Esther 5

5:1 Now it came to pass on the third day, that Esther put on her royal apparel, and stood in the inner court of the king’s house, over against the king’s house: and the king sat upon his royal throne in the royal house, over against the entrance of the house. And it was so, when the king saw Esther the queen standing in the court, that she obtained favour in his sight: and the king held out to Esther the golden sceptre that was in his hand. So Esther drew near, and touched the top of the sceptre. Then said the king unto her, What wilt thou, queen Esther? and what is thy request? it shall be given thee even to the half of the kingdom. And Esther said, If it seem good unto the king, let the king and Haman come this day unto the banquet that I have prepared for him. Then the king said, Cause Haman to make haste, that it may be done as Esther hath said. So the king and Haman came to the banquet that Esther had prepared. And the king said unto Esther at the banquet of wine, What is thy petition? and it shall be granted thee: and what is thy request? even to the half of the kingdom it shall be performed. Then answered Esther, and said, My petition and my request is; if I have found favour in the sight of the king, and if it please the king to grant my petition, and to perform my request, let the king and Haman come to the banquet that I shall prepare for them, and I will do to-morrow as the king hath said. Then went Haman forth that day joyful and glad of heart: but when Haman saw Mordecai in the king’s gate, that he stood not up nor moved for him, he was filled with wrath against Mordecai. Nevertheless Haman refrained himself, and went home; and he sent and fetched his friends and Zeresh his wife. And Haman recounted unto them the glory of his riches, and the multitude of his children, and all the things wherein the king had promoted him, and how he had advanced him above the princes and servants of the king. Haman said moreover, Yea, Esther the queen did let no man come in with the king unto the banquet that she had prepared but myself; and to-morrow also am I invited by her together with the king. Yet all this availeth me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate. Then said Zeresh his wife and all his friends unto him, Let a gallows be made of fifty cubits high, and in the morning speak thou unto the king that Mordecai may be hanged thereon: then go thou in merrily with the king unto the banquet. And the thing pleased Haman; and he caused the gallows to be made.

6:1 On that night could not the king sleep; and he commanded to bring the book of 2 records of the chronicles, and they were read before the king. And it was found written, that Mordecai had told of Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s chamberlains, of those that 3 kept the door, who had sought to lay hands on the king Ahasuerus. And the king said, What honour and dignity hath been done to Mordecai for this? Then said the king’s servants 4 that ministered unto him, There is nothing done for him. And the king said, Who is in the court? Now Haman was come into the outward court of the king’s house, to speak unto the 5 king to hang Mordecai on the gallows that he had prepared for him. And the king’s servants said unto him, Behold, Haman standeth in the court. And the king said, Let him come in. 6 So Haman came in. And the king said unto him, What shall be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour? Now Haman said in his heart, To whom would the king 7 delight to do honour more than to myself? And Haman said unto the king, For the man 8 whom the king delighteth to honour, let royal apparel be brought which the king useth to wear, and the horse that the king rideth upon, and on the head of which a crown royal is set: 9 and let the apparel and the horse be delivered to the hand of one of the king’s most noble princes, that they may array the man withal whom the king delighteth to honour, and cause him to ride on horseback through the street of the city, and proclaim before him, Thus shall 10 it be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honour. Then the king said to Haman, Make haste, and take the apparel and the horse, as thou hast said, and do even so to Mordecai 11 the Jew, that sitteth at the king’s gate: let nothing fail of all that thou hast spoken. Then took Haman the apparel and the horse, and arrayed Mordecai, and caused him to ride through the street of the city, and proclaimed before him, Thus shall it be done unto the man whom 12 the king delighteth to honour. And Mordecai came again to the king’s gate. But Haman 13 hastened to his house, mourning and having his head covered. And Haman recounted unto Zeresh his wife and all his friends every thing that had befallen him. Then said his wise men and Zeresh his wife unto him, If Mordecai, before whom thou hast begun to fall, be of the seed 14 of the Jews, thou shalt not prevail against him, but shalt surely fall before him. While they were yet talking with him, came the king’s chamberlains, and hastened to bring Haman unto the banquet that Esther had prepared.

5:1. And now she walks into the inner court of the king, and puts herself into that forbidden presence, as if she said, “Here I am, with my life in my hand. If it please the king to take it, it is ready for him. Vashti, my predecessor, forfeited her place for not coming when she was called. Esther shall now hazard the forfeiture of her life for com- ing when she is not called. It is necessity, not disobedience, that hath put me upon this bold approach. According to thy construction, O king, I do either live or die; either shall be welcome.” Bp. H.

2,3. Esther passed through the entrance into the pillared throne room, and across the wide room to the throne, and touched the top of the sceptre. What she did, she did right royally. I think the king became at once as proud of her courage as he was of her beauty. I think he felt a respect for her such as he had never felt before. He did not wait for her to speak, but addressed her as “Queen Esther,” and promised that her request should be grant- ed, to the half of his kingdom. W. J. B.

4. Ahasuerus at once showed favor to his queen; and surmising, as she drew near, that she had an important request to make, encour- aged her to make it. She would not tell it in open court, but invited the king and Haman to a banquet in her own apartments. It was shrewdly done. Esther would re-establish her influence over her husband; and she would throw the favorite off his guard, taking care, too, to have him present when she should un- veil his malice, that he might not defeat or es- cape her. D. F.—The king understood that this invitation to a banquet, couched in the form of a request, was simply preliminary to some petition of greater importance. This was in accordance with Oriental usage.

8. She proposes a similar banquet on the morrow, with the promise that she will then make a full disclosure of that which she has upon her heart. Whence came that wisdom? We cannot well doubt, in the light of what im- mediately follows, that an unseen guide was leading her in a way that she knew not. Street.—Her intention in thus desiring to en- tertain the king twice at her banquets before she made known her petition to him was, that she might thereby dispose him the better to grant the request which she had to make to him. Prideaux.—There was also a singular providence of God in so disposing her mind that the high honor which the king bestowed on Mordecai the next day might in the mean while fall out, and so make way for her petition; as also that Haman might in the mean while make his preparations for the execution of Mordecai. Wells.

13. This is the most brilliant day in the life of the favorite courtier. Rich in treasure, in sons, in honor, he is invited, not merely to-day, but to-morrow, to the table of the king and queen; perhaps from this some new distinction may proceed. “Yet all this availeth me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting in the king’s gate.” The one bitter drop poisons the entire cup of sensual gratification, and the universally envied Haman is really the man most to be pitied in all Susa. Van O.

We are usually more alive to the good we want than to that which we possess; rendered delicate by indulgence rather than satiated by enjoyment, the slightest check in the career of our desires inflicts a wound which their gratification in every other particular is incapable of healing. Thus the wretched Haman, in the highest plenitude of affluence and power, exclaimed, All this availeth me nothing, while Mordecai sits in the gate. Such is the capricious fastidiousness of the human heart, chiefly in those who are most pampered with the gifts of fortune, that the person whom nothing has the power of gratifying long the merest trifle is sufficient to displease, and that he is often extremely chagrined and disquieted by the absence of that whose presence would scarcely be felt. R. Hall.

Those things which availed nothing to the happiness of Haman, under his vexation of spirit, are enumerated by him in his complaint uttered in the presence of his friends. They consist of the greatest distinctions and favors that he could desire from the king, and the most alluring objects of human wishes. Nevertheless his enjoyment of all this prosperity is alloyed by the single circumstance of Mordecai’s disrespect, which was made a source of misery by his own passions and imagination. So it is that the proud, the revengeful, the discontented, the unthankful and impatient, are their own tormentors; whether God immediately execute His judgments on them or not, their own temper of mind is their punishment; on the other hand, the various natural passions and affections of the heart work together for good, through the Divine grace, to those who govern them rightly. J. Ba’guy.

14. A gallows, in the ordinary sense, is scarcely intended, since hanging was not a Persian punishment. The intention, no doubt, was to crucify or impale Mordecai; and the pale or cross was to be seventy-five feet high, to make the punishment more conspicuous. B. C.

6:1-11. Mordecai slept well that night, unconscious of danger; but the Lord, who kept Israel, slumbered not, and so ordered it in His providence that the rage of the heathen was disappointed of its prey. “On that night could not the king sleep.” No doubt this had happened before, for sleep is far more secure and sweet to the laboring man than to the voluptuary; but it was of God that, on this critical night, when sleep fled, the king was disposed, not to vain amusement, but to reflection on the events of his reign. The chronicles of his kingdom were brought forth and read to him. In the roll of records read on that night to Ahasuerus, mention was made of the plot against his life, which Mordecai detected and defeated. On hearing it, conscience smote the king; nothing had been done for the preserver of his life; and the Jew had urged no claim, nor sought reward, but sat patiently in his place at the king’s gate.

Ahasuerus, when roused, was full of will and energy. So soon as it was day he called, “Who is in the court?” Lo! Haman, greedy of revenge, had come already to crave the death of Mordecai. Before he could prefer his request, he was commanded by the king to lead Mordecai in a procession of honor through the city. What an effort Haman must have made to command himself, and to conceal the secret writhing he endured in doing such a service! Think how he must have felt, as the procession passed the gallows fifty cubits high.

Mordecai showed a sober mind. Not elated by the sudden mark of royal favor he had received, he returned quietly to his post at the gate. But he was confirmed, we may be sure, in faith that God would deliver His people, and he was encouraged to augur well for Esther’s intervention. D. F.

1. On that night.** The Hebrew makes the time very definite; that very night—i.e., the night immediately following the day of the queen’s banquet, and of Haman’s conference with Zeresh and his friends just narrated. The king’s sleep fled—this is literal; a bold figure! The king cannot command his own sleep. It was not an event that was in any way surprising or worthy of special notice, except as connected in the chain of events. In this connection it was vital, and gave token of the ordering of the Divine hand. Street.

At the very juncture when Esther was gradually preparing for herself a favorable opportunity to plead the cause of her people, on the very night preceding the day upon which Haman, unable in the greatness of his anger longer to wait the full execution of his rapacious revenge, had determined to petition the king for Mordecai’s destruction, on the night, too, of the very day in which he had prepared a gallows for this purpose—"on that night," recites the text, “could not the king sleep.” B.

A seemingly slight incident may involve great, momentous issues. Often may sleep have gone from the king’s eyes and nothing of consequence have followed. But that night was memorable, for that night’s sleeplessness was the occasion of the salvation of Mordecai, and perhaps of Israel. In the providence of God, as though to rebuke men’s self-confidence, little things are sent on high errands. It is a striking instance of Divine providence. He who “holds the king’s heart in His hand,” who can touch with the finger of His power the secret springs of thought and feeling, now sent troubled thoughts to this Persian king. That Lord of heaven, keeper of Israel, who slumbers not nor sleeps, was interposing on behalf of His chosen people. 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. Little did Ahasuerus, as he tossed his restless head on the pillow, imagine that a Divine hand was laid on his troubled brain. As little do we know when the finger of God is working on us, with us, for us, or mercifully against us. P. C.

2. The wit of Zeresh had like to have gone beyond the wit of Esther. Had not the working providence of the Almighty contrived these events, beyond all hopes, all conceits, Mordecai had been dispatched, ere Esther’s second banquet. To-morrow was the day pitched for both their designs. But God meant better things to His people; and fetches about all His holy purposes, after a wonderful fashion, in the very instant of opportunity. “He that keepeth Israel, and neither slumbereth nor sleepeth,” causeth sleep that night to depart from him that had decreed to root out Israel. Great Ahasuerus, that commanded a hundred and seven and twenty provinces, cannot command a night’s sleep. So he shall spend his restless hours in the chronicles of his time. Among those voluminous registers of acts and monuments, which so many scores of provinces must needs yield, the book shall open upon Mordecai’s discovery of the late treason of the two eunuchs; the reader is turned thither, by an insensible sway of Providence. Our most arbitrary or casual actions are overruled by a hand in heaven. Bp. H.

The Scriptures relate many events brought to pass by means which seem disproportionate, unsuitable and even contrary to the effect. Such events speak God to be their cause, His invisible power supplying the apparent defects in the means. Thus plots contrived in darkness, with all possible caution and secrecy, are by improbable means and unaccountable accidents disclosed and brought to light; “a bird of the air,” as the wise man speaks, “telling the matter,” or “the stone,” according to the expression of the prophet, “crying out of the wall.” In the Book of Esther we read: The king cannot sleep; to divert him, the chronicle is called for; Mordecai’s service is there pitched upon, and inquiry made concerning his recompense; honor is decreed him; so the cruel device of Haman comes out, and he himself suffers. Whence can such events proceed but from the ever-watchful care of Him whose eyes are upon the ways of man, and He seeth all his goings? Isaac Barrow.

God’s providence is a wonderful scheme; a web of many threads, woven with marvellous skill; a network composed of all kinds of materials, great and small, but so arranged that the very smallest of them is as essential as the largest to the completeness of the fabric. One would suppose that many of the dramas of the Old Testament were planned on very purpose to show how intimately things secular and things sacred, as we call them, are connected together; how entirely the minutest events are controlled by God, and at the same time how thoroughly the freedom of man is preserved. The meeting of two convicts in an Egyptian prison is a vital link in the chain of events that makes Joseph governor of Egypt; a young lady coming to bathe in the river preserves the life of Moses, and secures the escape of the Israelites; the thoughtful regard of a father for the comfort of his sons in the army brings David into contact with Goliath, and prepares the way for his elevation to the throne; the beauty of a Hebrew girl fascinating a Persian king saves the whole Hebrew race from massacre and extermination. W. G. B.

3. What honor hath been done to**

Mordecai for this? It was a settled principle of the Persian government that “royal benefactors” were to receive an adequate reward. The names of such persons were placed on a special roll (Herod. viii. 85), and great care was taken that they should be properly recompensed. B. C.

4. The king said, Who is in the court?** Probably some high officer of state was required to be always in attendance upon the monarch, to take his orders at any moment. Now Haman was come. Early morning is a common time for the transaction of business at an Eastern court. Haman was so anxious to get the business on which he was bent dispatched, that he had come perhaps even before daybreak, and was waiting in the outer court to get, if possible, the first audience. This haste of his to effect Mordecai’s destruction led to his being the person deputed to do him the highest honor. P. C.

10. Mordecai the Jew, that sitteth at the king’s gate.** There is nothing strange in the king’s knowing the nationality and position of Mordecai. His nationality would probably have been noted in the book of the chronicles. B. C.—Do so to Mordecai. Probably no more sudden or chilling reverse ever befell any mortal. Not only does his vision of the highest earthly glory to which he could aspire collapse at a breath, but his dream of revenge is gone; and worse than all, the magnificent demonstration which he had devised for himself all goes under his own superintendence to the honor of him whom he hated most of all men, and for whom he had been contriving a doom of shame and death. This sudden check to the flow of his spirits led him to imagine something deeper than the king intended.

12. His head covered.** He went through the required demonstration, doubtless, as became a great minister of state upon whom a thousand eyes were turned. But when he had escaped from public gaze, he could command himself no longer. He felt that he must hide his telltale countenance from those he would meet, till he reached the asylum of sympathy which he would find in his home. Street.

Came again to the gate. A Haman would have been intoxicated by such an honor as was conferred on his enemy. To Mordecai the parade through the city was but an empty pageant, except in so far as it might contribute to his purpose of saving Israel. Hence we find him, after putting off the royal robes, returning to his post at the king’s gate. The passing honors of the world make no change in those who are weighted with the pursuit of honors which the world cannot give. Their chief desire is to be at their post and do the work given them by a higher than an earthly master—“to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with their God” (Micah 6: 8). It required no effort for Mordecai to descend from his momentary exaltation to his humble position as a palace servitor. His duty was in the king’s gate. How blessed to be able to subordinate all merely personal or earthly things to the service of God! P. C.

13. Hast begun to fall.** His counsellors, and even his wife, have no prop for him in his adversity. Their words have the effect, rather, of an additional impulse downward. No less than three changes are rung by them on that word fall. “Thou hast begun to fall; falling, thou shalt fall before him”—so, when literally rendered. How different their language from that with which they cheered him on his way to the former banquet of the queen! Street.

After all necessary allowances and substitutions have been made, it may be very justly said that Shakespeare’s Wolsey is essentially dwarfed by Scripture’s Haman, and that not the finest of Shakespeare’s five-act plays—wonderful products of human genius as they are—but must yield to the ten briefer chapters, with their five chief characters, of our Book of Esther. The book is indeed a consummate epic of the human heart. Its photographs are vivid and accurate, but they are not the facsimile of a countenance alone, but of things revealed and laid bare, in the fallen type of man, by the most skilful anatomy. What an extraordinary proclamation it makes, at one and the same time, of the vanity of human greatness and of the greatness of human vanity! How forcibly does it remind us of that Scripture that saith not in vain, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked,” and there bids us hold our breath awhile! We can scarcely go on to say, “Who can know it?” for we find it manifestly set forth as known by One, at all events, whose finger guides us to the observation of it, and whose pencil limms it. Certainly the present passage lays bare such a heart to the core of it, and at the core it is bad. It is of an aggravated type. It reveals a miserable creature on his own showing, judged by his own standard, and at the confession of his own lips. We have no difficulty in understanding the description which Haman gives of himself. But the difficulty would lie in crediting the phenomenon of any man, knowing his own symptoms so well, being ready to speak them so frankly, where they are what they are here.

In the larger, bolder, blacker portrait of Haman is there not some semblance of self, when, amid opportunities and advantages innumerable, comforts and joys innumerable, bright prospects and hopes innumerable, we put them all far from us just because everything conceivable is not to our mind. We are prone to share the perverse nature of Haman when, as mere matter of fact, we overlook a thousand mercies we possess in favor of keenly noticing the absence of one withheld, like Eden’s apple, or withdrawn after long enjoyment of it. We are prone to share the unfruitful nature of Haman. No fact has come to be better ascertained in human life than this, that it is not those who have most who give most. The greatest opportunity often witnesses the least improvement of it. Barker.

ESTHER’S PLEA FOR HER PEOPLE, AND CHARGE AGAINST HAMAN. HAMAN IMPALED AND MORDECAI ELEVATED. DECREE PERMITTING SELF-DE-FENCE BY THE JEWS.