Commentaria in Esther
Chapter the Sixth. Synopsis of the chapter
Ahasuerus, the memory of the conspiracy discovered against him by Mardochai being renewed, commands that he be honoured with the king’s honours, and that through Aman himself, his sworn enemy.
1. That night the king passed without sleep, and he commanded the histories and chronicles of former times to be brought him. And when they were reading them before him, 2. they came to that place where it was written how Mardochai had given notice of the treason of Bagathan and Thares the eunuchs, who desired to kill king Ahasuerus. 3. And when the king heard this, he said: What honour and reward hath Mardochai received for this faithfulness? His servants and ministers said to him: He hath received no reward at all. 4. And immediately the king said: Who is in the court? Now Aman had come into the inner court of the king’s house, to suggest to the king to order Mardochai to be hanged on the gibbet which was prepared for him. 5. The servants answered: Aman standeth in the court. And the king said: Let him come in. 6. And when he was come in, he said to him: What ought to be done to the man whom the king desireth to honour? And Aman thinking in his heart, and supposing that the king would honour no other but himself, 7. answered: The man whom the king desireth to honour, 8. ought to be clothed with the king’s apparel, and to be set upon the horse that is of the king’s saddle, and to receive the royal crown upon his head, 9. and let the first of the king’s princes and nobles hold his horse, and walking through the street of the city, proclaim before him and say: Thus shall he be honoured whom the king hath a mind to honour. 10. And the king said to him: Make haste, and take the robe and the horse, and do as thou hast spoken to Mardochai the Jew, who sitteth before the doors of the palace. Beware thou fail in nothing of what thou hast spoken. 11. So Aman took the robe and the horse, and arraying Mardochai in the street of the city, and setting him upon the horse, he went before him, and cried: Thus shall he be honoured, whom the king hath a mind to honour. 12. And Mardochai returned to the palace gate; and Aman made haste to go to his house, mourning and with his head covered; 13. and he told Zares his wife, and his friends, all that had befallen him. And the wise men that he had in counsel, and his wife, answered him: If Mardochai, before whom thou hast begun to fall, be of the seed of the Jews, thou shalt not be able to resist him, but thou shalt fall in his sight. 14. As they were yet speaking, the king’s eunuchs came, and forced him to go quickly to the banquet which the queen had prepared.
1. That night the king passed without sleep.—God so ordering and directing it through an Angel, that Ahasuerus might read his annals and thence remember the benefit done him by Mardochai and honour him; and at the same time that by the example of Ahasuerus he might teach morally kings and princes not to snore whole nights in their beloved ease, but to watch over the public and greatest affairs of the Republic, and to entreat God for them. Well known is that saying of Homer:
It is not fitting for a counselling man to sleep the whole night:
“But that,” says Brisson, book I On the Kingdom of the Persians, “was an institution never sufficiently praised among the Persians, that, as Plutarch relates in his book to an unlearned prince, daily one of the chamberlains, appointed for that purpose, entering the king’s chamber in the morning, cried out: Arise, O King, and care for the affairs which Mesoromasdes would have thee care for.” Now “Mesoromasdes,” as Laertius says at the beginning, is the Sun, whom they called Mithres.
Constantine the Great, says Eusebius, book IV of his life, chapter xii, “raising his own mind as by a kind of inspiration and impulse of divine things, often spent whole nights without sleep, and when leisure allowed, wrote orations, and that up to extreme old age.””
Ferrandus the Carthusian, in the book to Reginus, commends this precept to the Prince, Rule v: “To the petitions of priests let free access lie open, let prayer be frequent, let zeal for reading, however occupations flood in on every side, glow with the fire of spiritual desire, tepidity being removed.” I have known an eminent Prelate who gave the day to business and government, the night to prayer and studies.
And he commanded the histories and chronicles to be brought him.—Worthy of a king is this praise, that he review and reread his own acts, and, if anything has been omitted, especially in rewarding the deserving, supply it. So the Emperor Alexander Severus, as Lampridius testifies, that nothing might remain unrewarded, wrote down carefully whatever gifts he had conferred. If anyone had asked nothing or very little of him, he would call him, saying: “How is it that you ask for nothing? do you wish me to become your debtor? ask, lest as a private man you complain of me.” Furthermore that benefits conferred upon the kings of the Persians were recorded and kept in the careful memory of Annals and Diaries, Herodotus testifies, book IV, speaking of Darius (who is our Ahasuerus), reviewing the Coes son of Hystapes. And Thucydides, book I, tells that Xerxes son of Darius said to Pausanias: “Your benefit shall always be inscribed in our house.” For the kings of the Persians, as Xenophon teaches, book VIII of the Cyropaedia, had certain ministers or officials who were called the king’s ears and eyes. Apuleius, in the book On the World, describing the pride of the Persian court from Aristotle: “But among them,” he says, “certain men were called the king’s ears and the Emperor’s eyes; through the kinds of offices he was believed by men to be a God, since he learned all that was done anywhere by the report of informers.”
4. Now Aman had come into the inner court of the king’s house.—In Hebrew and Chaldee it is the outer; for to enter the inner none was allowed unless called by the king. Inner, then, that is, within the palace in the court which with respect to the king’s innermost chamber was outer, but with respect to the outermost was inner. For in the palace there were various courts, some of which were inner or outer to others.
To suggest to the king to order Mardochai to be hanged on the gibbet.—Aman hastened and anticipated the light, that early and first he might go to the king and ask that Mardochai be hanged, before the King was occupied with others, that he might satisfy his supreme desire of avenging contempt of himself by the infamous death of the cross of Mardochai the contemner. For pride, as well as anger and indignation, did not suffer him to rest until he had taken this vengeance. But God, just judge and avenger of pride and injustice, turned all Aman’s vengeance back upon himself, and that by degrees, until he hanged him on that very cross which he had erected for Mardochai. In Aman, therefore, it is clear how true is that saying: “Guilt follows the head.” And:
Seldom does punishment, though lame of foot, desert the wicked who goes before:
for the Most High lays low and strikes with lightning the proud.
7 and 8. The man whom the king desireth to honour ought to be clothed with the king’s apparel, and to be set upon the horse that is of the king’s saddle (on which the king is wont to sit and ride, as the Hebrew and Septuagint have it; for the saddle is, as it were, the seat of one sitting on a horse), and to receive the royal crown upon his head.—The diadem was a band of fine linen with which kings bound the head. The diadem was a purple badge with a white band and set with precious stones, says Curtius, books III and VI. It is likely that with the diadem the royal crown too was placed on the head of Mardochai; for this was the proper badge of a king, which Aman coveted and sought for himself, thinking that these things were being prepared by the king for none other than himself; and that Mardochai wore this at the king’s command is plain from chapter viii, verse 15. Furthermore this crown among the Persians had rays like the mithra, that is, the sun, whom they worshipped as god and king. For the kings among the Persians wished to be honoured with divine honours, as certain mithras and earthly suns. But Aman, ignorant of all this, prepared it against his own mind for his enemy Mardochai, whom he was demanding for the cross; and this tormented him exceedingly, that he himself had dictated the sentence by which the king should confer on Mardochai the highest and royal honour, which he was commanding to be conferred on Mardochai by Aman himself as a sort of dictator. So David, making his son Solomon king and successor, says: “Take with you the servants of your lord, and set Solomon my son upon my mule,” etc. And: “He shall come, and shall sit upon my throne, and he shall reign for me.”
10. Make haste, and take the robe and the horse, and do as thou hast spoken to Mardochai the Jew.—“Robe,” that is, royal garment, as Aman had said in verse 8, which the Septuagint and Chaldee call a robe of fine linen. Hence also Xenophon, book VIII, calls the tunic of king Cyrus purple half-white: “For others,” he says, “it is not lawful to wear the half-white.” Understand that the king sent word to Aman to give Mardochai a golden collar too, and a golden scimitar, and golden bracelets. For it was the custom to adorn with these badges him whom the king wished to honour, as is plain from III Esdras chapter ix, and from Josephus, book XI of the Antiquities, chapter vi.
Who sitteth before the doors.—There Mardochai was then sitting as one mean and abject, but after this honour conferred on him by the king, he was brought into the court of the palace, and made familiar to the king and a palatine, as will be plain from chapter xvi, verse 13.
11. Cried (Aman): Thus shall he be honoured, whom the king hath a mind to honour.—See here the sudden and utmost change of things, whereby Mardochai, destined to death, is raised to royal dignity, and becomes as it were a second king, and that by his enemy Aman; who therefore here had very many and very great pains and anguishes. For first, this honour, which he had hoped for, torn from him tormented him. Second, that it was transferred to his deadly enemy Mardochai. Third, that he himself must confer it on him. Fourth, that he who before was adored by all as a god was now the groom and herald of Mardochai, a vile Jew. Fifth, that all these things fell upon him unexpectedly at once. The Rabbis fable that Aman’s daughter poured a chamber-pot upon her father’s head as he passed, thinking she was pouring it on Mardochai’s head, and that Aman therefore said: “And thou also, my daughter, hast confounded me.”
12. Mourning and with his head covered—from shame, grief and vehement anguish; for he was ashamed to show an uncovered face, who had just acted as groom to Mardochai, whereas before he was worshipped as a god.
13. If Mardochai, before whom thou hast begun to fall, be of the seed of the Jews, thou shalt not be able to resist him, but thou shalt fall in his sight.—His friends said this to Aman, either by some divine instinct also, says Serarius, like the Sibyls and Caiphas, John xi, or by some human wisdom and shrewd conjecture drawn from the fact that they had seen many Jews of a stubborn and hard disposition, who did not rest until they had ruined their enemies, and that they had heard by common report that Pharao, the Chanaanites and other enemies of the Jews had been crushed by them through Moses, Josue, David, etc. Lyranus adds that they said it from Genesis chapter xiii, verse 15 ff. where God promises to Abraham and Jacob the constancy, felicity of their descendants, and victory over their enemies; for Genesis and the Pentateuch had been translated by the Hebrews captive in Persia into the Persian tongue. This is uncertain, yet not improbable.