Wichita, Kansas, United States - Great Plains Conference of the United Methodist Church Daily Devotional for Monday, 24 March 2014
Today please be in prayer for:
1. Jeffrey Clinger
Tonganoxie UMC
Kansas City District
2. Leslie Rye
Amherst
Lucas
Luray
Hays District
3. Warren Schoming
Endicott UMC
Fairbury First UMC
Blue River District
-------
This Week's Lectionary:
3rd Sunday in Lent - Purple
Exodus 17:1-7
Psalm 95
Romans 5:1-11
John 4:5-42
Third Sunday in Lent
Exodus 17:1 All the congregation of the children of Israel traveled from the wilderness of Sin, by their journeys, according to Yahweh’s commandment, and encamped in Rephidim; but there was no water for the people to drink. 2 Therefore the people quarreled with Moses, and said, “Give us water to drink.”
Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test Yahweh?”
3 The people were thirsty for water there; and the people murmured against Moses, and said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us, our children, and our livestock with thirst?”
4 Moses cried to Yahweh, saying, “What shall I do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me.”
5 Yahweh said to Moses, “Walk on before the people, and take the elders of Israel with you, and take the rod in your hand with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6 Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb. You shall strike the rock, and water will come out of it, that the people may drink.” Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7 He called the name of the place Massah,[a] and Meribah,[b] because the children of Israel quarreled, and because they tested Yahweh, saying, “Is Yahweh among us, or not?”
Footnotes:
a. Exodus 17:7 Massah means testing.
b. Exodus 17:7 Meribah means quarreling.
Psalm 95:1 Oh come, let’s sing to Yahweh.
Let’s shout aloud to the rock of our salvation!
2 Let’s come before his presence with thanksgiving.
Let’s extol him with songs!
3 For Yahweh is a great God,
a great King above all gods.
4 In his hand are the deep places of the earth.
The heights of the mountains are also his.
5 The sea is his, and he made it.
His hands formed the dry land.
6 Oh come, let’s worship and bow down.
Let’s kneel before Yahweh, our Maker,
7 for he is our God.
We are the people of his pasture,
and the sheep in his care.
Today, oh that you would hear his voice!
8 Don’t harden your heart, as at Meribah,
as in the day of Massah in the wilderness,
9 when your fathers tempted me,
tested me, and saw my work.
10 Forty long years I was grieved with that generation,
and said, “It is a people that errs in their heart.
They have not known my ways.”
11 Therefore I swore in my wrath,
“They won’t enter into my rest.”
Romans 5:1 Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ; 2 through whom we also have our access by faith into this grace in which we stand. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only this, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces perseverance; 4 and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope: 5 and hope doesn’t disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. 6 For while we were yet weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will hardly die for a righteous man. Yet perhaps for a righteous person someone would even dare to die. 8 But God commends his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we will be saved from God’s wrath through him. 10 For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we will be saved by his life.
11 Not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.
John 4:5 So he came to a city of Samaria, called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son, Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being tired from his journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.[a] 7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
9 The Samaritan woman therefore said to him, “How is it that you, being a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. So where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father, Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself, as did his children, and his livestock?”
13 Jesus answered her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst again; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I don’t get thirsty, neither come all the way here to draw.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”
17 The woman answered, “I have no husband.”
Jesus said to her, “You said well, ‘I have no husband,’ 18 for you have had five husbands; and he whom you now have is not your husband. This you have said truly.”
19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”
21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour comes, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, will you worship the Father. 22 You worship that which you don’t know. We worship that which we know; for salvation is from the Jews. 23 But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such to be his worshipers. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah comes, he who is called Christ. When he has come, he will declare to us all things.”
26 Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who speaks to you.” 27 At this, his disciples came. They marveled that he was speaking with a woman; yet no one said, “What are you looking for?” or, “Why do you speak with her?” 28 So the woman left her water pot, and went away into the city, and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything that I did. Can this be the Christ?”
30 They went out of the city, and were coming to him. 31 In the meanwhile, the disciples urged him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.”
32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.”
33 The disciples therefore said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?”
34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work. 35 Don’t you say, ‘There are yet four months until the harvest?’ Behold, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and look at the fields, that they are white for harvest already. 36 He who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit to eternal life; that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. 37 For in this the saying is true, ‘One sows, and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which you haven’t labored. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”
39 From that city many of the Samaritans believed in him because of the word of the woman, who testified, “He told me everything that I did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they begged him to stay with them. He stayed there two days. 41 Many more believed because of his word. 42 They said to the woman, “Now we believe, not because of your speaking; for we have heard for ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world.”
Footnotes:
a. John 4:6 noon
-------
John Wesley’s Notes/Commentary:
Third Sunday in Lent
Exodus 17:1-7
XVII In this chapter are recorded,
I. The watering of the host of Israel. (1.) In the wilderness they wanted water, ver. 1. (2.) In their want they chide with Moses, ver. 2, 3. (3.) Moses cried to God, ver. 4. (4.) God ordered him to smite the rock, and fetch water out of it; and he did so, ver. 5, 6. (5.) The place named from it, ver. 7.
II. The defeating of the host of Amalek. (1.) The victory obtained by the prayer of Moses, ver. 8-12. (2.) By the sword of Joshua, ver. 13 (3.) A record kept of it, ver.14-16.
Verse 1. They journeyed according to the commandment of the Lord, led by the pillar of cloud and fire, and yet they came to a place where there was no water for them to drink - We may be in the way of our duty, and yet meet with troubles, which Providence brings us into for the trial of our faith.
Verse 5. Go on before the people - Though they spake of stoning him. He must take his rod with him, not to summon some plague to chastise them, but to fetch water for their supply. O the wonderful patience and forbearance of God towards provoking sinners! He maintains those that are at war with him, and reaches out the hand of his bounty to those that lift up the heel against him. If God had only shewed Moses a fountain of water in the wilderness, as he did to Hagar, not far from hence, Gen. xxi, 19, that had been a great favour; but that he might shew his power as well as his pity, and make it a miracle of mercy, he gave them water out of a rock. He directed Moses whither to go, appointed him to take of the elders of Israel with him, to be witnesses of what was done, ordered him to smite the rock, which he did, and immediately water came out of it in great abundance, which ran throughout the camp in streams and rivers, Psalm lxxviii, 15, 16, and followed them wherever they went in that wilderness: God shewed his care of his people in giving them water when they wanted it; his own power in fetching it out of a rock, and put an honour upon Moses in appointing the water to flow out upon his smiting of the rock. This fair water that came out of the rock is called honey and oil, Deut. xxxii, 13, because the people's thirst made it doubly pleasant; coming when they were in extreme want. It is probable that the people digged canals for the conveyance of it, and pools for the reception of it. Let this direct us to live in a dependance,
1. Upon God's providence even in the greatest straits and difficulties;
2. And upon Christ's grace; that rock was Christ, 1 Cor. x, 4. The graces and comforts of the Spirit are compared to rivers of living waters, John vii, 38, 39; iv, 14. These flow from Christ. And nothing will supply the needs and satisfy the desires of a soul but water out of this rock. A new name was upon this occasion given to the place, preserving the remembrance of their murmuring, Massah - Temptation, because they tempted God, Meribah - Strife, because they chide with Moses.
Psalm 95
PS 95 The author of this psalm was David, as is affirmed, Heb. iv, 7. It has a special reference to the days of the Messiah; as it is understood by the apostle, Heb. iii, 7, &c. and Heb. iv, 3-9. Herein we are called upon, to praise God, as a great and gracious God, ver. 1-7. To hear God's voice, and not harden our hearts, lest we fall as the Israelites did, ver. 8-11.
Verse 3. God's - Above all that are called God's angels, earthly potentates, and especially the false gods of the Heathen.
Verse 4. Hand - Under his government. Strength - The strongest or highest mountains.
Verse 7. Pasture - Whom he feeds and keeps in his own pasture, or in the land which he hath appropriated to himself. The sheep - Which are under his special care. Today - Forthwith or presently.
Verse 8. Harden not - By obstinate unbelief. Provocation - In that bold and wicked contest with God in the wilderness. Temptation - In the day in which you tempted me.
Verse 9. Works - Both of mercy, and of justice.
Verse 10. Do err - Their hearts are insincere and bent to backsliding. Not known - After all my teaching and discoveries of myself to them; they did not know, nor consider, those great things which I had wrought for them.
Verse 11. My rest - Into the promised land, which is called the rest, Deut. xii, 9.
Romans 5:1-11
Verse 1. Being justified by faith - This is the sum of the preceding chapters. We have peace with God - Being enemies to God no longer, ver. 10; neither fearing his wrath, ver. 9. We have peace, hope, love, and power over sin, the sum of the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth chapters. These are the fruits of justifying faith: where these are not, that faith is not.
Verse 2. Into this grace - This state of favour.
Verse 3. We glory in tribulations also - Which we are so far from esteeming a mark of God's displeasure, that we receive them as tokens of his fatherly love, whereby we are prepared for a more exalted happiness. The Jews objected to the persecuted state of the Christians as inconsistent with the people of the Messiah. It is therefore with great propriety that the apostle so often mentions the blessings arising from this very thing.
Verse 4. And patience works more experience of the sincerity of our grace, and of God's power and faithfulness.
Verse 5. Hope shameth us not - That is, gives us the highest glorying. We glory in this our hope, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts - The divine conviction of God's love to us, and that love to God which is both the earnest and the beginning of heaven. By the Holy Ghost - The efficient cause of all these present blessings, and the earnest of those to come.
Verse 6. How can we now doubt of God's love? For when we were without strength - Either to think, will, or do anything good. In due time - Neither too soon nor too late; but in that very point of time which the wisdom of God knew to be more proper than any other. Christ died for the ungodly - Not only to set them a pattern, or to procure them power to follow it. It does not appear that this expression, of dying for any one, has any other signification than that of rescuing the life of another by laying down our own.
Verse 7. A just man - One who gives to all what is strictly their due The good man - One who is eminently holy; full of love, of compassion, kindness, mildness, of every heavenly and amiable temper. Perhaps-one-would-even-dare to die - Every word increases the strangeness of the thing, and declares even this to be something great and unusual.
Verse 8. But God recommendeth - A most elegant expression. Those are wont to be recommended to us, who were before either unknown to, or alienated from, us. While we were sinners - So far from being good, that we were not even just.
Verse 9. By his blood - By his bloodshedding. We shall be saved from wrath through him - That is, from all the effects of the wrath of God. But is there then wrath in God? Is not wrath a human passion? And how can this human passion be in God? We may answer this by another question: Is not love a human passion? And how can this human passion be in God? But to answer directly: wrath in man, and so love in man, is a human passion. But wrath in God is not a human passion; nor is love, as it is in God. Therefore the inspired writers ascribe both the one and the other to God only in an analogical sense.
Verse 10. If - As sure as; so the word frequently signifies; particularly in this and the eighth chapter. We shalt be saved - Sanctified and glorified. Through his life - Who "ever liveth to make intercession for us."
Verse 11. And not only so, but we also glory - The whole sentence, from the third to the eleventh verse, may be taken together thus: We not only "rejoice in hope of the glory of God," but also in the midst of tribulations we glory in God himself through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the reconciliation.
John 4:5-42
Verse 5. Sychar - Formerly called Sichem or Shechem. Jacob gave - On his death bed, Gen. xlviii, 22.
Verse 6. Jesus sat down - Weary as he was. It was the sixth hour - Noon; the heat of the day.
Verse 7. Give me to drink - In this one conversation he brought her to that knowledge which the apostles were so long in attaining.
Verse 8. For his disciples were gone - Else he needed not have asked her.
Verse 9. How dost thou - Her open simplicity appears from her very first words. The Jews have no dealings - None by way of friendship. They would receive no kind of favour from them.
Verse 10. If thou hadst known the gift - The living water; and who it is - He who alone is able to give it: thou wouldst have asked of him - On those words the stress lies. Water - In like manner he draws the allegory from bread, chap. vi, 27, and from light, viii, 12; the first, the most simple, necessary, common, and salutary things in nature. Living water - The Spirit and its fruits. But she might the more easily mistake his meaning, because living water was a common phrase among the Jews for spring water.
Verse 12. Our father Jacob - So they fancied he was; whereas they were, in truth, a mixture of many nations, placed there by the king of Assyria, in the room of the Israelites whom he had carried away captive, 2 Kings xvii, 24. Who gave us the well - In Joseph their supposed forefather: and drank thereof - So even he had no better water than this.
Verse 14. Will never thirst - Will never (provided he continue to drink thereof) be miserable, dissatisfied, without refreshment. If ever that thirst returns, it will be the fault of the man, not the water. But the water that I shall give him - The spirit of faith working by love, shall become in him - An inward living principle, a fountain - Not barely a well, which is soon exhausted, springing up into everlasting life - Which is a confluence, or rather an ocean of streams arising from this fountain.
Verse 15. That I thirst not - She takes him still in a gross sense.
Verse 16. Jesus saith to her - He now clears the way that he might give her a better kind of water than she asked for. Go, call thy husband - He strikes directly at her bosom sin.
Verse 17. Thou hast well said - We may observe in all our Lord's discourses the utmost weightiness, and yet the utmost courtesy.
Verse 18. Thou hast had five husbands - Whether they were all dead or not, her own conscience now awakened would tell her.
Verse 19. Sir, I perceive - So soon was her heart touched.
Verse 20. The instant she perceived this, she proposes what she thought the most important of all questions. This mountain - Pointing to Mount Gerizim. Sanballat, by the permission of Alexander the Great, had built a temple upon Mount Gerizim, for Manasseh, who for marrying Sanballat's daughter had been expelled from the priesthood and from Jerusalem, Neh. xiii, 28. This was the place where the Samaritans used to worship in opposition to Jerusalem. And it was so near Sychar, that a man's voice might be heard from the one to the other. Our fathers worshipped - This plainly refers to Abraham and Jacob (from whom the Samaritans pretended to deduce their genealogy) who erected altars in this place: Gen. xii, 6, 7, and Gen. xxxiii, 18, 20. And possibly to the whole congregation, who were directed when they came into the land of Canaan to put the blessing upon Mount Gerizim, Deut. xi, 29. Ye Jews say, In Jerusalem is the place - Namely, the temple.
Verse 21. Believe me - Our Lord uses this expression in this manner but once; and that to a Samaritan. To his own people, the Jews, his usual language is, I say unto you. The hour cometh when ye - Both Samaritans and Jews, shall worship neither in this mountain, nor at Jerusalem - As preferable to any other place. True worship shall be no longer confined to any one place or nation.
Verse 22. Ye worship ye know not what - Ye Samaritans are ignorant, not only of the place, but of the very object of worship. Indeed, they feared the Lord after a fashion; but at the same time served their own gods, 2 Kings xvii, 33. Salvation is from the Jews - So spake all the prophets, that the saviour should arise out of the Jewish nation: and that from thence the knowledge of him should spread to all nations under heaven.
Verse 23. The true worshippers shall worship the Father - Not here or there only, but at all times and in all places.
Verse 24. God is a Spirit - Not only remote from the body, and all the properties of it, but likewise full of all spiritual perfections, power, wisdom, love, holiness. And our worship should be suitable to his nature. We should worship him with the truly spiritual worship of faith, love, and holiness, animating all our tempers, thoughts, words, and actions.
Verse 25. The woman saith - With joy for what she had already learned, and desire of fuller instruction.
Verse 26. Jesus saith - Hasting to satisfy her desire before his disciples came. l am He - Our Lord did not speak this so plainly to the Jews who were so full of the Messiah's temporal kingdom. If he had, many would doubtless have taken up arms in his favour, and others have accused him to the Roman governor. Yet he did in effect declare the thing, though he denied the particular title. For in a multitude of places he represented himself, both as the Son of man, and as the Son of God: both which expressions were generally understood by the Jews as peculiarly applicable to the Messiah.
Verse 27. His disciples marvelled that he talked with a woman - Which the Jewish rabbis reckoned scandalous for a man of distinction to do. They marvelled likewise at his talking with a woman of that nation, which was so peculiarly hateful to the Jews. Yet none said - To the woman, What seekest thou? - Or to Christ, Why talkest thou with her?
Verse 28. The woman left her water pot - Forgetting smaller things.
Verse 29. A man who told me all things that ever I did - Our Lord had told her but a few things. But his words awakened her conscience, which soon told her all the rest. Is not this the Christ? - She does not doubt of it herself, but incites them to make the inquiry.
Verse 31. In the meantime - Before the people came.
Verse 34. My meat - That which satisfies the strongest appetite of my soul.
Verse 35. The fields are white already - As if he had said, The spiritual harvest is ripe already. The Samaritans, ripe for the Gospel, covered the ground round about them.
Verse 36. He that reapeth - Whoever saves souls, receiveth wages - A peculiar blessing to himself, and gathereth fruit - Many souls: that he that soweth - Christ the great sower of the seed, and he that reapeth may rejoice together - In heaven.
Verse 37. That saying - A common proverb; One soweth - The prophets and Christ; another reapeth - The apostles and succeeding ministers.
Verse 38. I - he Lord of the whole harvest, have sent you - He had employed them already in baptizing, ver. 2.
Verse 42. We know that this is the saviour of the world - And not of the Jews only.
-------
Today's Devotional
Esther 3:1 After these things King Ahasuerus promoted Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, and advanced him, and set his seat above all the princes who were with him. 2 All the king’s servants who were in the king’s gate bowed down, and paid homage to Haman; for the king had so commanded concerning him. But Mordecai didn’t bow down or pay him homage. 3 Then the king’s servants, who were in the king’s gate, said to Mordecai, “Why do you disobey the king’s commandment?” 4 Now it came to pass, when they spoke daily to him, and he didn’t listen to them, that they told Haman, to see whether Mordecai’s reason would stand; for he had told them that he was a Jew. 5 When Haman saw that Mordecai didn’t bow down, nor pay him homage, Haman was full of wrath. 6 But he scorned the thought of laying hands on Mordecai alone, for they had made known to him Mordecai’s people. Therefore Haman sought to destroy all the Jews who were throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus, even Mordecai’s people.
7 In the first month, which is the month Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus, they cast Pur, that is, the lot, before Haman from day to day, and from month to month, and chose the twelfth month, which is the month Adar. 8 Haman said to King Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom, and their laws are different than other people’s. They don’t keep the king’s laws. Therefore it is not for the king’s profit to allow them to remain. 9 If it pleases the king, let it be written that they be destroyed; and I will pay ten thousand talents[a] of silver into the hands of those who are in charge of the king’s business, to bring it into the king’s treasuries.”
10 The king took his ring from his hand, and gave it to Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the Jews’ enemy. 11 The king said to Haman, “The silver is given to you, the people also, to do with them as it seems good to you.” 12 Then the king’s scribes were called in on the first month, on the thirteenth day of the month; and all that Haman commanded was written to the king’s satraps, and to the governors who were over every province, and to the princes of every people, to every province according to its writing, and to every people in their language. It was written in the name of King Ahasuerus, and it was sealed with the king’s ring. 13 Letters were sent by couriers into all the king’s provinces, to destroy, to kill, and to cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day, even on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, and to plunder their possessions. 14 A copy of the letter, that the decree should be given out in every province, was published to all the peoples, that they should be ready against that day. 15 The couriers went out in haste by the king’s commandment, and the decree was given out in the citadel of Susa. The king and Haman sat down to drink; but the city of Shushan was perplexed.
4:1 Now when Mordecai found out all that was done, Mordecai tore his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the middle of the city, and wailed loudly and a bitterly. 2 He came even before the king’s gate, for no one is allowed inside the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth. 3 In every province, wherever the king’s commandment and his decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews, and fasting, and weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes. 4 Esther’s maidens and her eunuchs came and told her this, and the queen was exceedingly grieved. She sent clothing to Mordecai, to replace his sackcloth; but he didn’t receive it. 5 Then Esther called for Hathach, one of the king’s eunuchs, whom he had appointed to attend her, and commanded him to go to Mordecai, to find out what this was, and why it was. 6 So Hathach went out to Mordecai, to city square which was before the king’s gate. 7 Mordecai told him of all that had happened to him, and the exact sum of the money that Haman had promised to pay to the king’s treasuries for the destruction of the Jews. 8 He also gave him the copy of the writing of the decree that was given out in Shushan to destroy them, to show it to Esther, and to declare it to her, and to urge her to go in to the king, to make supplication to him, and to make request before him, for her people.
9 Hathach came and told Esther the words of Mordecai. 10 Then Esther spoke to Hathach, and gave him a message to Mordecai: 11 “All the king’s servants, and the people of the king’s provinces, know, that whoever, whether man or woman, comes to the king into the inner court without being called, there is one law for him, that he be put to death, except those to whom the king might hold out the golden scepter, that he may live. I have not been called to come in to the king these thirty days.”
12 They told to Mordecai Esther’s words. 13 Then Mordecai asked them return answer to Esther, “Don’t think to yourself that you will escape in the king’s house any more than all the Jews. 14 For if you remain silent now, then relief and deliverance will come to the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Who knows if you haven’t come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
Footnotes:
a. Esther 3:9 A talent is about 30 kilograms or 66 pounds or 965 Troy ounces
-------
III Haman offended at Mordecai, resolves to destroy all the Jews, ver. 1-6. He obtains an order from the king, to have them all slain on one day, ver. 7-11. This order is sent throughout the kingdom, ver. 12-15.
Verse 1. Agagite - An Amalekite of the royal seed of that nation, whose kings were successively called Agag. All the princes - Gave him the first place and seat, which was next to the king.
Verse 2. But, &c. - Probably the worship required was not only civil, but Divine: which as the kings of Persia arrogated to themselves, so they did sometimes impart this honour to some of their chief favourites, that they should be adored in like manner. And that it was so here, seems more than probable, because it was superfluous, to give an express command to all the kings servants, to pay a civil respect to so great a prince, which of course they used, and therefore a Divine honour must be here intended. And that a Jew should deny this honour, is not strange, seeing the wise Grecians did positively refuse to give this honour to the kings of Persia themselves, even when they were to make their addresses to them: and one Timocrates was put to death by the Athenians for worshipping Darius in that manner.
Verse 4. To see - What the event of it would be. For, &c. - And therefore did not deny this reverence out of pride, but merely out of conscience.
Verse 6. Scorn - He thought that vengeance was unsuitable to his quality. Destroy - Which he attempted, from that implacable hatred which, as an Amalekite, he had against them; from his rage against Mordecai; and from Mordecai's reason of this contempt, because he was a Jew, which as he truly judged, extended itself to all the Jews, and would equally engage them all in the same neglect. And doubtless Haman included those who were returned to their own land: for that was now a province of his kingdom.
Verse 7. They cast - The diviners cast lots, according to the custom of those people, what day, and what month would be most lucky, not for his success with the king (of which he made no doubt) but for the most effectual extirpation of the Jews. Wherein appears likewise both his implacable malice, and unwearied diligence in seeking vengeance of them with so much trouble to himself; and God's singular providence in disposing the lot to that time, that the Jews might have space to get the decree reversed.
Verse 11. The silver - Keep it to thy own use; I accept the offer for the deed.
Verse 15. The city - Not only the Jews, but a great number of the citizens, either because they were related to them, or engaged with them in worldly concerns; or out of humanity and compassion toward so vast a number of innocent people, appointed as sheep for the slaughter.
IV The Jews fast and mourn, ver. 1-3. Esther is informed of the design, ver. 4-9, Mordecai presses her to intercede with the king, ver. 10-14. She desires all the Jews to keep a solemn fast, ver. 15- 19.
Verse 1. Cry - To express his deep sense of the mischief coming upon his people. It was bravely done, thus publickly to espouse a just cause though it seemed to be a desperate one.
Verse 2. Sackcloth - Lest it should give the king any occasion of grief and trouble. But what availed, to keep out the badges of sorrow unless they could have kept out the causes of sorrow too? To forbid sackcloth to enter unless they could likewise forbid sickness, and trouble, and death?
Verse 4. To clothe - That so he might be capable of returning to his former place, if not of coming to her to acquaint her with the cause of his sorrow.
Verse 11. Inner court - Within which, the king's residence and throne was. Not called - This was decreed, to maintain both the majesty, and the safety of the king's person; and by the contrivance of the greater officers of state, that few or none might have access to the king but themselves and their friends. I have not been called, &c. - Which gives me just cause to fear that the king's affections are alienated from me, and that neither my person nor petition will be acceptable to him.
Verse 14. From another place - This was the language of strong faith, against hope believing in hope. Who knoweth - It is probable God hath raised thee to this honour for this very season. We should every one of us consider, for what end God has put us in the place where we are? And when an opportunity offers of serving God and our generation, we must take care not to let it slip.
-------
Contact Information
Great Plains Episcopal Office
9440 E Boston, Suite 160
Wichita KS 67207
316-686-0600
800-745-2350
info@greatplainsumc.org
-------
No comments:
Post a Comment