1. One of the principal Israelites who returned from Babylon with Zerubbabel (Ezra ii, 2 ; Neh. vii, 7). B.C. 53(5. He was perliaps identical with the following.
2. Tlic son of Jair, of the tribe of Benjamin, and of the lineage of king Saul; apparently one of the captives transported to Babylon witli Jehoiachin (Esth. ii, 5). B.C. 508. lie was resident at Susa, then the metropolis of the Persian empire, and had under his care his niece Hadassah, otherwise Esther, at the time when the fair- est damsels of the land were gathered together, that from among them a litting successor to queen Vasliii might be selected for king Xerxes. Among them was Esther, and on her the choice fell; while, by what management we know not, her relationsliip to M()rdec.".i, and her .Jewish descent, remained unknown at the pal- ace. B.C. 479. The uncle lost none of his influence over the niece by her elevation, although the seclusion of the royal harem excluded him from direct intercourse with her. lie seems to have held some office about the court, for we find him in daily attendance there: and it appears to have been through this employment that he became ]mvy to a plot of two of the chamber- lains against the life of the king, which through Esther he made known to the monarch. This great service was, however, sulfered to pass without reward at the time. On the rise of llaman to power at court, Mor- decai alone, of all the nobles and officers who crowded the royal gates, refused to manifest the customary signs of homage to the royal favorite. Some think that this refusal arose from religious scruples, as if such pros- tration {TrpoaKvvi]uir) were akin with idolatry (see Theune's two monographs, Sorau, 1747, Brieg, 1750). It would be too much to attribute this to an indepen- dence of spirit which, however usual in ICurope, is un- known in Eastern courts. Ilaman was an Amalekite; and INIordccai brooked not to bow himself down before one of a nation which from the earliest times had been the most decided enemies of the Jewish people. The Orientals are tenacious of the outward marks of respect, ■which they liolil to be due to the position they occupy; and the erect mien of jMordecai among the bending courtiers escaped not the keen eye of llaman. He no- ticed it, and brooded over it from day to day: he knew well the class of feelings in which it originated, and, remembering the eternal enmity vowed by the Israel- ites against his people, and how often their (■on(iucring sword had all but swejit his nation from the face of the earth, he vowed by one great stroke to exterminate
the Hebrew nation, the fate of which he believed to be in his hands. The temptation was great, and to his ill- regulated mind irresbtible. He therefore procured the well-known and bloody decree from the king for the massacre of all the Israelites in the empire in one day. When this decree became known to Mordecai, he not only felt impelled to exert himself to save his countrj-- men, as he was himself the cause of their meditated de- struction, but he found his own safety involved, as well as that of his royal niece. Accordingly he covered himself with sackcloth and ashes, and rent tlie air with his cries. This being made known to Esther through the servants of the harem, who now knew of their rela- tionship, she sent Hatach, one of the royal eunuchs, to demand the cause of his grief: through that faithful servant he made the facts known to her, urged upon her the duty of delivering her people, and encouraged her to risk the consequences of tlie attempt. She was found e(|ual to the occasion. She hazarded her life by enter- ing the royal presence uncalled, and having Ijy discreet management procured a favorable opportunity, accused Haman to the king of plotting to destroy //(-;■ and her people. His doom was sealed on this occasion by the means which in his agitation he took to avert it; and when one of the eunuchs present intimated that this man had prepared a gallows fifty cubits high on which to hang Mordecai, the king at once said, ''Hang him thereon." This was, in fact, a great aggravation of his offence, for the previous night the king, being unable to sleep, had commanded the records of his reign to be read to him ; and the reader had providentially turned to the part recording the conspiracy which had been frustrated through Mordecai. The king asked what had been the reward of this mighty service, and being answered, '• Nothing," he commanded that any one who happened to be in attendance without should be called. Haman was there, having come for the very purpose of asking the king's leave to hang Mordecai upon the gal- lows he had prepared, and was asked what should be done to the man whom the king delighted to honor? Thinking that the king could delight to honor no one but himself, he named the highest and most public hon- ors he could conceive, and received from the monarch the astounding answer, " Make haste, and do even so to Mordecai that sitteth in the king's gate !" Then was Haman constrained, without a word, and with seeming cheerfulness, to repair to the man whom he hated be- yond all the world, to invest him with the royal robes, and to conduct him in magnificent cavalcade through the city, proclaiming, "Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honor." After this we may well believe that the sense of poetical justice de- cided the perhaps till then doubtful course of the king, when he heard of the gallows which Haman had pre- pared for the man by whom his own life had been jire- served (Esth. iii-viii). B.C. 474. See Haman. Mor- decai was invested with power greater than that which Haman had lost, and the first use he made of it was, as far as possible, to neutralize or coiniteract the decree obtained by Haman. It could not be recalled, as the kings of Persia had no power to rescind a decree once ' issued ; but, as the altered wish of the court was known, ] and as the Jews were permitted to stand on tluir de- fence, they were preserved from the intended destruc- tion, although much blood was, on the appointed day, shed even in the royal city. The Feast of Purim was instituted in memory of this deliverance, and is cele- i brated to this day (Esth. ix, x).— Kitto. See PtiUM. i He was probably the author of the book of ICsther, ! which contains the narrative. His name is freely in- ' troduced into the apocryphal additions to that book, to which, however, it is mmccessary to pay attention. See , EsTiiEit, Bf)OK Of. There are some (piestions connect- ' ed with Mordecai that demand furtlier consideration. 1. His dale. Tiiis is ]iointeil out with great particu- larity by the writer himself, not oidy l)y the years of ! the king's reign, but by his own genealogy in Esth. ii,