones and women, and to take the spoil of them for a prey” (ch. 8:11); all which, except the last clause, seems to have been carried into execution.  We are not required to vindicate the wisdom of this severe decree, or to deny that the Jews may have used to excess the terrible power thus conferred upon them.  On the side of God’s providence, the vengeance that fell upon the Jews’ enemies was righteous; but on the side of the human instrumentalities employed by him, there may have been much imperfection, or even folly and wickedness.  So it has ever been in the history of human affairs, and so it is at the present day.

CHAPTER XXI.