Esther 7:7-10 And the king arising from the banquet of wine in his wrath went into the palace garden… We all remember the ballad of Southey which tells how Sir Ralph the Rover, who cut away Inch Cape Bell, perished with all his crew upon the Inch Cape Rock; and even secular historians have been constrained to remark on illustrations of the fulfilment of this law of providence. Thus Macaulay reminds us that no man ever made a more unscrupulous use of the legislative power for the destruction of his enemies than Thomas Cromwell, and that it was by the unscrupulous use of the legislative power that he was himself destroyed. And Alison recognises in the death of Murat a memorable instance of the "moral retribution which often attends upon great deeds of iniquity, and by the instrumentality of the very acts that appeared to place them beyond its reach." He underwent, in 1815, the very fate to which, seven years before, he had consigned a hundred Spaniards of Madrid, guilty of no other crime than of defending their country, and this, as the historian adds, "by the application of a law to his own case which he himself had introduced to check the attempts of the Bourbons to regain a throne which he had usurped." Thus, often, in the words of the great dramatist, the engineer is "hoist with his own petard"; and we see that even in this life there is retribution. But it may be said that, though this is observable in great matters and with great people, it is not found in small. And to that I reply that there is nothing small in the providence of God. But others may say that this law is not absolutely universal, and that there have been cases in which it has not been fulfilled. To that I reply that there are such anomalies in God's providence on earth, but the existence of these is only a reason for our believing that the retribution which has not overtaken the sinner here will surely come upon him hereafter; for then God "shall render to every man according to his works." (W. M. Taylor, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And the king arising from the banquet of wine in his wrath went into the palace garden: and Haman stood up to make request for his life to Esther the queen; for he saw that there was evil determined against him by the king. |
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