The blessing of the Lord whom he supplicated rested upon the efforts of Ezra to bring back the erring to the paths of righteousness. With repentance and weeping the Jews returned to their God; order was again restored; and the heathen wives were put away.
Let us now retrace a little the course of history, to consider some events of great interest and importance which occurred at the court of Persia, between the periods of the return of the first and second bands of exiles to the land of Judea.
PRINCIPAL CONTEMPORANEOUS EVENTS. 536-457 B.C.
B.C. Hippias banished from Athens 510 Tarquins banished from Rome 509 Xerxes invaded Greece 481
The Jewish Maiden—The Conspiracy Discovered—Haman’s Plot—A Mourning Nation—The Golden Sceptre—The Queen’s Banquet.
Artaxerxes,[2] or, as he is termed in the Scriptures, Ahasuerus, sat on the throne of Persia. Lord of the widest kingdom which then existed upon earth—a kingdom which extended from India to Ethiopia, and comprised a hundred and twenty-seven provinces—the will of the monarch was the law to which many nations were constrained to bow. Ahasuerus possessed neither the wisdom nor the self-command requisite in one to whom power so vast is intrusted. He chose for his chief favourite and minister Haman, an Amalekite, a man of unbounded cruelty and pride, and dismissed his own queen for venturing to disobey a capricious command given to her by her husband, when he was probably under the influence of wine.
In choosing another partner of his state to fill the place of the dethroned Queen Vashti, the despot sought for no higher qualification than that of personal attractions. But the Almighty Disposer of events guided the choice of the monarch.
In the palace of Shushan was a certain Jew, named Mordecai, of the tribe of Benjamin. With a father’s care he had reared Esther, a young orphan maiden, a relative of his own. The Jewess was possessed of exquisite beauty; amongst the fair she was the fairest; Ahasuerus saw her, loved her, and raised the beauteous captive to the rank of the queen of Persia.
Her elevation appears to have had no effect in changing the character of this daughter of Abraham. In the palace of Ahasuerus, surrounded by luxury and pomp, Esther preserved her faith to the God of her fathers, though by the charge of Mordecai she kept her nation and kindred secret from the king. While placed in a position far above that of her early benefactor, the young queen still rendered to Mordecai the dutiful obedience of a daughter. Through her the Jew made known to Ahasuerus a secret plot to assassinate him, which had been made by two of his chamberlains. The conspirators suffered the punishment of death, but he to whose timely warning the king owed the preservation of his life, sat day after day in the gate of the royal palace, unrewarded and neglected.