The Pulpit Commentary — Esther — Section 71

V. IT WAB A nEl!'USAL WIIICII THREW DOWN ITS ROOTS DEEP INTO THE SOIL OF 'l'RUBT AND FAITH. Mordecai descried one possible way out of his own and his people's fearful peril. It WEIS 11 nflrrow, uncertflin, and dimly-lighted trar;k. It was enough. He strove for it. He prayed for it. Faith and hope appropriated it. He will not relax an effort, nor will he permit Esther to be remiss. This was the best thing about Mordecai's refusal, that it was willing to abide by the alternatives, the worst con- ceivable extremities, or God's own deliverance. He had trust, and his trust wa.~ rewarded. The position then shows one man, deserted of earthly help, st,mding immovable in the same place, in the same posture, against a fierce current, midway in which he stood, for conscience' and honour's sake. And the issue shown was this, that to himself and to thousands upon thousands with him were brought salvation and great honour.-B. Ver. 6.-The intewperateness of contl!Tnpt. "And he thought scorn to lay hands on Mordecai alone." The projected deed of Haman, if it had been carried to completion, would not have been entirely without precedent and parallels more or less nearly resembling it. Herodotus, in the first book of his history, tells us of a massacre of the Scythians, actually carried into execution, and which preceded by about a hundred years that now proposed by Haman. When Darius Hystaspis ascended the throne, some forty years before the present date, a cruel slaughter of the Magi was ordered, and that slaughter was for a long period commemorated once a year. Five centuries onward bring us to that most memorable date of all, when, in one of the most heartless of massacres, Herod, king of J udrea, schemed to nip in the tender bud the career of the King of all the world, and to stifle in the thought the work of the Saviour of all men I And one can scarcely fail to associate with the present purpose of Haman the transactions of Black Bar- tholomew day (August 24, J.572), when, through the widespread and fair provinces of France, thousands upon thousands of Protestants were slaughtered I Deterrent though the subject of analysis is, let us consider that which is offered us in this passage. I. IT IS AN UNDISPUTED CASE OF A MAN ANGRY. But there is probably a place for almost every kind, for almost every degree, of anger. " A fool's wrath is presently known," and a good man's wrath should be presently known. Anger and sin often go together, but by no means always ; the criterion this-whether the anger is fed, has the poisonous force of rankling thought, of gloomy brooding in it ; whether the sun is permitted to go down upon it, orit bidden to go down upon the down-going of the sun. If we stop here, our analysis conducts us no way, and is not sufficient to deter- mine anything of value for us. II. IT IS AN UNDISPUTED CASE OF RESENTMENT. But resentment is a natural and valuable principle. Analogies come in and conspire to speak in its defence and praise. Physically it is sometimes equivalent to a vital principle. But the physical value of it is the merest shadow of the amount and value of its spiritual use. With all the fullest force of which it is capable it may advantageously come, and welcome -in order to fling off some kind of assault, some sorts of arrows, some species of temptings. It is the prime glory of resentment in matters spiritual to be as like as possible to the red-hot iron when the drop of water falls upon it. III. IT IS AN UNDISPUTED CASE 01!' REVENGE. This passes us at once over the border line. We are no longer on safe ground, nor even on debateable ground. \Ve are trespassing on the property of One who gives us here no right of ownership, but who is as liberal as he is powerful, as wise as he is wealthy, as considerate as he is just. It is he who, if he ever spoke with an impressive emphasis in his tone, has so uttered this one sentence : " Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord." Punish- ment, indeed, is not revenge ; but how often does the most undisguised revenge dare to take the name and try to wear the look of the most impartial, temperate, judicial ~unishment I Perhaps Haman would scarcely feel it necessary to attempt to put this .ace on it, or to defend himself from an imputation to which he would attach neither guilt nor shflme, provided that danger was not in the way. Yet it is manifest that Haman did put a very false face on what was the simple outcome of his own revenge- ful spirit when he was seeking the requisite powers from King Ahasuerus (eh. iv. 8).  70 THE BOOK OF ESTHER [CH, III.1-8,