_When Mordecai perceived all that was done, Mordecai rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes._ MORDECAI’S GRIEF In the case of Mordecai, the first effect of the proclamation was bitter anguish, for his conduct had been the flint out of which the spark leaped to kindle this portentous con... [ Continue Reading ]
_Clothed with sackcloth._ THE TRANSFIGURED SACKCLOTH The sign of affliction was thus excluded from the Persian court that royalty might not be discomposed. This disposition to place an interdict on disagreeable and painful things still survives. Men of all ranks and conditions hide from themselves... [ Continue Reading ]
_And in every province. .. there was great mourning among the Jews._ A SENTENCE OF DEATH If a sentence of death pronounced by an earthly sovereign produced such grief, such anxiety, such cries of deliverance, what impression ought to be made on the minds of sinners by that sentence which is passed... [ Continue Reading ]
_Then was the queen exceedingly grieved; and she sent raiment._ SORROW NET SUPERFICIALLY REMOVED Esther, in her elevation, and in her separation from her friends, was far from forgetting them. She was deeply afflicted when she heard of the mourning habit and sore affliction of Mordecai. She was ve... [ Continue Reading ]
_Then called Esther for Hatach, one Of the king’s chamberlains._ HATACH_, _THE CHAMBERLAIN Gives us a good subject for reflection; and not a hackneyed one. Pause we a moment then on this undistinguished name. Let the greater actors stand aside--king and queen--Haman and Mordecai--mourning Jews and... [ Continue Reading ]
_And to charge her that she should go in unto the king, to make supplication unto him._ A RESOLUTE WILL In the meantime, this lesson may be drawn from his conduct--that a resolute will, when it is exerted for the accomplishment of any purpose, is usually successful in the end. The triumphs of the R... [ Continue Reading ]
_But I have not been called to come in unto the king these thirty days._ PROVIDENCE TRIES FAITH Thus it is that Providence sometimes frowns on the cause of His Church and people, by not only exposing them to imminent danger, but by shutting up all the ordinary avenues of escape, so that there appe... [ Continue Reading ]
_Then Mordecai commanded to answer Esther._ REPEATED ADMONITION NECESSARY It is necessary for those who desire to be useful to the souls of their neighbours not only to tell them, as occasion requires, what it is their duty to do, but to repeat their admonitions, to enforce them by reasons, and to... [ Continue Reading ]
_Then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place._ FEMALE DELIVERERS IN ISRAEL In former ages women, as Deborah and Jael, had been made the instruments of saving Israel. Esther might have a place among those whose memories, after so many generations, were still fr... [ Continue Reading ]
_Go, gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan._ THE CRISIS IN THE LIFE OF ESTHER The spectacle presented reminds us-- I. That in neither place nor fortune has any one security against trial and danger. The palace may be a prison to its inmate, the hut cannot exclude the approaches... [ Continue Reading ]