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his relationship to her, and as studiously suppressed his plea of merit for the momentous service he had performed, and went on, as before, executing unobtrusively his subordinate office of “ sitting at the King's gate.” .

It was here that the offence was taken in revenge of which the destruction referred to in the text was plotted and contrived. For, it having pleased Ahasuerus to “ promote Haman,” and not only to “set his seat above all the princes that were with him," but to command, moreover, that “ all the King's servants that were in the King's gate should bow before him, and do him reverencea,” Mordecai would do neither the one nor the other; and when questioned as to the grounds of his refusal, replied “ that he was a Jew!," intimating thereby that his religion forbade it; and though, with reference to his own honour, he was, as we have seen, so indifferent, that he may almost be said to have clung to his comparatively humble station (his own concealment of his pretensions, as was subsequently proved, being the only bar to his rivalling even Haman in pre-eminence), yet where the honour and authority of God were concerned, his spirit disdained compromise, and he was resolutely unbending

With respect to Haman, it must now be remarked that, on the first introduction of his name,

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Ibid. iii. 4.

the sacred historian describes him as the Agagitea,” i. e. of the posterity of the nation, the Amalakites, over which that Agag reigned, whom the Prophet Samuel, in fulfilment of the Divine judgment, but partially executed by Saul, “hewed in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal ,” and of which the Scriptural memorial is that, “ not fearing God,” they were implacable in their enmity against his chosen people, whom, without the slightest provocation, they were ever seeking either to injure or destroy.

This, I say, is specially to be noted, for the designation is no common-place appendage to Haman's name, but is designedly affixed as the index to his conduct on the present occasion. It brings his parentage under observation—the whole race of Amalek—and calls to remembrance all their evil will, so despitefully self-engendered, and treasured up with aggravated malignity through so long a lapse of years, from the first going out of Israel from Egypt, when, taking advantage of their being “ faint and weary, they smote the hindmost of them,” whose very feebleness ought to have been their protection; to the day of Jerusalem's extreme distress, when, instead of the commiseration due from neighbours and relations, they cheered her destroyers with the encouraging acclamation, Down with her! down with her, even to the ground a !” and thus it points to the source from whence was derived that rancorous spirit, which so raged in Haman that the mere sight of Mordecai sitting at the King's gate, when the rest of the attendants were doing him obeisance, robbed the royal distinctions lavished upon him of all their pleasurable sensations, and stimulated, to that exorbitance, his craving for revenge, that “he thought it scorn,” as the history states, “ to lay hands on Mordecai alone,” but set his heart upon destroying “ all the Jews that were throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus, even the people of Mordecai.”

a Esther, iii. 1.

b 1 Sam. xv. 33. 'Deut. xxv. 17,18. Judg. vi. 3,5. 2 Chron. xx. 10,11. Ps. Ixxxiii. 7. a Ps. cxxxvii. 7. © Esther iii. 6.

To accomplish this atrocious purpose some address was necessary, in so fabricating a charge against them that the fiat of the Persian Monarch might be obtained for their extermination. It was indeed true that “ their laws were diverse from those of all peopled;" but still they were God's laws; and God had not left Himself without witness to all the world that they were of His appointment, or that “ in keeping of them there was great reward.”

On this diversity, however, Haman founded his accusation. It was a truth which could not be disputed, and was obviously a specious ground on

Esther v. 13. d Ibid. 8.

which to raise the succeeding calumny, that “they kept not the King's laws,” and were not to be suffered but to the great prejudice “ of the King's profit” and the prosperity of the empire”. The ascendency of Haman over the mind of Ahasuerus, gave all the force of truth to his malicious misrepresentations. The Jews were given to him “ to do with them as seemed to himn good;" and “ Letters," dictated by himself, having been despatched “into all the King's provinces, to destroy, to kill, and cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one daythe thirteenth of Adar--and to take the spoil of them for a prey," " the King and Haman sat down to drink b:" the former making sure that the tre. mendous retribution was irrevocably ordained, and that the long-harboured and exasperated enmity of the whole race of Amalek would receive a plenary gratification.

It is at this point of time that Mordecai interposes his admonition in the text. He had sent to Esther“ a copy of the decree,” and had “ charged her to go in unto the King, and inake supplication for her people;" and she had faltered in the promptitude of her obedience to the requisition, alleging the probable impotency of her interfe. rence, and the inevitable penalty of death incurred by intruding uncalled into his presence, unless the disposition of the moment should induce him to hold out the sceptre, and so stay the execution a. Mordecai meets this evasive answer as became the guide of her youth, who had so sedulously indoctrinated her in the covenant of her God. “Think not with thyself,” he says, “ that thou shalt escape in the King's house more than all the Jews; for if thou altogether holdest thy peace, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed ; and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this bo?” The awakening appeal roused from its lethargy her slumbering faith. She took immediately the holy resolution to risk the perilous alternative, casting herself upon the promises of God; and having, in common with her proscribed people, humbled herself before Him, invoking His providential interposal in her behalf, she presented herself within the forbidden boundary. The golden sceptre was stretched out. The tide of royal favour was turned towards her, to the extent of whatever she should desire; and circumstances, in appearance of the most casual occurrence, all conspired marvellously to conduct her intervention to complete success; insomuch, that Haman was hanged upon the gallows he had erected for Mor

a Esther iii. 8.

"Ibid. iii. 13, 15.

' Ibid. iv. 8.

* Esther iv. 11.

" Ibid. 13, 14.

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