![]() We do well to pity with heartfelt compassion those who tell us that they ': cannot sleep at night." Scarcely a sentence comes more plaintively from human lips. ![]() Thinking of the sleepless sons and daughters of men, we may have in view. As little do we know when the finger of God is working on us, with us, for us, or mercifully against us. Little did Ahasuerus, as he tossed his restless head on the pillow, imagine that a Divine hand was laid on his troubled brain. God willed that the sovereign should not slumber in order that he might thus be led to have "the book of records of the chronicles brought and read before the king," and Mordecai's services be thus brought to his royal notice. He was interposing on behalf of his chosen people. That Lord of heaven, Keeper of Israel who slumbers not nor sleeps ( Psalm 121:4), now gave a wakeful night to this earthly monarch. He who "holds the king's heart in his hand," who can touch with the finger of his power the secret springs of our thought and feeling, now sent troubled thoughts to this Persian king. It is a striking instance of Divine providence. ![]() He had reached that fearful spiritual condition in which human life was of no account to him so that his power might be continued and his pleasures multiplied or secured. That many thousands of his subjects were about to be butchered in order that his coffers might be filled should have caused the monarch many a troubled day and many a sleepless night but such was the character of the man that no one suggests the impending massacre as the explanation of the king's restlessness. Clarkson We are not surprised to read that "on that night could not the king sleep." Not, indeed, that there was anything in Ahasuerus (Xerxes) to make us expect a restless night he appears to us here, as elsewhere, as a painful illustration of human heartlessness. ![]()
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