Esther 8:6

For how can I endure to see the evil that shall come unto my people? or how can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred?

Ver. 6. For how can I endure to see the evil, &c.] She had her life already given her at her petition; but unless she might have her people at her request, who were sold as well as herself, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish, Esther 7:3,4, her life would be unto her a joyless, that is, a lifeless life, Mortis enim habet vices quae trahitur vita gemitibus. It is rather a death than a life that is spent in heaviness and horror. And this would be Esther's case if her people should be massacred, as was designed and decreed; such was her holy sympathy and endeared affection to her countrymen and fellow citizens of heaven, that she could not live to behold such a sad and bloody spectacle:

Absit ut excisa possim super vivere Troia,

said Anchises to his son Æneas, that would have saved his life in that common destruction of his country: Far be it from me to outlive Troy. Curtius telleth us, that Alexander the Great, when he was extremely thirsty, and had water offered to him, he would not receive it, but put it by with this brave speech, Nec solus bibere sustineo, nec tam exiguum dividere omnibus possum, There is not enough for all my soldiers to share with me, and to drink it alone I cannot find in my heart, I will never do it. Compare herewith this speech of Esther, and you will find it far the better, as being full of those precious graces (whereunto Alexander was a perfect stranger), humility, prudence, faith, zeal toward God, and ardent love toward his people. Oh how great is the number of those today (saith Lavater here), qui ne micam Spiritus Estherae habent, who have not the least parcel of Esther's spirit, but are all for themselves, and for their own interests!

Or how can I endure to see] Heb. Quomodo potero et videbo? How can I? and shall I see? how should I do otherwise than sink at the sight (as she did in the Roman History, when her son was butchered; and as the Virgin Mary felt a sword at her heart when she beheld Christ crucified, Luk 2:35). Melancthon said, that good Oecolampadius died of grief for the Church's calamities. Nehemiah was heart sick for the breaches of Joseph, Nehemiah 2:3 Amos 6:6. Moses wished himself expunged, and Paul accursed, rather than it should go ill with God's people.