Esther 4:5

Then called Esther for Hatach, [one] of the king's chamberlains, whom he had appointed to attend upon her, and gave him a commandment to Mordecai, to know what it [was], and why it [was].

Ver. 5. Then called Esther for Hatach] She snuffeth not at Mordecai's refusal of her courtesy. She saith not, Let him choose, the next offer shall be worse, Rerum suarum satagat, si velit, et valeat, &c. Solomon reckoneth among those four things that the earth cannot bear, a handmaid advanced to the state and place of a mistress, Proverbs 30:23. But Esther was none such. In her you might have seen magnitudinem cum mansuetudine, as Seneca hath it, singular humility in height of honours. She calleth here for Hatach, a faithful servant, and perhaps a Jew, a Jew inwardly. Honesty flows from piety.

One of the king's chamberlains] Heb. Eunuchs, or gelded men, such as used to keep their women in king's courts. The Chaldees call them rabrebanim, that is, nobles. The Persians call them spadones, saith Stephanus. The Greeks, eunuchs; either because they were princes' chamberlains, and had the custody of their beds: or because they were egregie cordati homines, well-minded men (Pαρα το ευνην εχειν παρα το ευ νουν εχειν): for they generally proved (as likewise now they do among the Turks) subjects, though not of great courage, yet of the greatest judgment and fidelity, their minds being set on business rather than on pleasure.

Whom he had appointed to attend upon her] Heb. Whom he had set before her, in obsequium et servitium, to be at her beck and obedience: probably he was happy in such a service, for goodness is communicative, and of a spreading nature. Plutarch saith of the neighbour villages of Rome in Numa's time, that sucking in the air of that city, they breathed δικαιοσυνη, righteousness and devotion; so it might very well be here. It was so with Abraham's servants, and Solomon's, and Cornelius's, Acts 10:7. Nero complained (and no wonder) that he could never find a faithful servant. What could they learn from him but villany and cruelty?

And gave him a commandment to Mordecai] i.e. She commanded him to deliver her mind to Mordecai. A servant is not to be inquisitive, John 15:15 , he knoweth not what his Lord doth but executive, ready to do what is required of him. He is the master's instrument, and wholly his, Oλως εκεινου, saith Aristotle. The hands must take counsel of the head, and bestir them.

To know what it was, and why it was] Some great matter she well knew it must needs be that put him to those loud laments. Wise men cry not till they are sorely hurt. Job's stroke was heavier than his groaning, Job 23:2. He was not of those that are ever whining: like some men's flesh, if their skin be but razed with a pin, it presently rankleth and festereth; or like rotten boughs, if a light weight be but hung on them, they presently creak and break. Mordecai she knew was none such. She therefore sendeth to see what was the matter, that she might help him, if possible. The tears and moans of men in misery are not to be slighted, as if they were nothing to us. Who is afflicted, and I burn not? saith Paul, 2 Corinthians 11:29. Weep with those that weep, else you add to their grief, Romans 12:15, as the priest and Levite did, by passing by the wounded man. Is it nothing to you, O ye that pass by the way? Lamentations 1:12. Are not ye also in the body, Hebrews 13:3, that is, in the body of flesh and frailty, subject to like afflictions? And may not your sins procure their sufferings, as a vein is opened in the arm to ease the pain of the head?