The objections urged against the canonicity of the book resolve themselves principally into these three—r. That it breathes a spirit of narrow, selfish, national pride and vindictiveness, very much akin to that displayed by the later Jews, but wholly alien from the spirit which pervades the acknow ledged books of the O. T. ; a. That its unthcocratic character is manifested in the total omission in it of the name of God, and of any reference to the divine providence and care of Israel ; and 3. That many parts of it are so incredible as to give it the appearance rather of a fiction or romance than the character of a true history (Bertholdt, De Wette, etc.) The relevancy of these objections must beallowed ; it only remains to inquire how far they admit of being obviated. Now, in regard to the first of these, whilst it must be admitted that the spirit and con duct of the Jews, of whom the author of this book writes, are not those which the religion of the O. T. sanctions, it remains to be asked whether, in what he narrates of them, he has not simply followed the requirements of historical fidelity ; and it remains to be proved, that he has in any way indicated that his own sympathies and convic tions went along with theirs. On both these points, we think, the impartial inquirer will arrive at a conclusion favourable to the author. There can be little doubt, that among the Jews of whom he writes, a very different state of religious and moral feeling prevailed from what belonged to their nation in the better days of the theocracy. The mere fact that they preferred remaining in the land of the heathen to going up with their brethren who availed themselves of the permission of Cyrus to return to Judtea, shews how little of the true spirit of their nation remained with them. In them, therefore, we need not wonder to find a spirit of worldliness and ungodliness predominant—a spirit of self-seeking, pride, and vindictiveness—a spirit much the same as that which we see characterising the later Judaism even in Palestine itself, but of which the beginnings were surely found among the extra-Palestinian Jews at the time to which this history relates. This being the case, the historian could do nothing else than place before us such a picture as that which this book presents ; had he done otherwise he would not have narrated the truth. It does not follow from this, however, that he himself sympathised with those of whom he wrote, in their motives, feelings, and conduct ; or that the spirit dominant in them is the spirit of his writing. If this is alleged let it be proved ; and it must be proved by some evidence more direct and conclusive than is furnished by the mere fact that he has faithfully described these men and women as they were, without comment or stricture. An his torian, as such, is not bound to this ; he fulfils his office when he truly places before us things as they really occurred, and the actors in his story as they really were. It is true, occasions may frequently pre sent themselves in the course of his narrative when he might have indulged in reflections of an ethical or didactic character on what he has narrated ; but to do this may not have been in the plan and con ception of his work, and he may therefore have in tentionally avoided it. Now when the subject is looked at in this way, the question as to the canon icity of the book of Esther, as affected by the cha racter of its contents, resolves itself simply into this : Is it inconceivable or highly improbable that a prophet of Jehovah, or a man imbued with the religious beliefs of the O. T., could have written such a book ? If the answer to this be in the negative, it follows that the book may be canonical notwith standing the spirit which characterises those whose history it sets forth ; if it be in the affirmative, it rests with the affirmant to substantiate his position.
Observations to the same effect may be made on the second objection. If the purpose of the author was to relate faithfully and without comment the ac tions and words of persons who were living without any vital recognition of God, the omission of all re ference to God in the narrative will be sufficientlyac counted for by this circumstance. If it be said, But a pious man would have spontaneously introduced some such reference, even though those of whom he wrote gave him no occasion to do so by their own modes of speech or acting ; it may suffice to reply, that as we are ignorant of the reasons which moved the author to abstain from all remarks of his own on what he narrates, it is not competent for us to conclude from the omission in question that he was not himself a pious man. If again it be said, How can a book which simply narrates the conduct of Jews who had to a great extent for gotten, if they had not renounced the worship of Jehovah, without teaching any moral lessons in connection with this, be supposed to have proceeded from a man under Gods direction in what he wrote ; it may be replied that a book may have a most excellent moral tendency and be full of im portant moral lessons, even though these are not formally announced in it. That it is so with the
book of Esther may be seen from such a work as M'Crie's Lectures on this book, where the great lessons of the book are expounded with the skill of one whose mind had been long and deeply versed in historical research. As the third objection above noticed rests on the alleged unhistorical character of the book ; its force will be best estimated after we have considered the next head.
3. Credibility.—In realtion to this point three opinions have been advanced. 1. That the book is wholly unhistorical, a mere legend or romance ; 2. That it has an historical basis, and contains some true statements, but that with these much of a fabulous kind is intermixed ; 3. That the narrative is throughout true history. Of these opinions the first has not found many supporters ; it is obviously incompatible with the reception of the book into the Jewish canon, for however late be the date as signed to the closing of the canon, it is incredible that what must have been known to be a mere fable, if it is one, could have found a place there ; it is incompatible with the early observance by the Jews of the Feast of Purim, instituted to comme morate the events recorded here (comp. 2 Maccab. xv. 36) ; and it is rendered improbable by the minuteness of some of the details, such as the names of the seven eunuchs (i. 10), the seven offi cers of the king (i. 14), the ten sons of Haman (ix. 7-1o), and the general accurate acquaintance with the manners, habits, and cotemporary history of the Persian court which the author exhibits. (See the ample details on this head collected by Eichhorn and Havernick, Einleit. ii. 1, p. 338 357). The reception of the book into the canon places a serious difficulty also in the way of the second opinion ; for if those who determined this would not have inserted a book wholly fabu lous, they would as little have inserted one in which fable and truth were indiscriminately mixed. It may be proper, however, to notice the parts which are alleged to be fabulous ; for only thus can the objection be satisfactorily refuted. First, then, it is asked, How can it be believed that if the king had issued a decree that all the Jews should be put to death, he would have published this twelve months before it was to take effect (iii. 12, 13) ? But if this seem incredible to us, it must, if untrue, have appeared no less incredible to those for whom the book was written ; and nothing can be more im probable than that a writer of any intelligence should by mistake have made a statement of this kind ; and a fiction of this sort is exactly what a fabulist would have been most certain to have avoided, for knowing it not to be in accordance with fact and usage, he must have been sure that its falsehood would be at once detected. Secondly, It is said to be incredible that the king when he repented of having issued such an edict should, as it could not be recalled, have granted permission to the Jews to defend themselves by the slaughter of their enemies, and that they should have been per mitted to do this to such an extent as to destroy 75,000 of his own subjects. To our habits of thinking this certainly appears strange ; but we must not measure the conduct of a monarch like Xerxes by such a standard ; 'the caprices of Oriental despots are proverbially startling ; their indifference to human life appalling : and Xerxes, as we know from other sources, was apt even to exceed the limits of ordinary Oriental despotism in these re spects (comp. Herod. i. 183 ; vii. 35, 39, 238 ; ix. 108-113 ; Justin, ii. to, I I). Thirdly, it is asked how can we believe that the king would issue an edict to all his subjects that every man should bear rule in his own house (i. 22) ? We reply, that as the edicts of Oriental despots are not all models of wisdom and dignity, there seems to us nothing im probable in the statement that such an edict was, under the circumstances, issued by Ahasuerus. Fourthly, Is it credible, it is asked, that Esther should have been so long time in the palace of the king without her descent being known to the king or to Haman, as appears to have been the case ? We reply that it does not appear certain that her Jewish descent was unknown ; and if it were, we are too little acquainted with the usages of the Per sian royal harem to be able to judge whether this was an unlikely thing to occur or not • we may sug gest, however, that the writer of the history was somewhat more likely to know the truth on such points than German professors in the 19th century.