Mordecai in Fausset's Bible Dictionary
A Persian name according to Gesenius, "worshipper of
Merodach". But a Babylonian idol's name would not have been
given him under the Persian dynasty, which rejected idols.
It is rather Matacai. Ctesias (Prideaux Connect. 1:231-233),
who probably saw the Medo-Persian chronicles mentioned in
Esther 10:2, names a Matacas, Xerxes' chief favorite, the
most powerful of the eunuchs. Xerxes sent Matacas to spoil
Apollo's temple at Delphi (Miletus?) a work congenial to a
Jew, as the order was to the iconoclastic king. Mordecai had
neither wife nor child, brought up his cousin Esther in his
own house, and had access to the court of the women, all
which circumstances accord with his being a eunuch as
Matacas was, a class from whom the king had elevated many to
the highest posts.
Xerxes delighted in extravagant acts; and Haman, who
knew his weakness, naturally suggested the extraordinary
honors exceeding all that a king ought, in respect for his
own dignity, to grant to a subject, because he thought it
was for himself they were intended. Mordecai was a Benjamite
at Shushan who reared his uncle's daughter Esther: Esther
2:5-7. (See ESTHER.) The instrument under Providence in
saving the Jews from extermination by Haman, as his not
bowing to that Amaleldte was the occasion of Haman's
murderous spite against the chosen race. Xerxes' prime
minister, or vizier. Instituted the feast Purim. (See
HAMAN.)
Probably wrote the book of Esther. Esther's
favorable reception by Ahasuerus when she ventured at the
risk of death, unasked, to approach him, and his reading in
the Medo-Persian chronicles the record of Mordecai's
unrewarded service in disclosing the conspiracy, on the very
night before Haman came, and Haman's being constrained to
load with kingly honors the man whom he had come to ask
leave to hang, and then being hanged on the gallows he made
for Mordecai, are most remarkable instances of the working
of Providence, and of God's secret moral government of the
world, in spite of all appearances to the contrary. (See
AHASUERUS.)
Mordecai was great grandson of Kish the Benjamite
taken captive in Jeconiah's captivity, 599 B.C. Four
generations thence, or 120 years, bring Mordecai exactly
down to 479, the sixth year of Xerxes, thus proving
Ahasuerus' identity and Mordecai's own date. At Xerxes'
death, or even before, Mordecai probably led to Jerusalem a
body of Jews, as recorded in Ezra 2:2; Nehemiah 7:7. The
rabbis designate him "the just." His tomb and Esther's are
shown at Hamadan or Ecbatana (?). Others place his tomb at
Susa. The palace at Shushan, begun by Darius Hystaspes,
Loftus (Chaldaea, 28) discovered remains of; the bases of
the great colonnade remain, and accord with the description
in Esther 1.
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