The Expositor's Bible: Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. Adeney Walter Frederic

to alter or destroy the temple at Jerusalem. The savagery of his menace is in harmony with his conduct when, according to Herodotus, he impaled three thousand men at Babylon after he had recaptured the city.59 Those were cruel times – Herodotus tells us that the besieged Babylonians had previously strangled their own wives when they were running short of provisions.60 The imprecation with which the edict closes may be matched by one on the inscription of Darius at Behistum, where the Great King invokes the curse of Ormazd on any persons who should injure the tablet. The ancient despotic world-rulers had no conception of the modern virtue of humanitarianism. It is sickening to picture to ourselves their methods of government. The enormous misery involved is beyond calculation. Still we may believe that the worst threats were not always carried out; we may make some allowance for Oriental extravagance of language. And yet, after all has been said, the conclusion of the edict of Darius presents to us a kind of state support for religion which no one would defend in the present day. In accepting the help of the Persian sovereign the Jews could not altogether dissociate themselves from his way of government. Nevertheless it is fair to remember that they had not asked for his support. They had simply desired to be left unmolested.