The Pulpit Commentary — Esther — Section 132

Vers. 1-7.-.A. crisis, a plea, and a del,iverance. We have here-1. .A. most serious crisis. "So the king and Haman came to banquet with Esther the queen " ( ver. 1). The culminating point in this great issue is now reached. The lives of the chosen people of God throughout all Persia, in all her provinces, hang on this interview be- tween an arLitrary sovereign, his wife, and his minister. Except the wife shall pre- vail over the crafty and all-powerful statesman, the race must die by one cruel blow. 2. A powerful plea. At the king's invitation (ver. 2) the queen makes her appeal in simple but forcible language. She appealed (1) to his affection for herself: 11 Let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request" (ver. 3) ; (2) to his pity for a suifering people: " We are sold," and sold not even to bitter bondage, but "to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish" (ver. 4); (3) to his sense of what -v;-a.s politic : the loss of so many subjects woald be greatly to "the king's damage" (ver. 4). 3. A great deliverance (vers. 5, 6). Having readily consented to the slaughter of thousands of his subjects, the king with equal readiness consents to their lives being spared. He appears to have been shocked at the idea of what was contemplated ; but he had not reckoned on the sanguinary decree including his own wife in its evil range. We leam- L THE ID1ITERIOUSNESS OF Gon's GOVERNMENT. Why the Divine Ruler should allow his Church to come into such terrible danger, barely escaping from utter de- struction ; why he should sometimes permit such fearful atrocities to be inflicted, not interposing, as here, to save them, but allowing the beheadings, burnings, burials alive, imprisonments, &c. on which so many sk:ie11 have looked down in different cen- turies ; why he should allow a Haman of ancient times, or an .Alva or Claverhouse of more recent times, to wreak such cruelties on the people of God, and why he should choose such instruments to avert and overthrow as one woman's beauty-this we c-annot telL God does and suffers many things which we do not understand. He declines to interpose when we should have confidently expected his aid. The truth is that he is too high and too great, and we are too low and too small to understand him. " His way is in the sea, his path in the great waters, and his footsteps are not known." "His ways are past finding out." We are but very little children before him, and must wait awhile ; we shall understand hereafter what we know not now (John xiii. 7). II. THE GOOD WOBX THAT ONE WEAK VOICE HAY no. Little did Esther think, when she was first accepted as queen, that she would do a good work for her race which should never be forgotten. But the hour came for her to make a great attempt; she made it, and succeeded. Her success was due to her courage and· her charms and her address. But thue were the Q'Uicome of a life of virtue and piety. By the exercise ()R, Vil, 1-10.] THE BOOK OF ESTHER. l?,!)