Esther 1:10
On the seventh day, when the king's heart was merry with wine, he ordered the seven eunuchs who served him--Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, Abagtha, Zethar, and Carkas--
Sermons
A Drunken DeviceF. Hastings Esther 1:10
Afraid of DrinkEsther 1:10
Drunkenness Does not Destroy ResponsibilityW. F. Adeney, M. A.Esther 1:10
IntoxicationT. McCrie.Esther 1:10
The Battle with DrinkG. W. Blaikie.Esther 1:10
The Drunkard's Excuses and the Drunkard's WoeClapham's Selected SermonsEsther 1:10
The Safety of TemperanceJohn B. Gough.Esther 1:10
Wise AbstinenceSunday School., A. M. Symington, B. AEsther 1:10
The Fruit of ExcessW. Dinwiddle Esther 1:10, 11
A Noble Womanly RefusalP.C. Barker Esther 1:10-12
The Tyrant-SlaveD. Rowlands Esther 1:10-12














Distance frequently gives us exaggerated notions of greatness, while closer intimacy would speedily dispel the illusion. To the best part of the known world the name of Ahasuerus was associated with unrestrained power, but this passage reveals his real position. Extremes meet; an absolute tyrant may be at the same time an absolute slave. This was precisely the case with Ahasuerus. He was -

I. AN ABSOLUTE TYRANT. He occupied a position of unlimited authority, and exercised his authority in an arbitrary manner. Note -

1. That the possession of absolute power is in itself a great wrong. It is a violation of the inalienable rights of communities that any man through the mere accident of birth - or even through his own superior abilities - should become an irresponsible ruler over them; and history shows that this violation has always been fraught with disastrous consequences.

(1) It subordinates the common weal to individual interest. The well-being of society is possible only on the supposition that the good of the greatest number should be of the first importance, and that individuals should be willing to sacrifice everything if necessary for its attainment. Despots, however, proceed on the supposition that everything exists for their private benefit - extensive territories, the wealth of nations, and even the lives of their subjects.

(2) It tends to make the ruler himself capricious. To expect a man to be moderate, reasonable, and just at all times in such a position is to make too great a demand on human nature; the temptations to which he is exposed are more than an ordinary mortal can withstand.

(3) It tends to make the people servile and unprincipled. Where one will is supreme there is nothing certain: law, justice, rectitude become meaningless; duty resolves itself into pleasing the potentate, who holds the power of life and death in his own hands. The natural outcome of this is the spread of meanness, duplicity, dishonesty among all classes, from the highest to the lowest. The apologists of despotism sometimes refer to the position of a father in his family in justification of the institution. But a father is not absolute in the widest sense; and even if he were, the danger inseparable from the possession of so much power is neutralised by the love he bears for his own flesh and blood.

2. The use made of absolute power in the case before us. This is a most ignoble passage in the life of a king of such high pretensions.

(1) He seemed to assume that no consideration was due to anybody but himself. The sole purpose of the prolonged festivities was to gratify his own vanity. And when he thought that the presence of the queen would add to his own pleasure, he never paused to consider whether it might not be painful to the queen herself. Selfishness makes men thoughtless, unjust, and cruel, even to those who have the strongest claims upon their tenderness.

(2) He commanded what was unlawful according to the accepted notions of the time. Eastern women led a secluded life, and were not permitted to expose their countenances to the gaze of strangers. Besides, for a modest woman to display her charms in the presence of drunken revellers was a degradation from which she must have recoiled with unutterable aversion.

(3) He afterwards punished as disobedience what was really obedience to a higher law of duty. The queen was deposed simply for daring to protect her honour. In this respect she takes her place among, a noble band - the glorious army of martyrs, who, rather than violating their consciences at the bidding of bloodthirsty tyrants, submitted to imprisonment, torture: and death. Wrong can never really flourish. It may appear prosperous to superficial observers, but a deeper knowledge of the state of things must reveal the penalty which it entails. This king, amidst the dazzling splendours with which he surrounded himself, might have imposed upon his fellow-men, and made them gaze with longing eyes upon the elevated position which he occupied; but after all there are unmistakable indications here that the absolute tyrant was -

II. AN ABSOLUTE SLAVE. We find that -

1. He was a slave of his appetite. "The king's heart was merry with wine;" he had taken more drink than was good for him, and was beginning to feel the effects of it. A sorry spectacle! He who ought to have set a pattern of dignified demeanour to those beneath him, degrading himself below the level of the brute creation. Millions have done and are doing the same thing. Alexander conquered the world, but a lawless appetite conquered Alexander.

2. He was a slave of his passions. "The king was very wroth, and his anger burned within him." Accustomed as he was to be implicitly obeyed, he could not endure his will to be thwarted. The demon within him was roused, and he was no longer master of himself; he must obey the promptings of unreasoning rage, however much he might regret it in calmer moments. Truly, "he that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city."

3. He was a slave of his pride. He was induced to depose the queen because he imagined that his dignity had been compromised. No doubt he loved her, and it must have cost him a pang to be separated from her, but pride would not allow him to revoke his decree. Like King Herod, who preferred to behead John the Baptist rather than confess that he had made a foolish oath. He may have called it courage to himself, but it was in reality the most contemptible cowardice. - R.

When the heart of the king was merry with wine.
There is a difference between not being intoxicated and being sober. A person may be able to speak and to walk, and yet may be guilty of excess in the use of strong drink. He may not have lost the use of his senses, and yet have lost the sound use of his senses. He may lose his guard, and expose himself defenceless to the attack of temptation. Reason is the glory of a man, and whatever tarnishes or dims the lustre of this crown is criminal. Next to reason, speech is man's glory, and everything which causes it to falter is sinful. Whatever makes a man slow to hear, swift to speak, swift to wrath — whatever makes him rash in counsel, and precipitate in action — whatever makes him say or do what is unbecoming his character, and what he would be ashamed of at another time — cometh of evil, and may be the source of great vexation to himself and injury to others.

(T. McCrie.)

The worst effect of the vice of drunkenness is its degrading influence on the conduct and character of men. It robs its victims of self-respect sad manliness and sends them to wallow in the mire with swinish obscenity. What they would not dream of stooping to in their sober moments they revel in with shameless ostentation when their brains are clouded with intoxicating drink. It is no excuse to plead that a drunkard is a madman unaccountable for his actions; he is accountable for having put himself in hie degraded condition. The man who has been foolish enough to launch his boat on the rapids cannot divert its course when he is startled by the thunder of the falls he is approaching; but he should have thought of that before leaving the safety of the shore.

(W. F. Adeney, M. A.)

Clapham's Selected Sermons.
I. THE DRUNKARD'S EXCUSES.

1. Good-fellowship. But can friendship be founded on vice; especially on a vice which impairs the memory and the sense of obligation, leads to the betrayal of secrets, and stirs up strife end contention?

2. It drowns care. But the drunkard's care must arise either from the ill state of his health, the unfortunate position of his worldly affairs, or the stings of a guilty conscience; and in either case his temporary oblivion is purchased at the cost of an aggravation of the evils which cause him to desire it.

II. THE DRUNKARD'S WOE. This is made up of the miserable effects.

1. Temporal.

(1)Poverty.

(2)Contempt.

(3)Ill-health.

(4)An untimely death.

2. Spiritual.

(1)The understanding is depraved and darkened.

(2)The will is enfeebled and dethroned.

(3)Regard for men, reverence for God, are destroyed.Drunkenness travels with a whole train of other vices, and requires the whole breadth of the broad way to give it room.

(Clapham's Selected Sermons.)

Stonewall Jackson, "Jeb" Stuart, and a large number of the most distinguished of the Confederate officers imitated the example of their chief, and were strict temperance men. Upon one occasion Jackson was suffering so much from fatigue and severe exposure that his surgeon prevailed on him to take a little brandy. He made a very wry face as he swallowed it, and the doctor asked, "Why, general, is not the brandy good? It is some that we have recently captured, and I think it very fine." "Oh, yes!" was the reply, "it is very good brandy. I like liquor — its taste and its effects — and that is just the reason why I never drink it." Upon another occasion, after a long ride in a drenching rain, a brother officer insisted upon Jackson's taking a drink with him; but he firmly replied, "No, sir, I cannot do it. I tell you I am more afraid of King Alcohol than of all the bullets of the enemy."

And drink is such a degrading enemy to the intellectual man: the foe is unworthy of his steel. The battle of drink is not like the old contests of chivalry, when knight assailed knight with unblemished shield, and there was such a grace and elegance about the conflict that even defeat was not dishonourable. It is more like a battle with a chimney-sweep falling foul of you, rolling on you his heavy bulk till he has you sprawling in the mud, and so smearing you that you become an object of loathing — to yourself, if you have any sense of shame, and certainly to all who pass by. Could any humiliation be deeper?

(G. W. Blaikie.)

Suppose there were two lines of railroad; on one of them was an accident regularly once a week, sometimes on one day, and sometimes on another; and on the other there never had been an accident. Suppose your only son wanted to go the journey traversed by the respective lines, and he were to come to you saying, "Which road shall I take, father?" would you dare to tell him to take that upon which the accidents were so frequent, because it was the most fashionable? You would say at once, "Take the safe road, my boy." And that is just what we temperance folks say.

(John B. Gough.)

Sunday School., A. M. Symington, B. A.
There was a half-witted boy in one of the southern counties of Scotland who was known as an "innocent" or "natural." Upon one occasion he was enticed into a public-house where a company of young men were drinking. Some of them offered spirits to this supposed simpleton, whereupon he instantly and absolutely refused them, saying, "If the Lord Almighty has given few wits to Daft Davie, He has at least given him sense enough to keep the little that he has!"

(Sunday School.)All's well that ends well; but wine never ends well.

(A. M. Symington, B. A.)

People
Abagtha, Admatha, Ahasuerus, Bigtha, Biztha, Carcas, Carshena, Harbona, Marsena, Mehuman, Memucan, Meres, Persians, Shethar, Tarshish, Vashti, Zethar
Places
Ethiopia, India, Media, Persia, Susa
Topics
Abagtha, Abag'tha, Ahasuerus, Ahasu-e'rus, Bigtha, Biztha, Bizzetha, Carcas, Carcass, Carkas, Chamberlains, Commanded, Eunuchs, Glad, Harbona, Harbo'na, Heart, King's, Mehuman, Mehu'man, Merry, Ministered, Ministering, Orders, Presence, Servants, Served, Seven, Seventh, Spirits, Unsexed, Waiting, Wine, Xerxes, Zethar
Outline
1. Xerxes makes royal feasts.
10. Vashti, sent for, refuses to come.
13. Xerxes, by the counsel of Memucan, puts away Vashti, and decrees men's sovereignty.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Esther 1:10

     4434   drinking
     4436   drinking, abstention

Esther 1:1-12

     4476   meals

Esther 1:5-10

     4410   banquets

Esther 1:9-12

     5487   queen

Esther 1:9-21

     5745   women

Esther 1:10-11

     5158   head-covering
     5173   outward appearance
     5309   eunuchs
     5386   leisure, nature of

Esther 1:10-12

     4544   wine
     8821   self-indulgence

Library
Whether Boasting is Opposed to the virtue of Truth?
Objection 1: It seems that boasting is not opposed to the virtue of truth. For lying is opposed to truth. But it is possible to boast even without lying, as when a man makes a show of his own excellence. Thus it is written (Esther 1:3,4) that Assuerus "made a great feast . . . that he might show the riches of the glory" and "of his kingdom, and the greatness and boasting of his power." Therefore boasting is not opposed to the virtue of truth. Objection 2: Further, boasting is reckoned by Gregory
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica

In Judaea
If Galilee could boast of the beauty of its scenery and the fruitfulness of its soil; of being the mart of a busy life, and the highway of intercourse with the great world outside Palestine, Judaea would neither covet nor envy such advantages. Hers was quite another and a peculiar claim. Galilee might be the outer court, but Judaea was like the inner sanctuary of Israel. True, its landscapes were comparatively barren, its hills bare and rocky, its wilderness lonely; but around those grey limestone
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life

Esther
The spirit of the book of Esther is anything but attractive. It is never quoted or referred to by Jesus or His apostles, and it is a satisfaction to think that in very early times, and even among Jewish scholars, its right to a place in the canon was hotly contested. Its aggressive fanaticism and fierce hatred of all that lay outside of Judaism were felt by the finer spirits to be false to the more generous instincts that lay at the heart of the Hebrew religion; but by virtue of its very intensity
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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