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<p>It was but lately that we had Esther and Mordecai in tears and in fears, but fasting and praying; now let us see how to them there arose light in darkness. Here is, 1. Esther enriched. Haman was hanged as a traitor, therefore his estate was forfeited to the crown, and the king gave it all to Esther, in recompence for the fright that wicked man had put her into and the vexation he had created her, <a class="bibleref" title="Esth.8.1" href="/passage/?search=Esth.8.1">Est. 8:1</a>. His houses and lands, good sand chattels, and all the money he had heaped up which he was prime-minister of state (which, we may suppose, was no little), are given to Esther; they are all her own, added to the allowance she already had. Thus is <i>the wealth of the sinner laid up for the just</i>, and the <i>innocent divides the silver</i>, <a class="bibleref" title="Prov.13.22,Job.27.17,Job.27.18" href="/passage/?search=Prov.13.22,Job.27.17,Job.27.18"><span class="bibleref" title="Prov.13.22">Prov. 13:22</span>; <span class="bibleref" title="Job.27.17">Job 27:17</span>, <span class="bibleref" title="Job.27.18">18</span></a>. What Haman would have done mischief with Esther will do good with; and estates are to be valued as they are used. 2. Mordecai advanced. His pompous procession, this morning, through the streets of the city, was but a sudden flash or blaze of honour; but here we have the more durable and gainful preferments to which he was raised, which yet the other happily made way for. (1.) He is now owned as the queen’s cousin, which till now, though Esther had been four years queen, for aught that appears, the king did not know. So humble, so modest, a man was Mordecai, and so far from being ambitious of a place at court, that he concealed his relation to the queen and her obligations to him as her guardian, and never made us of her interest for any advantage of his own. Who but Mordecai could have taken so little notice of so great an honour? But now he was brought <i>before the king</i>, introduced, as we say, to kiss his hand; for now, at length, <i>Esther had told what he was to her</i>, not only near a-kin to her, but the best friend she had in the world, who took care of her when she was an orphan, and one whom she still respected as a father. Now the king finds himself, for his wife’s sake, more obliged than he thought he had been to delight in doing honour to Mordecai. How great were the merits of that man to whom both king and queen did in effect owe their lives! Being brought before the king, to him no doubt he bowed, and did reverence, though he would not to Haman an Amalekite. (2.) The king makes his lord privy-seal in the room of Haman. All the trust he had reposed in Haman, and all the power he had given him, are here transferred to Mordecai; for the ring which he had taken from Haman he gave to Mordecai, and made this trusty humble man as much his favourite, his confidant, and his agent, as ever that proud perfidious wretch was; a happy change he made of his bosom-friends, and so, no doubt, he and his people soon found it. (3.) The queen makes him here steward, for the management of Haman’s estate, and for getting and keeping possession of it: <i>She set Mordecai over the house of Haman</i>. See the vanity of laying up treasure upon earth; he that <i>heapeth up riches knoweth not who shall gather them</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Ps.39.6" href="/passage/?search=Ps.39.6">Ps. 39:6</a>), not only <i>whether he shall be a wise man or a fool</i> (<a class="bibleref" title="Eccl.2.19" href="/passage/?search=Eccl.2.19">Eccl. 2:19</a>), but whether he shall be a friend or an enemy. With what little pleasure, nay, with what constant vexation, would Haman have looked upon his estate if he could have foreseen that Mordecai, the man he hated above all men in the world, should have <i>rule over all that wherein he had laboured</i>, and thought that he showed himself wise! It is our interest, therefore, to make sure those riches which will not be left behind, but will go with us to another world.</p>
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