ESTHER
310
ESTPIER
probable than that a writer of any intelligence should bj' mistalce have made a statement of tliis kind ; indeed, a fiction of this sort is exactly what a faliulist would have licen most certain to liave avoided ; for, knowing it not to he in accordance with fact and usage, he must have been sure that its falsehood would be at once de- tected. Secondly, It is said to be incredible that the king, when he repented of having issued such an edict, should, as it could not be recalled, have granted per- mission to the Jews to defend themselves by the slaughter of their enemies, and that they should have been permitted to do this to such an extent as to de- stroy 7r),()00 of liis own subjects. To our habits of thinking this certainly appears strange ; but we must not measure the conduct of a monarch like Xerxes by such a standard : the caprices of Oriental despots are proverbiallj^ startling, their indifference to human life appalling; and Xerxes, as we know from other sources, was apt even to exceed the limits of ordinary Oriental despotism in these respects (comp. Herod, i, 183; vii, 35, 3'J, 238 ; ix, 108^113 ; Justin, ii, 10, 11). Now if it be true, as Diodorus Siculus relates, that Xerxes put the Medians foremost at Thermopvlic on purpose that they might all be killed, because he thought they were not thoroughly reconciled to the loss of their national supremacy, it is surely not incredible that he should have given permission to Haman to destroy a few thousand strange people like the Jews, who were rep- resented to be injurious to his empire, and disobedient to his laws. Nor, again, when we remember what Herodotus relates of Xerxes in respect to promises mads at banquets, can we deem it incredible that he should perform his promise to Esther to reverse the decree in tlio only way that seemed practicable. It is likely, too, tliat the secret friends and adharents of Haman would be the persons to attack the Jews, whicli would be a reason why Ahasuerus would rather rejoice at their destruction. Thirdlj', it is asked iiow can we believe that the king would issue an edict to all his subjects that every man should bear rule in his own house (i, 22) ? We reply that, as the edicts of Oriental despots are not all models of wisdom and dig- nity, here seems to us nothing improbable in the statement that such an edict was, under the circum- stances, issued by Ahasuerus. Fourthly, Is it credi- ble, it is asked, that Esther should have been so long a time in the palace of the king without her descent being known to the king or to Haman, as appears to have been the case ? AYe reply that it does not ap- pear certain that her Jewish descent was unknown ; and, if it were, we are too little acquainted with the usages of the Persian royal harem to be able to judge whether this was an unlikely thing to occur or not: we may suggest, however, that the writer of the his- tory was somewhat more likely to know the truth on such points than Gorman professors in the 19th century.
The casual way in which the author of 2 Mace, xv, 33 alludes to the feast of Purim, under the name of " MarJochajus's daj'," as kept by the Jews in the time of Nicanor, is another strong testimony in its favor, and tends to justify the strong expression of Dr. Lee (quoted in Wiiiston's Josephus, xi, ch. vi), that "the truth of tins history is demonstrated b}' tiie feast of Purim, kept up from tliat time to tliis very day."
The style of writing is remarkably chaste and sim- ple, and the narrative of the struggle in Esther's mind between fear and the desire to save her people, and of the final resolve made in the strength of that help which was to be souglit in prayer and fasting, is verj' touching and beautiful, and without any exaggera- tion. Even Dj Wettc observes tliat tlie book is sim- ple in its style, free from declamation, and thus ad- vantageously distinguished from the similar stories in the Apocrypha (^Introduction, Parker's translation, Bos- ton, 1843).
IV. Avthorship and Date. — Augustine {De Civitafe Dei) ascribes the book to Ezra, Eusebius (^Chronic.
xlvii, d. 4), who observes that the facts of the history are posterior to tlie time of Ezra, ascribes it to some later but unknown autlior. Clemens Aloxandrinus (Stj-omntu, lib. i, p. 329) assigns it and tlie book of Maccabees to Mordecai. Tlie pseudo-Philo {Chrono- ffrajikia) and Rabbi Azarias maintain that it was writ- ten at the desire of Mordecai by Jehoiakim, son of Joshua, who was high-priest in the 12th year of the reign of Artaxcrxes. The subscription to tlie Alexan- drian version states that the epistle regarding the feast of Purim was brought by Dositheus into Egypt, under Ptolemj- and Cleopatra (B.C. cir. IGO) ; but it is well ' known tliat these subscriptions are of little authority. ; The autliors of the Talmud say that it was written by . tlie members of the Great Synagogue (q. v.), who also i wrote Ezekiel and the twelve Prophets. But the I whole account of the Great Synagogue, said to have been instituted by Ezra, and concluded by Simon the ' Just, wlio is said to have closed the canon, and whose death took place B.C. 292, is by some looked upon as a rabbinical romance. Of all tliese suppositions, the ascription to IMordecai seems the most probable. The ! minute details given of tlie great banquet, of the names ! of the chamberlains and eunuchs, and Hainan's wife I and sons, and of the customs and regulations of the palace, betoken that the author lived at Shushan, and probably at court, while his no less intimate acquaint- ance with the private affairs both of Esther and Mor- decai well suits the hypothesis of the latter being him- self the writer. It is also in itself probable that as Daniel, Ezra, and Neliemiali, who heldliigh offices un- der the Persian kings, wrote an account of the affiiirs of the nation, in which they took a leading part, so Mordecai should have recorded the transactions of the book of Esther likewise. The termination of the book with the mention of Mordecai's elevation and govern- ment agrees also witli this view, which has the fur- ther sanction of many great names, as Aben Ezra, and most of the Jews, Yatablus, Carpzov, and many others. Those who ascribe it to Ezra, or the men of the Great Synagogue, may have merely meant that Ezra edited and added it to the canon of Scripture, wliich he jn'ob- ably did, bringing it, and perhaps the book of Daniel, with him from Babjdon to Jerusalem. See Mordecai. That the book was written after the downfall of the Persian monarchy in the time of the Maccabees is the conclusion of Bertholdt, De Wette, and Bleek. The reasons, however, which the}' assign for this are very feeble, and have been thoroughly nullified by Haver- nick. The latter supposes it to have been written at a much earlier date, and the reasons he urges for this are — 1. The statement in ix, 32, compared with x, 2, where the autlior places what he himself has written on a par in point of authenticity with what is recorded in the Persian annals, as if contemporary productions; 2. The vividness, accurac}', and minuteness of his de- tails respecting the Persian court; 3. The language of the book, as presenting, with some Pcrsianisms, and some words of Chaldaic aflinity, which do not occur in older Hebrew (such as ""-'iN'a, IT^'S, "ri'I^rS, I2"'3l"d), those idioms wliich characterize the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles; and, 4. The fact that the closing of the canon cannot be placed later than the reign of Artaxerxes, so that an earlier date must be assigned to this book, wdiich is included in it. See Ezra. Whether the book was written in Palestine or in Persia is uncertain, but probability inclines to the latter supposition. — Kitto, s. v. ; Smith, s. v.