AN
EXPOSITION,
W I T H P R A C T I C A L O B S E R V A T I O N
S,
OF THE BOOK OF
E S T H E R
How the
providence of God watched over the Jews that had returned out of captivity to
their own land, and what great and kind things were done for them, we read in
the two foregoing books; but there were many who staid behind, having not zeal
enough for God's house, and the holy land and city, to carry them through the
difficulties of a removal thither. These, one would think, should have been
excluded the special protection of Providence, as unworthy the name of Israelites; but our God deals not
with us according to our folly and weakness. We find in this book that even
those Jews who were scattered in the provinces of the heathen were taken care
of, as well as those who were gathered in the land
of Judea, and were wonderfully preserved, when doomed to
destruction and appointed as sheep for the slaughter. Who drew up this story
is uncertain. Mordecai was as able as any man to relate, on his own knowledge,
the several passages of it; quorum pars magna fuit--for he bore a
conspicuous part in it; and that he wrote such an account of them as was
necessary to inform his people of the grounds of their observing the feast of
Purim we are told (ch. ix. 20, Mordecai wrote these things, and
sent them enclosed in letters to all the Jews), and therefore we have reason
to think he was the penman of the whole book. It is the narrative of a plot
laid against the Jews to cut them all off, and which was wonderfully
disappointed by a concurrence of providences. The most compendious exposition
of it will be to read it deliberately all together at one time, for the latter
events expound the former and show what providence intended in them. The name
of God is not found in this book; but the apocryphal addition to it (which is
not in the Hebrew, nor was ever received by the Jews into the can on),
containing six chapters, begins thus, Then Mordecai said, God has done
these things. But, though the name of God be not in it, the finger of God
is, directing many minute events for the bringing about of his people's
deliverance. The particulars are not only surprising and very entertaining,
but edifying and very encouraging to the faith and hope of God's people in the
most difficult and dangerous times. We cannot now expect such miracles to be
wrought for us as were for Israel when they were brought out of Egypt, but we
may expect that in such ways as God here took to defeat Haman's plot he will
still protect his people. We are told, I. How Esther came to be queen and
Mordecai to be great at court, who were to be the instruments of the intended
deliverance, ch. i., ii. II. Upon what provocation, and by what arts,
Haman the Amalekite obtained an order for the destruction of all the Jews, ch.
iii. III. The great distress the Jews, and their patriots especially, were in
thereupon, ch. iv. IV. The defeating of Haman's particular plot against
Mordecai's life, ch. v.-vii. V. The defeating of his general plot
against the Jews, ch. viii. VI. The care that was taken to perpetuate
the remembrance of this, ch. ix., x. The whole story confirms the
Psalmist's observation (Ps. xxxvii. 12, 13), The wicked plotteth against
the just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth. The Lord shall laugh at him;
he sees that his day is coming.
Contents
|
Next
Section
