The law of national self-preservation.
This passage, with two somewhat similar passages preceding it, may read at first like the narration of sanguinary cruelty, and the indefensible havoc of human life. Our strongest sympathies were but very lately with the Jews, for whom fearful destruction was devised without the slightest shadow of justifiable provocation. We rejoiced with them when the cloud that overhung burst, and they seemed to be delivered from their former terrible outlook. But already we begin perhaps to repent, and to feel that neither our sympathy nor our gratulation were well merited. Though the destruction that threatened the Jews, and with such aggravating circumstances, is averted, it is little (even though it be true that they were not the side originally in fault), if all that is gained is, that the hands that shed blood are changed from the one side to the other. If no slaughter is spared, if for pity's sake human life be not saved, if those who were the unjustly doomed become in the hour of their own mercy the first to doom others, even though they may do so with tenfold provocation and with some rough sort of justice, we may be inclined to feel for a moment that there was after all not so very much to choose between the two. A little closer study of the context, however, will suffice to show that such is not a fair description of the case. The subject suggests rather the statement of the law of self-preservation, not of the individual, but of the nation. Again, therefore, we have a .question of great interest offering itself on the scale of national magnitude. This circumstance will facilitate the consideration of it under conditions in some respects more favourable. When treated as a question affecting the individual, it has often been entangled by casuistry; but when considered in the unusual proportions here presenting themselves, its broader, bolder outlines will perhaps come out to view more plainly. The right of taking life for the sake of self-preservation, or in self-defence, may be sufficiently sketched out of the material of the present narrative. If that right is to be fairly allowed for, and at the same time limited as exactly as may be, it may be said to postulate the following conditions:—
I. THAT THE OCCASION BE ONE OF UNDOUBTED NECESSITY. In the present instance the whole number of the Jews scattered throughout the 127 provinces now subject to Ahasuerus had been threatened with extermination. There could be no doubt of their imminent danger, and of their helplessness. When Esther (Esther 8:5) supplicated the king "to reverse the letters devised by Haman … which he wrote to destroy the Jews in all the king's provinces," the king met the difficulty of his former irreversible decree and irreversible letters by giving authority to the threatened Jews "to gather themselves together, and to stand for their life, to destroy … all the power of the people and province that would assault them" (Esther 8:11). He cannot reverse his own former decree literally, but by a fiction he does so very really, very effectually. Esther and Mordecai would at that time have been gladly content to have simply removed from their own race the decree that doomed them, but from the time that this way of putting the matter was revealed by the king, and the whole responsibility of saving themselves was thrown so far on their own efforts, the occasion became one of undoubted necessity. It was not war, it was not murder, it was not gratuitous massacre—it was a case of self-defence.
II. THAT THERE BE THE LEAST SACRIFICE OF LIFE THAT WOULD ATTAIN THE NEEDFUL END. It is remarkable that the exact number should be so carefully given of the two slaughters in Shushan (verses 6, 15), and of the aggregate of that (verse 16) which took effect through the "king's provinces." That Esther asked for another day's opportunity of taking the lives of the enemies of her people in Shushan (verses 13-15) may safely be understood to be owing to special necessities not given in detail. It need not for one moment indicate any wish that one life more should be sacrificed than should be necessary for the safety of the Jews. Now when the sum-total of the slain are added, amounting to 75,800, first, the number, large as it seems, probably does not reach the number of the Jews who were to have been exterminated; secondly, it is certain there was no comparison between the numbers relatively—for in the case of the Jews the slaughter was to have been of all, while 75,800 were but a small proportion of the entire population not Jews; and thirdly, there not only is no evidence of there having been any indiscriminate slaughter on the part of the Jews, but presumably none were slain except such as rose up to slay. This self-defence, therefore, on the part of the Jews probably left more living men than would have been left under the circumstances if the Jews had suffered their own lives to be unresistingly taken.
III. THAT THE LEAST POSSIBLE GAIN OUTSIDE OF THE ONE GAIN OF LIFE, THE SUPREME OBJECT SOUGHT, BE TAKEN BY THE ACT OF SELF-DEFENCE. In the decree granted by King Ahasuerus special provision was spontaneously made that the Jews should appropriate the spoil on their successful resistance of the enemy. Nevertheless, when the time came they refused to do so. And evidently much significance attached to this conduct. It is repeated as many as three times in this chapter. On every occasion on which a victory on their part is announced, this is added-that instead of laying hands on the prey, they emphatically refrained from doing so. This differences self-defence, and the taking of life in self-defence, very greatly from other occasions in which life is taken.
IV. THAT REVENGE BE THE LEAST POSSIBLE ELEMENT IN IT. In cases of sudden need of self-defence there will be no room for the feeling of revenge. Self-defence, however, will by no means be requisite only in such cases. Where there is long delay it is impossible to predicate that none of the spirit of revenge may enter into the hearts of some out of the many; but there is no need to suppose that now there was any in the hearts of the principals. Esther and Mordecai desired one thing—the safety of their people. They wished for "rest from their enemies." They probably felt that they were the ministers of righteous retribution. They desired that Haman's ten sons "hanged on the gallows" should still drive home on an impressed populace the sense and conviction of what a force righteous retribution was, and how much men ought "to stand in awe" because of it; but there is no proof whatever that in all the relief to the bitterness of their soul revenge played any part. The lessons of this portion of the narrative are not needed for the pulpit on every Lord's day certainly, but it may be they are provided here, in the universality of the use of the Divine book, for some special and solemn crises.—B.
The elements of perfect joy.
"A good day, and of sending portions one to another:.; days of feasting and joy, and of sending portions one to another, and gifts to the poor." Twice then, among the other particulars of the people's glad celebration of their deliverance from a savage massacre, is this detail included, that they sent "portions one to another;" and once it is added that they sent "gifts to the poor." This was no ancient prescription of the law, so far as literal command is concerned. But the spirit of it is no doubt to be detected even there, especially in those passages which urge the principle of taking care that days of general joy should be felt in their warming influence by "the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow." In the same spirit we read in Nehemiah (Nehemiah 8:10), however, what comes verbally much nearer our present passage. A day of deep feeling and special cause of joy was to be observed as a day of feasting, and of sending "portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared." There can be no question that we have here a portion of the genuine history of the human heart. We seem to hear some of the better and simpler utterances of human nature. The joy of the saved people of God is before us. And whatever other marks it may have, it certainly has those which make it a type of Christian joy on earth. In this light principally we may now regard it. We notice here—
I. A GENERAL AND SIMULTANEOUS JOY. It was not in every respect equal. But in one respect it was equal, in that wherever it spread it was the joy of life, of life rescued from the brink of destruction. Joy need not be equal all round a family; nor all round the world's family; for there are in hearts exceedingly various degrees of susceptibility, and these by themselves are sure to govern largely the exact amount of what can be called happiness or joy. All that is necessary to the one largest, purest, most loving heart in the whole circle is, that all others be blessed and happy at the same time, and according to the full measure of their capacity. But a joy that is not general, that is exposed to overhearing the sounds of complaining, or the sighs of those who mourn alone, or the echoes of the outcry of pain, is deeply felt to be imperfect.
II. A JOY FULL OF MUTUAL KINDNESS. Quite independently of the differences in human life that show one man rich and possessing all things, and another poor and needy, there are differences within a far less range of compass, and yet innumerable. These do not show the extremes of condition; and by Divine wisdom they do make the room for all the play of sympathy, for all the works of mutual kindness. These save hearts from stagnation, and make the healthful ripples and movement after movement of life, stirring the affections within. Were all this at an end, the dead level of human life and feeling would be appalling indeed. The joy that does not find this room for mutual service, for "readiness to good works," for interchange of the offices of affection and friendship, if general, would nevertheless be selfish to the last degree. How happy that short reign of community of goods in the early apostolic history, when all "of them that believed were of one heart and one soul: neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common." And that would be inferior to the conscious pleasure of a constant exchange of the tokens of sympathy and of the deeds of kindness. In the joy that should shut out the prizes of mutual service it would be felt that there was something wanting.
III. A JOY FULL OF CHARITABLE KINDNESS. There can be no doubt that the kindness of charity is in reality an easier exercise and a less rare grace than that of a perfect mutual kindness. Yet we know the special honour put upon poverty both by the life and the lip of Jesus. And we know the abounding promises that his word makes to those who pity and give to the poor. There is indeed a certain subtle danger that may lurk in the perpetual exercise of charitable kindness. The giver can almost always reckon on the exaltation of position which belongs to the patron. He may be injured by what underlies the beautiful and ever-welcome words of the regretful Job: "When the ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me." Nevertheless, men little need at present to be warned of the danger; they seldom come near enough to this temptation. And, meantime, must not the joy that knows not the spirit of charity to the poor fatally want? There must be something different from vacant want indeed, bad as that should be. That joy must feel itself "a guilty thing." But now in this typical joy of God's suddenly-rescued people in the days of Esther all these elements were present. The people had all been in one danger, had all enjoyed one deliverance, and they all experience one general pervading joy. Common suffering while it lasts draws us near to one another by a proverb; it is rather the index of cowardice of heart. But when the return of common mercy finds us drawing near to one another in the works of practical fellowship, and showing compassion to the poor in the works of charity, then a happiness is kindled of the best that earth knows. The companions in danger and in rescue are found still companions in prosperity. In woe and in weal they have learned to be one. The common escape from danger quickens a sincere compassion. And this history cannot be judged to fall short of portraying the one danger of the whole race of mankind, the one rescue open to them, and the one united life of joy, of love, of charity that Christians ought to live here on earth.—B.
The religion of national gratitude.
Mordecai and Esther were not the people to receive great blessings and then at once to forget them. We not unfrequently see those who have had hair-breadth escapes from the worst of calamities recover in a moment their previous light and jaunty spirits. They seem insensible to the risk which had so imperilled them, and certainly are not grateful for the mercy which had rescued them. They do not return either to give thanks to man or glory to God. It is far otherwise now with Mordecai, with Esther, and, at their initiative, with the mass of the people. Wherever Mordecai had sent to his people the messages of relief and the warrants to resist, there he now sends proposals which, if acceded to, will insure the perpetual memory of their deliverance, and will suggest ever new gratefulness for it. Esther joins heart and hand in the same, and the people themselves warmly approve the suggestion. They solemnly and enthusiastically adopt the proposal. They "undertook to do as they had begun, and as Mordecai had written to them." The method of observing an anniversary to all generations is accepted as the means by which "the memorial" of their deliverance "shall never perish" from them or "their seed." It is evident that a deep religious interest was thrown into this matter, and the account of it is repeated as many as four times, and with minuteness of detail. The example is good for individuals. The precedent is good for nations. We have here—
I. A LEADING INSTANCE OF NATIONAL GRATITUDE. There is great danger of the fit occasions of national gratitude passing by unimproved. This may often arise simply from the fact that "what is every one's business is no one's." The danger needs to be counteracted, and sometimes it is effectually counteracted. Three conditions present, will exhibit, the fair and happy display of national gratitude.
1. The benefit must be in its character such as reaches the heart. Whether cheap bread, cheap health, or cheap Bible; whether free laws, free knowledge, or free conscience, it must be what is adapted to all, and can be appreciated by all. The blessing called life had perhaps never been considered in this light by the Jews till they were so near to losing it. But it was what every one of them, young and old, and of every class, appreciated.
2. The benefit must be such as has reached, either directly or indirectly, every class of the people. In highly-developed communities it should form part of the self-imposed work of all kinds of public and religious teachers to show the value of benefits which may be only indirect, and how they claim gratitude. In the present instance, the benefit for which such gladness and joy had sprung up had penetrated not only to every class, but to every individual.
3. The call to celebrate the benefit must be made so as to win the hearty approval and co-operation of the people. The moral influence of Mordecai and Esther was evidently very great. Their own example, their own deep interest in the course suggested, was contagious. The urgency with which they wrote helped to throw conviction of duty and enthusiasm toward its performance into the hearts of all the people. God never loves a cheerful giver more than when the cheerful giving is in very simple matters—that of thanks, or praise, or grateful adoration presented to himself.
II. A SOLEMN RESOLUTION FOR THE PERPETUATION OF NATIONAL GRATITUDE. Much kindly feeling passes away for want of embodiment. It dies down within, and there comes "no second spring" for it. Certainly gratitude is liable soon to die away. The most solemn claim of affection that the world knows is couched in the language of the claim of gratitude: "Do this in remembrance of me." In this perpetuation of national thanksgiving we may notice—
1. The wise method by which it was obtained.
2. The good ends which it would serve. Love and thankfulness, and praise and gratitude, are all alike in one respect, that they ask no utilitarian questions. Their motive lies in themselves. And probably it was never more so than in this history. Yet we are permitted to observe the many directions in which they bear good fruit. The perpetuation of national thanksgiving on the right occasion—that is to say, not after every bloody battle, to which the Lord never sent forth his people; and in the right method—i.e. not in such a way as will gratuitously wound the feeling of another nation,—is adapted to produce great and good results.
HOMILIES BY W. DINWIDDLE