Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
The majesty and glory as well as the virtue of Mordecai, who in verse 4 recounts the explanation of his dream concerning the affliction of the Jews in Persia, and their subsequent liberation and exaltation.
Vulgate Text: Esther 10:1-13
1. Now King Ahasuerus made all the land and all the islands of the sea tributary: 2. whose strength and empire, and the dignity and eminence with which he exalted Mordecai, are written in the books of the Medes and Persians: 3. and how Mordecai of the Jewish race was second after King Ahasuerus; and great among the Jews, and acceptable to the multitude of his brethren, seeking the good of his people, and speaking things that pertained to the peace of his seed.
What is found in the Hebrew, I have faithfully rendered. But what follows, I found written in the Vulgate edition, which is contained in the Greek language and letters; and meanwhile this chapter was placed after the end of the book: which according to our custom we have marked with an obelus, that is, a spit.
4. And Mordecai said: These things were done by God. 5. I remembered the dream that I had seen, signifying these same things: nor was anything of them unfulfilled. 6. The small spring that grew into a river, and was turned into light and the sun, and overflowed into many waters: this is Esther, whom the king took as wife and wished to be queen. 7. The two dragons: they are myself and Haman. 8. The nations that gathered together: they are those who tried to destroy the name of the Jews. 9. But my nation: this is Israel, which cried to the Lord, and the Lord saved His people; and He freed us from all evils, and wrought great signs and wonders among the nations: 10. and He ordained that there should be two lots, one for the people of God, and the other for all the nations. 11. And both lots came to the day appointed from that time before God for all nations: 12. and the Lord remembered His people, and had mercy on His inheritance. 13. And these days shall be observed in the month of Adar, on the fourteenth and fifteenth day of that month, with all zeal and joy, the people assembled in one gathering, throughout all succeeding generations of the people of Israel.
Verse 1: Ahasuerus Made the Land and Sea Tributary
1. NOW KING AHASUERUS MADE ALL THE LAND AND ALL THE ISLANDS OF THE SEA (namely those subject to himself and his empire) TRIBUTARY — that is, he burdened them with new taxes, partly because he himself, being more covetous of gold, was inclined to taxation; partly because by the great and magnificent expenses for the banquet so ample and prolonged of which chapter 1 speaks, he had exhausted the treasury; and partly because God wished to punish the Persians by this taxation, who shortly before had been eager for the slaughter and plunder of the innocent Jews.
Verse 3: Mordecai, Second After King Ahasuerus
3. MORDECAI OF THE JEWISH RACE WAS SECOND AFTER KING AHASUERUS. — He was therefore virtually the king's viceroy, and in his absence, king; indeed even in the king's presence, Mordecai by his rare prudence and vigilance governed the empire, as Josephus attests.
SPEAKING THINGS THAT PERTAINED TO THE PEACE OF HIS SEED (that is, what pertained to the welfare and prosperity of the Jews) — as if to say: Mordecai devoted himself to the welfare not of himself, but of his people. The Scripture here omits his splendid deeds, and refers anyone wishing to know them to the annals of the Medes and Persians.
Benjamin in his Itinerary relates that Mordecai and Esther were buried in the chief city of the Medes, called Hamadan the Great; and he says that in his time there were 50,000 Jews there. Some suspect that the province of Mardochaea, which is situated between Babylonia and the Persian Gulf, was named after Mordecai.
Here in the Hebrew the book of Esther ends: the remaining portions were translated from Greek into Latin by St. Jerome, where note that these last seven chapters of Esther are Canonical Scripture. This is evident both from the definition of the Council of Trent, session 4, and from the Vulgate Latin edition and the Greek Septuagint. Both of these consistently read these passages, although in the Greek they are not placed separately, as in the Latin; but each is inserted in its proper place in historical order, just as formerly before St. Jerome they also stood inserted in their places in the Latin edition. But St. Jerome, because he translated Esther from the Hebrew into Latin, and in his time these seven chapters did not exist in Hebrew, therefore translated them from the Greek, placed them separately, and put them at the end of the book after the sequence of the entire history. That they formerly existed in Hebrew before St. Jerome is evident from the Greek Septuagint and the ancient Latin Vulgate, and from Josephus and Josippus the son of Gorion, who have the same things as our text, surely from no other source than the ancient Hebrew original. It is likely that this book, like Tobit, was written twice in Hebrew — once more briefly, as it now exists in Hebrew, and a second time more fully; and from this came the Greek translation of the Septuagint, and from it our translation, and therefore that translation added these additional sections. See Fevardentius here, and Bellarmine, book 1, On the Word of God, chapter 7.
Verse 4: Mordecai Said: These Things Were Done by God
4. AND MORDECAI SAID — when now with Haman hanged, he understood the meaning of his dream.
Verse 5: I Remembered the Dream I Had Seen
5. I REMEMBERED THE DREAM THAT I HAD SEEN, SIGNIFYING THESE SAME THINGS. — This dream therefore was sent by God to Mordecai, so that through it He might signify the future exaltation of himself and Esther, and the conflict with Haman. Wherefore this dream should be placed in historical order at the beginning of this book and of the entire history, as it is indeed placed in the Roman Greek text. A similar dream was sent by God to Pharaoh, Genesis 41; and to Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel 2.
Verse 6: The Small Spring That Grew into a River
6. THE SMALL SPRING THAT GREW INTO A RIVER, AND WAS TURNED INTO LIGHT AND THE SUN, AND OVERFLOWED INTO MANY WATERS, IS ESTHER, WHOM THE KING TOOK AS WIFE AND WISHED TO BE QUEEN. — Mordecai had therefore dreamed, as is related in the following chapter, verse 5, that he saw a small spring which grew into a river and was turned into light and the sun; and afterward he understood that this spring was Esther, who before had been lowly and humble, but afterward grew so much that she became queen, and wonderfully increased the Jewish nation in number, strength, and glory, and therefore shone like the sun in Persia and throughout the whole world with the rays of her virtue and majesty.
Fittingly Esther is compared to a spring: first, because just as a spring continually pouring forth waters produces an immense river, so Esther by her work and effort produced a great Jewish people, and converted many of the Gentiles to God and Judaism, as was said in chapter 9, last verse; second, she with her eyes and tears as from springs extinguished the monstrous fire of Haman kindled against the Jews, as well as the wrath of God; third, she with those same waters, as it were of a great and violent torrent, overwhelmed and drowned 75,000 Gentiles hostile to the Jews; fourth, this spring, which before was in darkness (chapter 11, verse 8), that is, in the deepest grief and anguish, was turned into light and the sun, that is, into the bright sun (it is a hendiadys) — namely into the greatest joy and happiness, when she freed the Jews from death and made them triumph over their enemies.
Moreover, fittingly this spring is said to have been turned into light and the sun, because there is a great affinity and analogy between a spring and the sun: first, because just as a spring is the origin and source of a river, so the sun is of light; for just as a river flows from a spring, so light flows from the sun; for the production, outflow, and emanation of both are similar; whence in Hebrew ner, that is, light and lamp, alludes to nahar, that is, river, and to or, that is, light, because it signifies the outflow or propagation of light like that of a river, that is, of seed and posterity; second, because what a spring is on earth, the sun is in heaven; for just as a spring is like the eye of the earth, so the sun is like the eye of heaven, illuminating and adorning the whole sky and world. Whence the Hebrew ain signifies both eye and spring, because what the eye is in a person, the spring is on earth, and the sun in heaven; third, because a river flowing from a spring is clear, transparent, and bright like crystal (indeed crystal is nothing other than spring water frozen solid), and illuminated by the rays of the sun it shines like the sun; fourth, because from the primordial spring and waters the sun and heavens were created. Whence in Hebrew they are called Schamaim, as if to say 'there are the waters,' as I showed at length in Genesis 1:7. In a similar way and by analogy, Esther here, as it were watery, that is, poor and lowly, raised by Ahasuerus to the royal throne as if to heaven, became glorious and radiant like the sun, so that she may rightly be called the spring of the sun (mentioned in Joshua 15:7 and 18:17), according to what is said of her in chapter 11, verse 11: 'Light and the sun arose, and the humble were exalted and devoured the renowned.'
Hence Sacred Scripture often combines light and river, as in Psalm 35:10 [36:9]: 'O Lord, with You is the fountain of life; and in Your light we shall see light.' And in Revelation 22:1, the light of the glory of the blessed is described through the river of paradise, when it says: 'And he showed me a river of the water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb.' Finally, in springs the sun from time to time through the reflection of its rays imprints its own image, and produces a parhelion, that is, another quasi-sun, so that the spring itself seems to be the sun, as I shall say in the following chapter, verses 10 and 11.
This therefore is the paradoxical, hieroglyphic dream of Mordecai: 'From the waters, the sun,' that is, from tribulation arises joy, from adversity prosperity, from desolation consolation, from sorrow gladness, from humiliation exultation, from mortification resurrection. The poets imagine that the sun, when it sets exhausted from its daily labor, plunges itself into the waters and the sea, so that during the night it may wash and refresh itself; wherefore in the morning it comes forth again vigorous and reborn from those same waters; so the waters of humiliation refresh a mind burning with the works of charity, so that, humbler and more vigorous from them, it rises again and returns to the same works. Then what is said in Job 11:16 comes to pass: 'You will forget your misery and will not remember it, like waters that have passed by. And a noonday brightness will rise for you in the evening; and when it seems you are consumed, you will rise like the morning star.' And that passage in Malachi 4:2: 'For you who fear My name, the sun of justice will arise, and healing in His wings; and you will go forth and leap like calves from the herd.' See what is said there. Finally, this dream alluded to the custom of the Persians, who worshipped the sun as a deity and called their kings suns. Whence Cyrus in Persian means the same as sun. And Sapor, king of the Persians, as Ammianus Marcellinus attests, book 17, writing to the Emperor Constantius, arrogated to himself this title: 'Sapor, King of kings, companion of the stars, and brother of the sun and moon, to Constantius my brother, greetings.' When therefore Mordecai in his vision saw Esther as a sun, shortly afterward he understood that she would be queen of the Persians, wearing on her head a solar crown, that is, one adorned with golden rays like those of the sun.
Josippus the son of Gorion adds, book 2, chapter 2, that Mordecai consoled Esther when she was afflicted during the persecution of Haman by recalling this dream of his, and from it derived a sure hope of the coming deliverance. The same may be said of the entire four years during which Esther, as if lowly, unknown, and consigned to oblivion, lay hidden in the house of Ahasuerus; for in the second year of Ahasuerus she was brought into his house; but only in the seventh year was she brought before him, as is clear from chapter 2, verse 16.
This indeed is the way and method which the providence of God employs, that those whom He wishes to exalt and glorify, He first humbles and makes lowly and ignoble. Whoever therefore experiences this in himself, let him raise his spirit with sure hope of better things, and let him know that he is on the right path by which God leads His own to eminence and glory; because, as the Wise Man says: 'Humility precedes glory.' And: 'The Lord first mortifies, and then gives life; He first leads down to the underworld, and then brings back.'
Allegorically, this spring turned into the sun and similar to the spring of the sun (mentioned in Joshua), literally signifying Esther, mystically represents the Blessed Virgin, who in Revelation 12:1 is called the woman clothed with the sun. Whence St. Fulgentius, in his Sermon on the Praises of the Virgin, says: 'Mary was made the window of heaven, because through Her God poured forth the true light of the world.' Blessed Damascene, in Oration 1 On the Nativity of the Virgin, calls Her 'the Gate of life, the Fountain of light,' by which name many others also call Her. Epiphanius, in his Sermon on the Praises of the Virgin, says in these words: 'O holy Virgin, mother of the eternal light; of the light, I say, which in the heavens illuminates the hosts of Angels; of the light which illuminates the incomprehensible eye of the Seraphim themselves; of the light which illuminates the sun with splendid torches; of the light which illuminates the ends of the earth to believe in the Trinity; of the light which said: I am the light of the world; of the light which said: I have come as a light into the world; of the light which was assumed and illuminated all things in heaven and on earth.' And again: 'O womb containing the inextinguishable light of sevenfold shining grace.'
Chrysippus, in his Oration to the Mother of God, says: 'Hail, fountain of light illuminating every person; hail, rising of the sun, which can suffer no setting.' Ildephonsus, in Sermon 1 On the Assumption: 'Mary,' he says, 'according to the Hebrew word is interpreted star of the sea; the sea is the present world, and the star is the Blessed Virgin Mary, from whom He arose through whom the whole world is illuminated. Hence come more confidently to the praise of the Virgin, and be enlightened, for She is the one through whom the true light shone forth in the sea of this world.'
The Church in the Mass, in the preface of the Blessed Virgin, uses this same metaphor with these words: 'Who, with the glory of virginity remaining, poured forth the eternal light upon the world, Jesus Christ Our Lord.' Ephrem, in his Sermon on the Praises of the Virgin: 'Hail,' he says, 'most brilliant star, from whom Christ came forth; hail, through whom the most radiant sun of justice shone upon us.' And again he calls Her 'the Light-bearing Virgin'; similarly Cyril, in book 1 On the True Faith addressed to the Queens: 'Mary,' he says, 'mother of life, mother of beauty, bearer of the greatest Morning Star.'
Verse 7: The Two Dragons: Myself and Haman
7. THE TWO DRAGONS: THEY ARE MYSELF AND HAMAN. — These two dragons were fighting each other, as is said in the following chapter, verse 6, to signify the conflict of Mordecai with Haman, and his overthrow. For dragons are the insignia and emblems of soldiers and generals: they signify their qualities, of which the chief are three, namely vigilance, strength, and swiftness in accomplishing tasks. For a dragon is watchful and sees most keenly; whence the dragon is called from the Greek derkein, that is, from seeing. It is also very strong and very swift; whence in Arabia it flies, and therefore it exhibits something divine; for which reason the ancients assigned to the dragon the guardianship of homes, temples, oracles, treasures, and the infancy of heroes; as the Poets fabled about Hercules, and indeed about Nero. Hence again the dragon was for the ancients a symbol of prudence, wisdom, and indeed even of prophecy, as Carolus Paschalius teaches in book 9 of De Coronis, chapter 15, at the end. Add (which is fitting and proper here) that the Parthians, or Persians, formerly in battle sent ahead lions and dragons against the enemy to devour them, as Brissonius teaches from Lucian and Ennius, in book 2 On the Kingdom of the Persians, page 310. Olympias, the mother of Alexander the Great, had a similar dream about a dragon, by which empire and monarchy were portended for him, just as the dragon portended the same for Augustus, Aurelian, Severus, Scipio, and others, as Pierius attests in Hieroglyphica 15. Hence Pharaoh too is called the great dragon, Ezekiel 29:3. Hence also in ancient warfare those were called draconarii who are now called standard-bearers. Finally, just as the serpents of Moses devoured the serpents of the Magicians, Exodus 7:12, so Mordecai devoured Haman. Thus even now in common speech very brave soldiers are called dragons, namely cavalrymen who take an infantryman behind them, so that in battle, setting him down on the ground, both horsemen and foot soldiers fight against the enemy.
Verse 10: Two Lots, One for the People of God
10. AND HE ORDAINED THAT THERE SHOULD BE TWO LOTS; ONE FOR THE PEOPLE OF GOD, AND THE OTHER FOR ALL THE NATIONS. — Namely, for the nations hostile to and enemies of the people of God, that is, the Jews; for Haman cast the lot for the killing of the Jews; but Mordecai gave the lot for the slaughter of the nations hostile to the Jews.
Verse 11: Both Lots Came to the Appointed Day
11. AND BOTH LOTS CAME TO THE DAY APPOINTED FROM THAT TIME BEFORE GOD FOR ALL NATIONS — as if to say: Both lots fell on the same day eternally appointed by God, namely on the 13th and 14th of Adar, that is, of February; but this day was happy and joyful for the Jews, while for the nations hostile to the Jews it was unfortunate and fatal, because
Verse 12: The Lord Remembered His Inheritance
12. THE LORD REMEMBERED HIS INHERITANCE — that is, the people of Israel, whom as His inheritance and His own possession God singularly loves; and therefore protects, saves, and defends.
Symbolically, St. Prosper, book 1 On the Calling of the Nations, chapter 2, takes the two lots as those of the faithful and the unfaithful; for God chose the Jews as the faithful for grace and glory, from which He excluded the unfaithful nations, yet without denying them the common course of His providence and grace, as Prosper shows in the same passage; but for the Jews faithful to Him, He performed great signs and wonders among the nations, as when through Moses He afflicted Egypt with ten plagues, when through Joshua He subjugated the Canaanites, through David the Philistines, etc. For it is to these wonders that reference is made here.