THE BOOK OF ESTHER

Esther.

by

THE REV. R. SINKER, B.D.

INTRODUCTION

TO

THE BOOK OF ESTHER.

I. Contents.—The Book of Esther opens with the account of the feast given by King Ahasuerus at the end of the 180 days during which he had entertained the lords and princes of the kingdom at his palace in the city of Shushan. On the seventh day of the feast, the king, excited with wine, sends for his queen Vashti “to show the people and the princes her beauty;” with which unseemly request Vashti naturally refuses to comply. The enraged king takes counsel with his “wise men,” and by a decree deposes Vashti from her place both as queen and wife, ordering that “all wives should give to their husbands honour,” and that “every man should bear rule in his own house.”

After this a number of maidens were selected, that from them Ahasuerus might choose the one who pleased him best. His choice fell upon Esther, a Jewish orphan girl, who had been brought up by her cousin Mordecai, at whose command she did not at first disclose her nationality to the king. About this time Mordecai was the means of frustrating an attempt made on the life of Ahasuerus; the plotters were hanged, but the discoverer of the plot was for the time forgotten.

A certain Haman now occupied the chief place in the king’s favour, and Mordecai incurred his bitter enmity by his refusal to pay him the reverence yielded by others. Not content with the personal hatred, he sought the downfall of the whole Jewish race, and obtained from the king a decree, by virtue of which all the Jews throughout the empire were to be massacred. The terror such an edict would produce among the Jews can well be imagined, and the news at length reaches Esther in the palace, and she is bidden by her kinsman to use her influence with the king to obtain a reversal of the decree. To her objection that to venture uncalled into the king’s presence is punishable with death, it is answered that, if her race are to perish, she must not think to purchase safety by a cowardly silence; “but,” adds Mordecai, unwilling that his adopted child should lose so great an opportunity, “who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” The queen at last determines to make the effort, bidding her countrymen to join her in observing a three days’ fast. The fast over, Esther, clad in her royal robes, but standing in the court as a suppliant, appeared before the king, who held out to her the golden sceptre in token that she had “obtained favour in his sight.” She is bidden to proffer her request, but evidently temporising she merely asks that the king and Haman should come that day to the banquet which she had prepared. The repetition of the king’s promise only leads to a fresh invitation to a second banquet on the following day, while Haman returns home proud at the honour done him, but with fresh exasperation against Mordecai, who remained sitting as he passed.

At home Haman discloses his grievance to his wife and his friends, and by their advice it is decided that a gallows of exceptional height should be made, and that on the morrow the king’s leave should be got to hang Mordecai—far too unimportant a matter to be worth gainsaying. That very night God’s providence interposes to save His people in an unlooked-for way. The king, unable to sleep, commands the book of the Chronicles of the kingdom to be read to him, and thus hears of the unrewarded service which Mordecai had done him, by the discovery of the plot. Thus in the morning he suddenly greets his minister with the question, “What shall be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour?” The favourite, unable to see the possibility of any one being intended save himself, suggests the bestowal of the most extravagant honours. How the answer he received must have seemed the precursor of the end, when he hears that it is for Mordecai that he has planned this triumph, and is bidden, as himself the chief noble in the realm, to see that the whole is carried into execution! The pageant is soon over; Mordecai returns to his station by the king’s gate, and Haman to his home, to find how truly the dismal comments of his wife and friends echoed his own sad forebodings. The morrow comes and the second banquet; and Esther now feels that the need for temporising has passed, and prays for the life of herself and her people, and directly charges Haman with his nefarious scheme. Ahasuerus orders at once Haman’s execution, which is done without delay, his property being given to the queen, and by her to Mordecai. But though the author of the decree had fallen, the decree itself still held good. It had been written in the king’s name, and sealed with the king’s seal, and no man might reverse it. In this dilemma, largely due to his own folly, the king issues another mandate empowering the Jews to stand on their defence, sparing no pains to spread this throughout the whole empire, thereby showing clearly how completely a change had taken place in the royal favour. The day of slaughter came, and not only did the Jews show themselves able to defend themselves, but they took a terrible vengeance on their enemies; five hundred men were slain by them in Shushan alone, including the ten sons of Haman. At Esther’s further request, the king extended the time of massacre in that city over the next day also; and in the provinces 75,000 of the Jews’ enemies perished. The two days following the great day of slaughter were made feast days for ever after, under the name of Purim. The book ends with “the declaration of the greatness of Mordecai,” who has now risen to be “next unto the king, and great among the Jews.”

II. Date of the Events recorded.—This simply resolves itself into the question, who is Ahasuerus? and there can be little doubt that we must identify him with the king known to the Greeks as Xerxes, and that for the following reasons :—

(1) The name Xerxes is a Greek reproduction of the Persian name Khshayarsha (meaning, according to Canon Rawlinson, “the ruling eye”), and when Ahasuerus is transliterated more strictly according to the Hebrew spelling Äkhashverosh, it will be seen that the essential elements of the word are almost exactly reproduced, the letter aleph being prefixed to facilitate the difficult pronunciation.

(2) The character of Ahasuerus as shown in this book presents a striking parallel with that of Xerxes. Ahasuerus is an ordinary specimen of an Eastern despot, who knows no law save the gratification of his own passions, and of the passing caprice of the moment. He sends for his queen in defiance of decency and courtesy, to grace a revel, and deposes her for a refusal simply indicative of self-respect; he is willing to order the destruction of a whole people throughout his empire, at the request of the favourite of the time; when the tide of favour turns, the favourite is not only disgraced, but he and all his family are ruthlessly destroyed, and Mordecai rises from a humble position to be the new vizier. Thus, though God shapes all this for good, the instrument is distinctly evil. How similar is the picture shown in the undying story of Herodotus, of the king who, reckless of the overthrow of his father’s armies at Marathon ten short years before, will make a fresh attempt to crush the nation on whose success the freedom of the world was to hinge; who comes with a host so vast that, in the poet’s hyperbole, they drink the rivers dry (Juv. x. 177); who has a throne erected to view the slaughter of Leonidas and his three hundred; who gazes from mount Ægaleos at the vast fleet in the bay of Salamis, soon to be routed and broken by Themistocles! The king, who a few weeks before has the Hellespont scourged because it presumes to be stormy and break his bridges, now flees away in panic, leaving his fleet to its fate. (See Herod. vii. 35; Æsch. Pers. 467, seq.; Juv. x. 174-187.)

(3) The extent of his empire. He rules “from India even unto Ethiopia” (Esther 1:1). India was not included in the empire of the early Persian kings, and therefore, though Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, is called Ahasuerus in Ezra 4:6, he is excluded by the above consideration.

If then as we can hardly doubt, Ahasuerus and Xerxes are the same, we can at once fix the date of the events recorded in the Book of Esther. Ahasuerus makes the great feast in the third year of his reign (Esther 1:3), Esther is taken into the royal palace in the seventh year (Esther 2:16), they cast lots before Haman in the twelfth year (Esther 3:7), and in the thirteenth year the plan of destruction is broached. Now the reign of Xerxes lasted from 485-464 B.C., therefore the events recorded in Esther range from 483-470 B.C.

III. Author, and Date of Composition.—A number of guesses, for they cannot be called anything more, have been put forward as to the author of this book, and of the best of these we can only say that it is possible. Some, as Clement of Alexandria, and Aben Ezra (Comm. in Esther, Int.), have assigned it to Mordecai; others, as Augustine (de Civ. Dei. 1. 18:100:36), with much less show of probability, refer it to Ezra; the Talmud (Tal. Babl., Baba Batlira, f. 15a) gives the “men of the great synagogue;” and yet other theories are current.

In all this uncertainty we may as well at once confess our inability to settle who the author was, though we may perhaps obtain a fair notion of the conditions under which he wrote. It may probably be fairly inferred from such passages as Esther 9:32; Esther 10:2, &c, that the writer had access to the documents to which he refers, so that the book must have been written in Persia. This is further confirmed by traits that suggest that the writer is speaking as an eye-witness (see, for example, Esther 1:6; Esther 8:10; Esther 8:14-15, &c). Possibly too, even if Mordecai were not the author, matter directly derived from him may be seen in Esther 2:5; Esther 2:10, &c.

Again, it must be noticed that the name of God in every form is entirely absent from the book, that there is no allusion whatever to the Jewish nation as one exiled from the land of their fathers, to that land itself, or to the newly rebuilt Temple, or, in fact, to any Jewish institution whatsoever. Whether this reserve is to be explained by the writer’s long residence in Persia having blunted the edge of his national feelings, or whether he may have thought it safer to keep his feelings and opinions in the background, it is impossible to say: very possibly both causes may have acted.

As regards the date, some of the foregoing considerations, if allowed, would weigh strongly in favour of a comparatively early date, inasmuch as they would make the writer more or less contemporaneous with the events he records—a view which the graphic style strongly supports. But it is obvious, from the way in which the book opens, that Ahasuerus or Xerxes was no longer king. Combining these two considerations, we I should prefer to fix the composition of the book not long after the death of Xerxes (464 B.C. ), say 450 B.C., a time when Athens was at the height of its power and fame, and Rome was merely a second-rate Italian commonwealth.

The above view, or something like it, is held by most sober critics, a common form of the view being to assign the book to the reign of the successor of Xerxes, Artaxerxes Longimanus (464-425 B.C.), and it may be noted that there can be little doubt that the Books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles are to be assigned to that reign, and that the style of those books closely resembles that of Esther. Some have advocated a distinctly late date for Esther, assigning it to the period of the Greek régime, but the arguments brought forward seem to us of little weight.

IV. Canonicity, and Place in Canon.—In the Hebrew Bible, Esther stands as the last of the five Megilloth, or rolls, the others being Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, and Ecclesiastes, and it is read through in the synagogues at the Feast of Purim. Among the Jews there can be no doubt that its canonicity was universally acknowledged, for in the earliest statement we have as to the contents of the Jewish Canon (Josephus, contr. Apion. i. 8), Esther is distinctly included by the mention of Artaxerxes. Here and there in early Christian lists of the books of the Old Testament Canon in its Palestinian form, as opposed to the longer Canon of the Alexandrian Jews, the Book of Esther is not mentioned. This is the case, for example, in the list given by Melito, Bishop of Sardis in the second century (Euseb. Hist. Eccl. iv. 26). Dr. Westcott (Smith’s Bible Dict., art. “Canon”) suggests that this may be due to Esther having been viewed as a part of Ezra representing a general collection of post-captivity records. Whatever may be the true explanation, at any rate Esther is an integral part of the pure Hebrew Canon, and as such is mentioned by the Talmud; it was included, though with considerable addition, to which we refer below, in the Græco-Alexandrian Canon, and was received, while the Greek accretions were rejected, by Jerome into his Latin translation.

The position of Esther in the Hebrew Bible is an artificial one, clearly due to Liturgical reasons, the Meqilloth being read, each at one of the Feasts. In the LXX. and Vulgate, as well as in the English Bible, Esther comes at the end of the historical books: In the two former, Tobit and Judith intervene between Nehemiah and Esther; in the latter, those two books are relegated to the Apocrypha.

V. Apocryphal Additions to Esther.—In the text of Esther, as given by the LXX., we find large interpolations interspersed throughout the book. The chief of them are :—

(1) Mordecai’s lineage, dream, and reward, forming a prelude to the whole book (Esther 11:2- 12:6, English Version).

(2) A copy of the king’s letters to destroy the Jews, inserted in Esther 3 (Esther 13:1-7, English Version).

(3) Prayers of Mordecai and Esther, in Esther 4 (Esther 13:8- 14:19, English Version).

(4) Amplification of Esther’s visit to the king, in Esther 5 (Esther 15, English Version).

(5) Edict of revocation, in Esther 8 (Esther 16, English Version).

(6) An exposition of Mordecai’s dream; after which comes a statement, evidently intended to imply that the whole book was translated from the Hebrew (Esther 10:4-13, 11:1, English Version).

Thus in the LXX. the book with its additions makes a continuous narrative. But when Jerome set forth his new Latin Version based on the Hebrew, he naturally rejected those portions not found in the Hebrew, placing them at the end of the book, noting the cause of the rejection and the place of the insertion.

In the English Bible, however, while the position of the extracts is as it is in the Latin Vulgate, Jerome’s notes are omitted, making the whole almost unintelligible. It is curious to note that Esther 11:2 of the English Version forms the first verse in the Greek of Esther, and Esther 11:1 the last verse.

(1) Ahasuerus.—Three persons are called by this name in the Old Testament—(1) the Ahasuerus of Daniel 9:1, the father of “Darius the Mede;” if, as is probable, this latter is the same with Astyages, Ahasuerus must be identified with Cyaxares: (2) the Ahasuerus of Ezra 4:6, who is doubtless the same with Cambyses, the son of Cyrus; and (3) the one now before us, whom we have shown in the Introduction to be almost certainly Xerxes. For the history and character of this sovereign reference must be especially made to the contemporaneous writers, Herodotus (vii., viii. 1-90), and Æschylus in his play of The Persians. The spirited lines of Juvenal should also be read (Sat. x. 173-187). We find that Xerxes succeeded his father, Darius Hystaspes, in the year 485 B.C. , five years after the momentous battle of Marathon. Undeterred by his father’s failure, he resolves upon a fresh attack on Greece, and sets out in 481 B.C. from Susa for the West. He winters at Sardis, leaving it in the spring of the following year. The summer sees the fight of the pass of Thermopylæ, which has covered the name of Leonidas and his three hundred, though vanquished and slain, with undying glory; in the autumn Themistocles, by his victory over the Persians at Salamis, changes the history of the world, and the beginning thus made is carried on by the victories at Platæa and Mycale in 479 B.C. From the rout at Salamis, Xerxes had fled to Sardis, which he did not leave till the spring of 478 B.C. All that we know of the further course of the reign of Xerxes is but one unbroken tale of debauchery and bloodshed, which came to an end in 464 B.C, when he was murdered by two of his officers, Mithridates and Artabanus, and Artaxerxes Longimanus, his son (see Ezra 7; Nehemiah 2), reigned in his stead.

This is Ahasuerus.—This is added to make clear which particular sovereign we are here dealing with. We have seen that three of the name are mentioned in the Old Testament.

Ethiopia.—Herodotus tells us that Ethiopia paid tribute to Xerxes (iii. 97).

An hundred and seven and twenty.—In Daniel 6:1. we find that Darius the Mede appointed a hundred and twenty satraps, but probably the similarity in numbers is quite accidental. There seem to have been a gradually increasing number of satrapies in the kingdom of Darius—20, 21, 23, 29 (Herod, iii. 89-94), and the nations in the empire of Xerxes are said to be sixty (ib. vii. 61-95). Thus the provinces here mentioned must include subdivisions of these.

(2) Shushan.—Susa. Mentioned also in Nehemiah 1:1. It was the general abode of the Persian kings. (See Herod. vii. 6.)

(3) In the third year of his reign.—Assuming, as we do, the identity of Ahasuerus and Xerxes, this will be 483 B.C., when Xerxes held a meeting at Susa of his princes to make arrangements for invading Greece. At so important a gathering, the feasting was a very obvious adjunct; and besides the coming campaign, a successful war had just been concluded in Egypt, and rejoicings for the past might have mingled with high hopes for the future, when the whole strength of the empire should be put forth to crush the presumptuous foe who had dared to measure swords with the “king of kings.”

Nobles.—The word in the Hebrew, partemim, occurring here, in Esther 6:9. and Daniel 1:3. is a Persian word, literally meaning “first.” The Greek protos and Latin primus are evidently akin to it.

(4) An hundred and fourscore days.—As a period of mere feasting, this long time (half a year) is simply incredible, but we must understand it as a time during which troops were collected, and the plan of invasion settled.

(5) All the people.—So we find Cyrus feasting “all the Persians” (Herod. i. 126).

(6) Where were white. . . .—This should be [hangings of] “white cotton and blue.” The word translated “cotton” (Heb., carpas) occurs only here. Canon Rawlinson remarks that “white and blue (or violet) were the royal colours of Persia.”

Linen.—White linen; so the word is used, e.g., in 2Chronicles 5:12.

Marble.—White marble, as in the last clause of the verse.

Beds.—That is, the couches. The gold is not to be referred simply to the gold- mbroidered coverings, but to the framework of the couch.

Red and blue . . .—These words are not names of colours, but of actual stones, although the meaning of most is doubtful enough. The first (bahat) is rendered by the LXX. as a stone of emerald colour, and may perhaps be malachite. The second (shesh) is white marble, the third (dar) is pearly, and the last (sokhereth) black.

(7) In vessels of gold.—This shows the immense treasures in the hand of the Persian king, when the whole population of Susa could be thus accommodated.

Royal wine.—Perhaps wine of Helbon (Ezekiel 27:18); the original seems to imply more than merely wine from the royal cellars: as the king was feasting his people, it could hardly have been otherwise.

State.—Literally, hand.

(8) Law.—Rather ordinance or decree, that is, specially put forth for this occasion. What this means is shown by what follows, namely, that the king had issued special orders to allow all to do as they pleased in the matter of drinking, instead of as usual compelling them to drink. This degrading habit is the more noticeable because the Persians were at first a nation of exceptionally temperate habits.

(9) Vashti.—According to Gesenius, the name Vashti means beautiful. Among the Persians it was customary that one wife of the sovereign should be supreme over the rest, and her we sometimes find exercising an authority which contrasts strangely with the degraded position of women generally. Such a one was Atossa, the mother of Xerxes. Vashti, too, before her deposition, was evidently the queen par excel. lence. We find, however, that the name given by the Greek writers to the queen of Xerxes was Amestris, of whose cruelty and dissolute life numerous details are given us by Herodotus and others. There seem good grounds for believing that she was the wife of Xerxes before he became king, which if established would of itself be sufficient to disprove the theory of some who would identify Esther and Amestris. Moreover, Herodotus tells us (7:61. 82) that Amestris was the cousin of Xerxes, the daughter of his father’s brother; and although we cannot view Esther as of a specially high type of womanhood, still it would be most unjust to identify her with one whose character is presented to us in most unlovely guise. Bishop Wordsworth suggests that Amestris was a wife who had great influence with Xerxes between the fall of Vashti and the rise of Esther. If, however, Amestris was really the chief wife before Xerxes came to the throne, this could hardly be, and the time allowed seems much too scanty, seeing that in it falls the invasion of Greece. Or, lastly, we may with Canon Rawlinson say that Vashti is Amestris (the two names being different reproductions of the Persian, or Vashti being a sort of title) and that the deposition was a temporary one.

The women.—There should be no article.

(10) Was merry with wine.—The habit of the Persians to indulge in wine to excess may be inferred from Esther 1:8.

Chamberlains.—Literally, eunuchs. The names of the men, whatever they may be, are apparently not Persian. The enumeration of all the seven names is suggestive of personal knowledge on the part of the writer.

(11) To bring Vashti.—It is evident from the way in which the incident is introduced that had Ahasuerus been sober he would not have asked such a thing. Vashti naturally sends a refusal.

Crown royal.—If this were like that worn by a king, it would be a tall cap decked with gems, and with a linen fillet of blue and white; this last was the diadem. (See Trench, New Testament Synonyms, § 23.)

(13) Which knew the times.—That is, who were skilled in precedents, and could advise accordingly.

For so. . . .—Translate, for so was the king’s business laid, before . . .

(14) Marsena.—It has been suggested that we may possibly recognise here Mardonius, the commander at Marathon; and in Admatha, Artabanus, the uncle of Xerxes.

The seven princes.—There were seven leading families in Persia, the heads of which were the king’s chief advisers, the “seven counsellors” of Ezra 7:14. Herodotus (iii. 84) speaks of the seven nobles who rose against the Pseudo-Smerdis as chief in the nation.

(16) Answered before the king.—Memuean, like a true courtier, gives palatable advice to his master, by counsel which is the true echo of the king’s angry question.

Done wrong.—Literally, dealt unfairly.

(18) Translate, and this day shall the princesses of Persia and Media, which heard the affair of the queen, say . . .

Contempt and wrath.—Presumably, contemptuous defiance on the part of the wives, and anger on the part of the husbands.

(19) That it be not altered.—Literally, that it pass not away. The order having been committed to writing was, in theory at any rate, immutable. The best illustration is the well-known case of Daniel; see also below (Esther 8:8). Probably a strong-willed monarch would interpret this inviolability rather freely.

(22) He sent letters.—The Persian Empire was the first to possess a postal system (see esp. Herod. vii. 98). The Greek word for “compel,” in Matthew 5:41; Matthew 27:32, is simply a corruption of the Persian word for the impressment of men and horses for the royal service.

That every man should . . .—The following words are, literally, be ruling in his own house, and speaking according to the language of his own people. The former clause may probably be taken as a proof of the existence of an undue amount of female influence generally in Persia; the second clause is more doubtful. The English Version does distinct violence to the Hebrew, perhaps because the literal rendering yielded a somewhat peculiar sense. Taking the words exactly as they stand, they can only mean that in a house where two or more languages are used, from the presence of foreign wives, the husband is to take care that his own language is not supplanted by any of theirs. This is intelligible enough, but is perhaps rather irrelevant to what goes before.