The Pulpit Commentary — Joshua — Section 46

no Bhechina,h, Of tho 24 orders of priests only four were there to conduct th~ - services. And compa,re the 712 e,nime,ls offered e,t this dedication with the thou- sa,nds sa,crificed by Solomon I H is here, proba,bly, tha,t we may insert the episode contained in the Book of Esther, the most purely historica,l Book in the whole Bible. Of course it may he used to point a moral-whether that "blood is thicker than water," or that "pride goes before a fall : " but the main purpose of the book is simply to give an his- torica,l account of the origin of the feast of Purim. That the author has no reli- gious object in view ma,y be inferred from the fact that God is not even mentioned ; nor is there any allusion to His worship, or the temple, or Jerusalem. The absence of these is a guarantee for the truth of the narrative. Had the whole been a fiction for the glorification of Esther, or Mordecai, or the J ewe, the author would scarcely have omitted to give us some reflections on the providential character of the whole. As it is, the story is left to speak for itself. Only once, and then quite incidentally, the spirit of the author appears; and it is wholly in accordance with the spirit of Scripture generally: " Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" (eh. iv. 14.) Just as the Book of Judges teaches us that God often selects very faulty and imperfect men to be His special instruments, that He can work with e. Samson 011 e. Jephthah no less than with a Moses or a Daniel, so the Book of Esther teaches us that in the ordinary careers of individuals and of nations, in which no miraculous element is present, no supernatural direction visible, it is still God's hand that combines, His providence that guides, the endless com- plexities of hu.ma,n life. We call it chance that the king could not sleep, that he preferred reading to wine or music, that he asked for the chronicles rather than poetry, that the reader came upon the account of Mordecai's se1·vices, that Haman entered the court at that moment, and that the king heard him, &c. But chance is only the no.me under which we hide our ignorance of causes, or our in- difference towa,rds them : and in all these " chances '' Jew and Christian alike will trace the directing hand of God. The senseless caprices and fitful passions of Xerxes may work His will no less surely than the conscious and willing service of Joshua or Samuel. The burning bush and the dry or dripping fleece may bo granted to Moses and to Gideon: but although we have them not, it may still be true of each one of us in the place to whi.ch we have been cnllecl, that we "ha,ve come to it for such e. time e.s this." And if it be so with men's work and duty, so also is it with God's blessing and protectiou. Though thel'0 is no drying up of the Red See. or of J orde.n, no falling clown of the walls of Jericho, yet evil does not therefore prevail. He who by miracles delivered His people from Egyptians and Canaanites can without miracles deliver them from Haman. We return from this episode respecting the Jews of the Dispersion in Persia to those who had returned to Judwe.. Their chilclren hacl not kept up to tho moral level of the devoted band who had left their prosperous settlements to rebuilcl Jerusalem. True, that the old fatal plague of idolatry was utterly eradicated, o.nd a cleep reverence for the law had taken its place ; but the first enthusia,sm of the return had passed away. Zerubbabel's descendants and the house of Da,vitl hntl sunk into obscurity ; the change of 111,ngue.ge from the old Hebrew to the Chaldee causecl the bulk of the people to be strangely ignorant of the Law : many abuses crept in; marriages with the heathen, usury, neglect of the sabba,th, 11,1Hl the like. When Ezra, under the favourable rule of Arte.xerxes Longime.nus, Xerxes' successor on the Persian throne, led e. fresh caravan of returning exiles toJeniso.lem, he foUD,1  INTRODUCTION TO THE HISII'ORICAL BOORS: