Esther 3:6

And he thought scorn to lay hands on Mordecai alone,.... That would not be a sufficient gratification of his revenge; he was too low and mean a person only to wreak his vengeance on; nothing short of

Then the king's servants, which were in the king's gate, said unto Mordecai, Why transgressest thou the king's commandment? No JFB commentary on these verses.

He thought scorn; he thought that particular vengeance was unsuitable to his quality, and to the greatness of the injury. Haman sought to destroy all the Jews; which he attempted, partly, from that implacable hatred which, as an Amalekite, he had against them; partly, from his rage against Mordecai; and partly, from Mordecai’ s reason of this contempt, because he was a Jew, which, as he truly judged, extended itself to all the Jews, and would equally engage them all in the same neglect and hatred of his person,

Esther 3:6 And he thought scorn to lay hands on Mordecai alone; for they had shewed him the people of Mordecai: wherefore Haman sought to destroy all the Jews that [were] throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus, [even] the people of Mordecai.Ver. 6. And he thought scorn to lay hands on Mordecai alone] He thought it a small matter, saith Josephus, μικρονηγησατο, a thing below him, too little for his revenge, which, like fire, burneth all it can lay hold upon, especially when as here it ariseth from ambition, which, like choler adust, if constructed and stopped in its course, is a dangerous passion, and endeth in burning fevers and madness. Haman thought scorn, contempsit in oculis suis, contempt in his eyes, so the Hebrew, to foul his fingers with Mordecai alone, the whole nation must perish, and all the children of God that were scattered abroad, as he once said, John 11:50; John 11:52. In like manner, nostri temporis Hamanus, saith Merlin upon this text, the Haman of our time (meaning the duke of Guise, as I suppose), when as by the king’ s favour he was promoted, and promised himself the crown, there being but one family only that stood in his way, he desired together with it to overturn all the Reformed religion and to root out all the remembrance of the Churches in France. Hence the Parisian Massacre, wherein Merlin had his part, being household chaplain to the admiral, and by a miracle of God’ s mercy escaping those hellish cut throats. The first occasion of that bloody massacre, I have somewhere read, was this (Other things I know were pretended, as if the Protestants had plotted and practised against the king, queen mother, and the princes of the blood, and coin stamped with this inscription, Virtus in rebelles, &c. Courage in rebellion). The pope sent to the cardinal of Lorraine, brother to the duke of Guise, a table, wherein was painted our lady with a little child in her arms, by the most excellent painter in Christendom, and consecrated with his own hands, and enclosed it in a case of silk, and a letter with it, giving him high commendation and thanks for his zeal against the Huguenots. The messenger that carried the present fell sick by the way, and finding one going into France, entreated him to deliver the present to the cardinal. The cardinal read the letter, and laid the table on his bed, for he would not open it, till he might do it with greater solemnity. For this purpose he invited the duke of Guise to dinner with many other great personages. In the meanwhile one that liked not the cardinal, found means to change the table, &c.

6. But he thought scorn etc.] Haman’s wrath was so excessive that to punish the man who excited it seemed to him as nothing. The whole nation to which his enemy belonged must perish. A little more than forty years previously, at the accession of Darius Hystaspes, there had been a general massacre of the Magi, when the people “slew every Magus who came in their way” (Herod. iii. 79). This and other instances[67] which might be adduced illustrate the tendency towards passionate and excessive vengeance on the part of the Oriental disposition, which holds human life cheap. Some, however, have seen in Haman’s conduct the operation of a wider principle in the shape of race-hatred, paralleled in later days by anti-semitic outbursts upon the continent, or the persecution of Eastern Christians by the Turks. [67] For example, when Cyaxares and the Medes invite to a banquet a large number of Scythians, whose depredations had proved troublesome, and massacre them when drunk (Herod. i. 106).

To destroy all the Jews - In the East massacres of a people, a race, a class, have at all times been among the incidents of history, and would naturally present themselves to the mind of a statesman.

6. He thought scorn — Literally, it was contemptible in his eyes. To punish Mordecai alone was too little a thing, in his estimation, to reconcile his offended honour.