Esther 6:1

On that night could not the king sleep,.... The night after he had been at Esther's banquet, which it might be thought would rather have caused sleep; and therefore Jarchi calls it a miracle; and no

On that night could not the king sleep, and he commanded to bring the book of records of the chronicles; and they were read before the king. The king ... commanded to bring the book of records of the Chronicles.

ESTHER CHAPTER 6 Ahasuerus’ s sleep being taken from him, he commands the chronicles to be read, . And reading of Mordecai’ s discovery of the plot against his life, asks what honour had been done to him, ,3. Haman coming to the king to have Mordecai hanged, unawares gives counsel to honour him, . Haman telling his friends what had befallen him, is foretold of his final ruin, ,13. He is called to Esther’ s banquet, . How vain are all the contrivances and endeavours of this foolish, impotent man against the wise and omnipotent God, who hath the hearts and hands of kings and all men perfectly at his dispose, and can by such trivial accidents (as they are accounted) change their minds, and produce such momentous and terrible effects! The king’ s mind being troubled, He knew not how, nor why, he commanded to bring the book of records of the chronicles; he chooseth this for a divertisement, God putting this thought and inclination to him, for otherwise he might have diverted himself, as he used to do at other times, with his wives or concubines, or voices and instruments of music, which was far more agreeable to his temper. And they were read before the king until the morning, when he intended to rise out of his bed.

Esther 6:1 On that night could not the king sleep, and he commanded to bring the book of records of the chronicles; and they were read before the king.Ver. 1. On that night] That very night before Mordecai should have been hanged on the morrow morning, and so early that Esther could not have begged his life, would she never so fain. God will appear for his poor people, εντωκαιρω, in the nick and opportunity of time, 1 Peter 5:6. He will be seen in the mount, he will come as out of an engine. Could not the king sleep] Heb. the king’ s sleep fled away, and, like a shadow, it fled away so much the faster as it was more followed. Sleep is best solicited by neglect, and soonest found when we have forgotten to seek it. They are likeliest for it who, together with their clothes, can put off their cares, and say as Lord Burleigh did when he threw off his gown, Lie there, Lord Treasurer. This great Ahasuerus cannot do at present, for crowns also have their cares, thistles in their arms, and thorns in their sides. Lo, he that commanded one hundred and twenty-seven provinces cannot command an hour’ s sleep: how should he when as sleep is God’ s gift? Psalms 127:2. And it was he that at this time kept him awake for excellent ends, and put small thoughts into his heart for great purpose, like as he did into our Henry VIII, when the bishop of Baion (the French ambassador), coming to consult with him about a marriage between the lady Mary and the duke of Orleans, cast a scruple into his mind which rendered him restless, whether Mary were legitimate, &c. (Life and death of Card. Wolsey, 65). If it were his surfeiting and drunkenness the day before that hindered Ahasuerus from sleeping, habent enim hoc ebrii, ut neque dormiant, neque vigilent (Plin.), They have this from drinking so that they are neither asleep nor awake. God’ s goodness appeareth the more, in turning his sin to the good of the Church. Venenum aliquando pro remedio fuit, saith Seneca, He can make of a poisonous viper a wholesome treacle; and by an almighty alchemy draw good out of evil. And he commanded to bring the book of records] Perhaps some special notes or commentaries, written for the king’ s own use, as M. Aurelius had his ταειςεμαυτον. Julius Caesar had his commentaries written with his own hand, and for the help of his own memory, υπομνηματα. Tamerlane had the like book, wherein he read a great part of the night before the mortal battle between him and Bajazet (Turk. Hist.). Of the chronicles] Perhaps, besides the former book of remembrances, or else the same, Librum Commentariorum, Chronica, as Tremellius rendereth it, the book of commentaries, even the chronicles, but the Vulgate and Tygurine make them different books.

VI.(1) Could not the king sleep.—Literally, the king's sleep fled away. Here, in the most striking way in the whole book, the workings of God’s providence on behalf of His people are shown. “God Himself is here, though His name be absent.” The king’s sleepless night falls after the day when Haman has resolved to ask on the morrow for Mordecai’s execution, a foretaste of the richer vengeance he hopes to wreak on the whole nation of the Jews. It is by a mere chance, one would say, looking at the matter simply in its human aspect, that the king should call for the book of the royal chronicles, and not for music. It was by a mere chance too. it might seem, that the reader should happen to light upon the record of Mordecai’s services; and yet when all these apparent accidents are wrought up into the coincidence they make, how completely is the providence visible, the power that will use men as the instruments of its work, whether they know it, or know it not, whether they be willing or unwilling, whether the glory of God is to be manifested in and by and through them, or manifested on them only. They were read before the king.—Canon Rawlinson remarks that there is reason to think that the Persian kings were in most cases unable to read.

CHAPTER VI That night the king, not being able to sleep, orders the chronicles of the kingdom to be read to him; and finds there the record concerning the discovery of the treason of the two eunuchs, made by Mordecai, 1, 2. He inquires whether Mordecai had been rewarded, and was answered in the negative, 3. At this time Haman arrives, in order to request the king's permission to hang Mordecai; and being suddenly asked what should be done to the man whom the king delighted to honour, supposing that himself must be meant, presented the ceremonial, 4-9. The king orders him to give Mordecai those honours; which he performs, to his extreme mortification, 10, 11. He informs his wife Zeresh of these transactions, who predicts his downfall, 12-13. He is hurried by the eunuchs to the queen's banquet, 14. NOTES ON CHAP. VI Verse 1. On that night could not the king sleep] The Targum says the king had a dream, which was as follows:-"And the king sat one in the similitude of a man who spoke these words to him: Haman desireth to slay thee, and to make himself king in thy stead. Behold, he will come unto thee early in the morning, to ask from thee the man who rescued thee from death, that he may slay him: but say thou unto Haman, What shall be done for the man whose honour the king studieth? And thou wilt find that he will ask nothing less from thee than the royal vestments, the regal crown, and the horse on which the king is wont to ride." The records of the chronicles] It may be well asked, Why should the king, in such a perturbed state of mind, wish such a dry detail, as chronicles afford, to be read to him? But the truth is, as chronicles were composed among the Persians, he could not have brought before him any work more instructive, and more entertaining; because they were all written in verse, and were generally the work of the most eminent poets in the empire. They are written in this way to the present time; and the famous epic poem of the finest Persian poet, Ferdusi, the Homer of India, is nothing else than a collection of chronicles brought down from the creation to the reign of Mohammed Ghezny, in the beginning of the tenth century. After thirty years' labour, he finished this poem, which contained one hundred and twenty thousand lines, and presented it to the Sultan Mahmoud, who had promised to give him a dinar (eight shillings and sixpence) for every line. The poem was finished A.D. 984; and was formed out of compositions of a similar nature made by former poets.

Chap. Esther 6:1-11. Mordecai’s elevation In this section we are shewn the strange concatenation of apparently trivial circumstances which collectively have the effect of bestowing the highest reward and most signal disgrace upon the humble and virtuous Israelite and the highly placed enemy of that people. It seems but a series of chances that the king was sleepless, that he adopted a particular method of alleviating his discomfort, that a certain section of the chronicles of the kingdom was read to him, that Haman was an early arrival at the palace on this occasion, and thus, through his haste to bring about Mordecai’s destruction, was himself of all persons the one chosen to do him honour. Nevertheless it was from the combination of all these occurrences that there arose the most mighty issues, and this fact plainly looms large in the mind of the narrator, though he does not in so many words attribute the ordering of the events to the hand of God. Here then we have the turning point of the narrative. Pride begins to approach its fall, and the humble to be exalted.

, Esther 6:1-14. 1. That night, which succeeded the events of the last chapter, settled with apparently a most ominous cloud upon the future of Mordecai, but it was the harbinger of a most auspicious day for him.