Volume II
The Book of Esther
With John Brown’s marginal references, notes and reflections · Vol. II, p. 924
In the two preceding books we have seen God's marvellous preservation of those Jews who returned to their own country. In this we have an account of his marvellous preservation of those who continued in the eastern parts of the Persian empire. Particularly, (1) How God brought Esther to be queen, and Mordecai to be great at the Persian court, to prepare them to be instruments of the intended deliverance, ch. i. ii. vi. (2) Upon what provocation, and by what arts, Haman obtained an irrevocable order from the Persian king for the destruction of all the Jews, iii. (3) The great distress into which the publishing of this order cast the Jews, particularly Esther and Mordecai, iv. (4) The defeating of Haman's particular plot against Mordecai's life, v. vi. vii. (5) The defeating of his general plot against the Jewish nation, viii. ix. (6) The joyful commemoration and happy issue of the deliverance, ix. x. [The authorship of this book is not stated. That it was written by an eye-witness of the events which it records is evident. There is a vividness of description, a minuteness of detail, and an acquaintance with the internal arrangements of the royal palace, which prove that the writer must have lived in the court of the Persian monarch. The only man mentioned in the book itself who could have written it is Mordecai; and it is highly probable he was the author. Independent of its sacred character as a part of the canon of Scripture, Esther is highly valuable as affording a vivid picture of the plots and intrigues, the public policy and domestic economy, of the Persian court. It is singular that in the Septuagint version, and others made from it, this book appears in a different form. It has various interpolations, prefixed, interspersed, and appended; but all so woven in as to form a complete and consistent narrative. The additions to the canonical book must have been made at a comparatively early period. P.]