Commentaria in Esther
Chapter the Sixteenth. Synopsis of the chapter
Copy of the letter of king Artaxerxes, which he sent for the Jews to all the provinces of his kingdom: which also is not in the Hebrew volume.
1. The great king Artaxerxes, from India to Ethiopia, to the governors and princes of a hundred and twenty-seven provinces, who obey our command, saith (Above xi, 2). 2. Many have abused to pride the goodness of princes, and the honour that hath been bestowed upon them; 3. and not only endeavour to oppress the king’s subjects, but not bearing the glory that is given them, take in hand to practise against them that gave it; 4. and are not content not to return thanks for benefits received, and to violate in themselves the laws of humanity, but think they can escape the sentence of God who seeth all things. 5. And they have proceeded to such a height of madness, as to endeavour to undermine by lying devices them that carefully keep the offices committed to them, and do all things in such manner as to be worthy of the praise of all men; 6. while with crafty deceit they impose upon the simple ears of princes, who judge of others by their own nature. 7. Which is proved both by ancient histories, and by those things which are done daily, how the good designs of kings are depraved by the evil suggestions of some. 8. Wherefore we must provide for the peace of all the provinces. 9. Neither must you think that if we command different things, it cometh from the lightness of our mind, but that we pass sentence according to the quality and necessity of the times, as the profit of the commonwealth requireth. 10. And that you may understand more clearly what we say (Above iii, 1): Aman the son of Amadathi, a Macedonian in mind and nation, and alien from the Persian blood, and who with his cruelty staining our goodness was received as a stranger by us; 11. and he found so much kindness in us that he was called our father, and was adored by all as the next after the king; 12. who was lifted up to such a swelling of arrogance that he endeavoured to take from us the kingdom and our life. 13. For Mardochai, by whose faithfulness and good services we live, and Esther the partner of our kingdom, with all their nation, he hath sought to destroy by certain new and unheard of inventions; 14. thinking, when they were put to death, to lie in wait for us when we were left alone, and to transfer the kingdom of the Persians to the Macedonians. 15. But we find that the Jews, who were appointed to death by the most wicked of men, are in no fault at all, but on the contrary use most just laws, 16. and are the children of the most high and greatest and ever living God, by whose benefit the kingdom was given both to our fathers and to us, and is preserved to this day. 17. Wherefore know ye that the letters which he sent in our name are void. 18. For which wickedness both he himself that contrived it, and all his kindred, hang on gibbets before the gates of this city, that is, of Susan: God, not we, rendering to him what he deserved. 19. But let this edict, which we now send, be published in all cities, that the Jews may freely use their own laws. 20. And you shall assist them, that they may kill those who had prepared themselves to kill them, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is called Adar, 21. for Almighty God hath turned this day of sorrow and mourning into joy to them. 22. Wherefore you shall also reckon this day among other festival days, and celebrate it with all joy, that it may be known also hereafter, 23. that all who faithfully obey the Persians receive a worthy reward for their fidelity; but they that plot against their kingdom are destroyed for their wickedness. 24. And every province and city that will not be partaker of this solemnity shall perish by the sword and by fire, and shall be made desolate, so as to be impassable, not only to men, but also to beasts, for ever, for an example of contempt and disobedience.
6. While with crafty deceit they impose upon the simple ears of princes, who judge of others by their own nature.—Hence let princes and anyone else learn not easily to believe accusations and accusers, nor to trust too much one counsellor; but to hear several, if they wish to know the truth; for “he that is hasty to give credit is light of heart, and shall be lessened.” 10. Aman a Macedonian by race.—For although he was born in Persia, yet he drew his stock and origin from the Macedonians, and therefore was inclined to the Macedonians as to his own citizens, and so was alien and hostile to the Persians, and craftily tried to transfer the kingdom from them to his Macedonians, as follows.
So Josue and the Hebrews were deceived by the Gabaonites, because they too easily believed them lying. So Holofernes was slain by Judith, because he rashly trusted her for his life. So Samson was betrayed by his Dalila, because he trusted her with the secret of his strength in his hair. Putiphar rashly believed his wife accusing Joseph of lewdness; and Absalom, Chusai; and Roboam, the young men; and therefore they were deceived and brought to ruin. 14. That, the Jews being killed (and especially Esther and Mardochai my most faithful friends and guardians of my life), he might lie in wait for our solitude,—that he might, bereft of such faithful guards, as one alone and lacking faithful guard, kill me by guile and fraud, and seize my kingdom. That this is so is clear from the fact that this letter was dictated not so much by the king as by Esther and Mardochai, who were upright, truthful and God-fearing, who from the secret letters of Aman, and from the accomplices examined and diligently questioned, discovered and showed Aman’s frauds and conspiracy against the king. Here is true that saying of Ecclesiasticus xi, 36: “Bring a stranger into thy house, and he will overthrow thee with a whirlwind, and will turn thee out of thy own.” See what is said there. Aman affected the kingdom of Ahasuerus, because he had entrusted it all to him. The same others did of old, and in this our age also, who, when they ruled kings and princes, invaded their dominions and kingdoms.
9. Neither must you think that if we command different things (by revoking the decree of Aman about slaying the Jews) it cometh from the lightness of our mind,—so that we lightly violate or abrogate the law of the Persians, which commands that the decrees of Kings be irrevocable; for the former decree was not the king’s, but Aman’s, who extorted it from the king by fraud and lying, and it was therefore surreptitious, unjust and impious, and consequently, the truth now known, to be revoked and corrected by this new edict of the king. And to transfer the kingdom of the Persians to the Macedonians.—Hence Scaliger and Serarius think that the Ahasuerus who married Esther was Artaxerxes Mnemon, not Longimanus, under whom lived Philip the father of Alexander the Great, who began to enlarge and illustrate the Macedonian kingdom, till then small and obscure.
But I say that by Macedonians here are understood all the Greeks, because among them the Macedonians stood out: they are therefore named here before all the other Greeks, because Aman was a Macedonian, who therefore would have preferred that a Macedonian, or some other, rather than an Athenian, a Spartan or another Greek, should reign over the Persians; and that the Greeks were to be feared under Darius son of Hystaspes, and ill-deserving of the Persians, Herodotus teaches, book VII, page 183. And Diodorus Siculus, book XI, writes that Xerxes, in the 75th Olympiad, moved arms against the Greeks, constant and most hostile enemies by then of the Persian name; whence Xerxes led against them eleven hundred thousand Persians, all of which were routed and put to flight by a few Greeks. And he adds that Darius, the father of Xerxes, had prepared great material for the building of the fleet of Xerxes to be sent against the Greeks. Justin also, book II, pages 34 and 39, teaches that Darius son of Hystaspes waged wars against the Athenians, in which war he says that the virtue and glory of the youthful Themistocles already shone forth. Finally, in the fourth year before his death this Darius fought with the Greeks at Marathon, a battle most famous in Greek and Roman histories, as Severus Sulpicius also noted, book II, page 68.
Josippon Gorionides agrees, and adds that those two eunuchs conspiring against Ahasuerus, and therefore denounced by Mardochai and hanged, had designed to carry the head of Ahasuerus or Artaxerxes to the king of the Greeks, to please him: and that these eunuchs were relatives of Aman; for since at that time (long before Philip and Alexander) the empire of the Macedonians was most obscure, Aman the Macedonian wished to make it illustrious by transferring to himself and his Macedonians the most noble empire, nay monarchy, of Darius and the Persians; as Alexander the Great afterwards transferred it.
16. By whose (God’s) benefit the kingdom was given both to our fathers and to us,—by fathers understand the preceding kings, especially Cyrus, to whom God by Isaias, chapter xlv, verse 4, foretold and promised the kingdom, and Cyrus acknowledged it, and therefore sent the Jews free from Babylon, I Esdras i, 4. The same our Darius here acknowledged, as is plain from this
18. And all his kindred hang on gibbets.—Note: “kindred,” that is, relatives; for the sons of Aman were slain and hanged in the ninth month after this edict, namely in the last month Adar, as I said in chapter ix, verse 13; because, as Ammianus says, book XXV, the laws were exceedingly feared among the Persians, “as those by which for the fault of one all his kindred perished.”
22. Among other festival days.—For the Persians had their own feasts, especially those dedicated to Mithra, that is, the Sun, whom they worshipped as god. Such also was the feast on account of the slaughter of the Magi, which this Darius, succeeding the Magi in the kingdom, had ordered to be celebrated perpetually, according to Herodotus, book III. Furthermore it is no wonder that Darius ordered this feast of the victory of the Jews to be celebrated also by the Eastern Persians, both because he himself depended wholly on his Esther and Mardochai, and because he now acknowledged and worshipped the true God of the Hebrews, as is plain from verse 16.