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Est_2:21 In those days, while Mordecai sat in the king’s gate, two of the king’s chamberlains, Bigthan and Teresh, of those which kept the door, were wroth, and sought to lay hand on the king Ahasuerus.
Ver. 21. In those days] While the king was drowning himself in pleasure, and dreadeth no danger; while he was ravishing and deflouring virgins, and bragging, perhaps, as Proculus, the emperor, did, that when he made war upon the Sarmatians, in fifteen days he got with child a hundred virgins of that country, there taken prisoners; while this voluptuous prince was in the glut of his carnal delights, in the flagrancy of his sinful lusts, his life is sought for, and hell gapes for him: so slippery places are great ones set in; so doth the Lord sauce their greatest prosperity with sudden and unexpected dangers. Thus Attilas, king of Huns, was hanged up in gibbets, as it were, by God’s own hand, in the midst of his nuptials. Thus King Henry of France, upon the marriage of his sister to the king of Spain, was so overjoyed, that he called himself by a new title, Tres heureux Roy, The thrice happy king. But, to confute him, in solemnizing that marriage, he was slain, at tilt, by Montgomery, captain of his guard, though against his will, &c.
Ad generum Cereris sine caede et sanguine pauci
Descendunt reges, et sicca morte tyranni. (Juvenal.)
While Mordecai sat in the king’s gate] See Est_2:19.
Two of the king’s chamberlains] In trust I have found treason, said Queen Elizabeth. So, before her, did David, Solomon, Rehoboam, Joash, Amaziah, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and who not almost? Hence some great princes have wished never to have meddled with government; as Augustus, Adrian ( felix si non imperitasset), Pertinax, who used to say that he never in all his life committed the like fault as when he accepted the empire; and many times he motioned to leave the same, and to return unto his house. Dioclesian and Maximian did so; for they found that quot servi, tot hostes; quot custodes, tot carnifices; they could not be safe from their own servants; but, Damocles-like, they sat eating with a drawn sword hanging by a twined thread over their necks. Hence Dionysius durst not trust his own daughter to barber him. And Massinissa, king of Numidia, committed his safe keeping to a guard of dogs; for men he durst not trust.
Of those which kept the door] sc. Of the king’s bedchamber. Some render it, which kept the household stuff. Men they were much intrusted, and, therefore, the more to be abhorred. Metuendum est esse sine custode, sed multo magis a custode metuendum est, said Augustus concerning his guard, whom he suspected of treachery (Dio Cass.). All or most of his successors, till Constantine, died unnatural deaths. Let great ones, therefore, commit themselves to God in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.
Were wroth] What the occasion of their discontent was is uncertain. The Greek and Chaldee say it was because Mordecai was so promoted. Others, because Vashti was deposed, and Esther advanced to her royal state. Others say that they desired the kingdom, as the Magi had done not long before. Some, again, that they were not well paid their arrears. Sure it is that ambition, envy, covetousness, all or some of these, stirred them up to this treasonable attempt. Whatsoever the sire was, the bastard is anger; and rage, likely, is the mother of treason, because it banisheth reason, and so gives way to all unruliness, so it ends in malice, and malice will have blood.
And sought to lay hands on the king Ahasuerus] Kings are fair marks for traitors to shoot at. In which regard
- Miser atque infelix est etiam Rex
Nec quenquam (mihi crede) facit diadema beatum.
Most of the Caesars got nothing by their adoption or designation to the empire, nisi ut citius interficerentur, but to be slain so much the sooner. Treasons there were so many plotted and practised against that incomparable Queen Elizabeth, that she said in Parliament, she rather marvelled that she was than mused that she should not be, were it not that God’s holy hand had protected her beyond expectation. Henry IV, of France, was first stabbed in the mouth, and after that in the heart, by those false Jesuits, whom he had admitted into his very bosom, and used with marvellous respect. But it would not serve his turn to save his life. His countryman, Cominaeus, telleth us that if he should write of all the princes which he knew in his time that, in the judgment of men, seemed to live in great felicity, and yet, to those that knew them familiarly, lived in a miserable estate, that matter alone would require a reasonable volume.