Читать книгу Stories of the Wars of the Jews. From the Babylonish captivity, to the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus онлайн

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Through this gate passed Haman, the proud favourite of the Persian monarch. As he moved on with a stately step amongst the courtiers and servants of the king, every head, save one, was bowed down before him—all did him obeisance save one! That one was Mordecai, the bold, un-compromising Jew, who scorned to pay any mark of respect to him who was the enemy of his faith—to him who belonged to the guilty tribe doomed by a just God to destruction.

QUEEN ESTHER.

Haman was not a man to forgive that which he looked upon as an insult. Boiling with rage, he determined that not only should Mordecai expiate his offence with his life, but that the whole of his race should be swept away by one act of indiscriminate vengeance. The arbitrary temper of Ahasuerus, and his blind confidence in his wicked minister, too well seconded the bloody designs of Haman. This unprincipled favourite succeeded in obtaining from the despot a decree for the extermination of the Jewish people throughout all of his extensive dominions. Neither age nor sex were to be spared; the babe was to be slaughtered in the arms of its mother, and the spoil of the murdered victims was to be the prey of the merciless Haman! A time was actually fixed upon by lot for the perpetration of the horrible massacre, but, by the providence of God, the lot fell upon a distant day. Their consciences untroubled by a sense of their enormous guilt, Ahasuerus and Haman sat down to feast and to drink, while all ssss1 was startled by the fearful decree that was to destroy a peaceful nation from the face of the earth!