A collateral purpose of the book is the glorification of the Jews. In the dramatic contest between Haman the Agagite and Mordecai the Jew, the latter is victor. He refuses to bow before Haman, and Providence justifies his refusal; for the Jews are born to dominion, and all who oppose or oppress them must fall. Everywhere their superiority is apparent: Esther the Jewess is fairer than Vashti, and Mordecai, like Joseph in the old days, takes his place beside the king. What we regretfully miss in the book is a truly religious note. It is national to the core; but, for once in the Old Testament, nationality is not wedded to a worthy conception of God. Too much stress need not be laid on the absence of His name--this may have been due to the somewhat secular character of the festival with its giving and receiving of presents--and the presence of God, as the guardian of the fortunes of Israel, is presupposed throughout the whole story, notably in Mordecai's confident hope that enlargement and deliverance would arise to the Jews from one place, if not from another, iv. 14. But the religion of the book--for religion it is entitled to be called--is absolutely destitute of ethical elements. It is with a shudder that we read of Esther's request for a second butchery, ix. 13; and all the romantic glamour of the story cannot blind us to its religious emptiness and moral depravity. In a generation which had smarted under the persecution of Antiochus and shed its blood in defence of its liberty and ancestral traditions, such bitter fanaticism is not unintelligible. But the popularity of the book shows how little the prophetic elements in Israel's religion had touched the people's heart, and how stubborn a resistance was sure to be offered to the generous and emancipating word of Jesus. DANIEL