Esther 5

Esther 5:1

5:1. On the third day Esther put on royal apparel. On the third day from the commencement of the fast she attired herself in fitting robes to appear before the king. Whoever appears in a monarch’s presence must wear a court dress. Nobody can be presented to Queen Victoria unless she complies with the regulation style of attire. It was needful that Esther wear the prescribed garments of a queen into the king’s presence. Stood in the inner court. The inner court, we learn from chapter 4:11, was the sacred retreat that no one was permitted to approach under penalty of death. It seems to have been a place devoted to audiences of such as the king invited to his presence. An oriental monarch secluded himself from the public gaze as something too sacred to be seen by mortal eyes, and only admitted his confidential ministers and servants and such as he granted an audience. Here he sat on his throne “over against the gate,” where he could see all within the court.

Esther 5:2

2. The king held out to Esther the golden sceptre. His eyes rested upon her soon after she entered the inner court. He was in one of his most gracious moods, and her beauty and perhaps the anxiety depicted in her countenance, moved him. At once he extended the golden sceptre as a signal that she might approach and she drew near and touched the top of the sceptre, probably the custom of suppliants who were graciously invited to a royal audience.

Esther 5:3

3. What wilt thou, queen Esther? What is thy request? Her attitude and expression were those of a suppliant, and the king knew well that she would not have dared, timid and modest as she was, to have taken so dangerous a liberty, except compelled by some urgent necessity. Had his mood been ungracious it would have proved her ruin, but Xerxes never did things by halves, and at once, without learning her request, he promised to grant, “even unto the half of his kingdom.” Any one who thinks such a promise extravagant is cited to a statement of Herodotus that this same king once promised one of his wives, when pleased with her, to grant her any request she made, without any limitation whatever. He kept his promise, too, though it involved him in the most cruel of crimes. One will think, at once, of the promise of Herod to Herodias’ daughter, and the death of John. This verse brings us to the king’s promise. The rest of the history moved easily. Esther requested the favor of the king and Haman at a banquet. There she requested the same favor for the next day and promised them to make known her secret. Then she asked life for herself and people. The king, at once, asked what enemy had endangered her, on which she pointed out the plot of Haman.

The king, off ended at the course of Haman, and at the liberty he took with the queen, ordered him hanged on the gallows he had prepared for Mordecai. The decree of the king could not be reversed, because the “laws of the Medes and Persians were unchangeable,” but the Jews all over the kingdom were notified and directed to stand on their defence if attacked. Mordecai, who had before rendered the king a signal service by the detection of a conspiracy against the king’s life, was advanced to the post of Haman. AND . 1. Lofty positions only increase dangers and responsibilities. “Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.” Those who climb to giddy heights are in most danger of a fall. In a humble, lowly life there is the least anxiety and the most content. 2. God sometimes exalts his creatures that they may discharge some signal service in the day of trial. Moses was providentially prepared to be the leader of his people; Joseph was exalted to save the chosen race; Washington to be the Father of his country; Abraham Lincoln to emancipate the colored race; Esther to save her people in the hour of danger. 3. Esther shows us “what one woman did.” Deborah was judge of Israel; Huldah one of the prophets; the Marys and Salome among the truest, fastest and bravest friends of Jesus. Under Christianity and in our age the opportunities for female usefulness have greatly enlarged. Godly women are foremost in every good work. All have heard of the three Mrs. Judsons, of Miss Dix, Florence Nightingale and Clara Barton. 4. There is often a crisis big with the fate of a people. If the man, or the woman can be found, when the hour is at hand, all is well; if not the moment passes and never returns. Esther had the self-devotion and courage that made her a savior of her race. 5. The wicked plots of conspirators, who seek to compass the destruction of others, often break on their own heads. The adage runs, “Hoist with his own petard.” Many a Haman has prepared a gibbet for a Mordecai, and finally been hung upon it himself. 6. There is a time to fast and pray. Nations are still wont to engage in fasting and prayer when any calamity is impending. It is fitting, when the human arm seems too short to deliver, that a people should humble themselves before God and cry to him for succor. So, too, every individual should, in his emergency, wait humbly before God. 7. Evil is continually destroying itself, as those demons in entering the swine. So Haman hanged himself on his own gallows. So liquor-sellers, in injuring their fellow-men, ruin their own bodies as well as souls, and often find their own sons are their victims. One has well said, “The Good has one enemy, the Evil; but Evil has two enemies, the Good, and itself.”–P.