Esther 7

7:1, 2 So the king and Haman came to banquet with Esther the queen. And the king said again unto Esther on the second day at the banquet of wine, What is thy petition, queen Esther? and it shall be granted thee: and what is thy request? even to the half of the kingdom it shall be performed. Then Esther the queen answered and said, If I have found favour in thy sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request: for we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. But if we had been sold for bondmen and bondwomen, I had held my peace, although the adversary could not have compensated for the king’s damage. Then spake the king Ahasuerus and said unto Esther the queen, Who is he, and where is he, that durst presume in his heart to do so? And Esther said, An adversary and an enemy, even this wicked Haman. Then Haman was afraid before the king and the queen. And the king arose in his wrath from the banquet of wine and went into the palace garden: and Haman stood up to make request for his life to Esther the queen; for he saw that there was evil determined against him by the king. Then the king returned out of the palace garden into the place of the banquet of wine; and Haman was fallen upon the couch whereon Esther was. Then said the king, Will he even force the queen before me in the house? As the word went out of the king’s mouth, they covered Haman’s face. Then said Harbonah, one of the chamberlains that were before the king, Behold, also, the gallows fifty cubits high, which Haman hath made for Mordecai, who spake good for the king, standeth in the house of Haman. And the king said, Hang him thereon. So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then was the king’s wrath pacified.

8:1 On that day did the king Ahasuerus give the house of Haman the Jews’ enemy unto Esther the queen. And Mordecai came before the king; for Esther had told what he was unto her. And the king took off his ring, which he had taken from Haman, and gave it unto Mordecai. And Esther set Mordecai over the house of Haman. And Esther spake yet again before the king, and fell down at his feet, and besought him with tears to put away the mischief of Haman the Agagite, and his device that he had devised against the Jews. Then the king held out to Esther the golden sceptre. So Esther arose, and stood before the king. And she said, If it please the king, and if I have found favour in his sight, and the thing seem right before the king, and I be pleasing in his eyes, let it be written to reverse the letters devised by Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, which he wrote to destroy the Jews which are in all the king’s provinces: for how can I endure to see the evil that shall come

7 unto my people? or how can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred? Then the king Ahasuerus said unto Esther the queen and to Mordecai the Jew, Behold, I have given Esther the house of Haman, and him they have hanged upon the gallows, because he laid his hand 8 upon the Jews. Write ye also to the Jews, as it liketh you, in the king’s name, and seal it with the king’s ring: for the writing which is written in the king’s name, and sealed with 9 the king’s ring, may no man reverse. Then were the king’s scribes called at that time, in the third month, which is the month Sivan, on the three and twentieth day thereof; and it was written according to all that Mordecai commanded unto the Jews, and to the satraps, and the governors and princes of the provinces which are from India unto Ethiopia, an hundred twenty and seven provinces, unto every province according to the writing thereof, and unto every people after their language, and to the Jews according to their writing, and according 10 to their language. And he wrote in the name of king Ahasuerus, and sealed it with the king’s ring, and sent letters by posts on horseback, riding on swift steeds that were used in 11 the king’s service, bred of the stud: wherein the king granted the Jews which were in every city to gather themselves together, and to stand for their life, to destroy, to slay, and to cause to perish, all the power of the people and province that would assault them, their little 12 ones and women, and to take the spoil of them for a prey, upon one day in all the provinces of king Ahasuerus, namely, upon the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month 13 Adar. A copy of the writing, that the decree should be given out in every province, was published unto all the peoples, and that the Jews should be ready against that day to avenge 14 themselves on their enemies. So the posts that rode upon swift steeds that were used in the king’s service went out, being hastened and pressed on by the king’s commandment; and the 15 decree was given out in Shushan the palace. And Mordecai went forth from the presence of the king in royal apparel of blue and white, and with a great crown of gold, and with a robe 16 of fine linen and purple: and the city of Shushan shouted and was glad. The Jews had 17 light and gladness, and joy and honour. And in every province, and in every city, whither-soever the king’s commandment and his decree came, the Jews had gladness and joy, a feast and a good day. And many from among the peoples of the land became Jews; for the fear of the Jews was fallen upon them.

7:3, 4. My life, and my people. The queen’s lips are unsealed now, and three glowing sentences will tell the whole. Sold, destroy, kill, perish—the very words of Haman’s infamous decree! Compensate—literally, “the enemy could not be even, or level with”—i.e., up to the level of, the king’s damage. Let the enemy exhaust all his resources, and the king would still be a loser. Street.

4. It was the proffer of ten thousand talents, wherewith Haman hoped both to purchase his intended revenge and the reputation of a worthy patriot. Well might Esther plead, “If we Jews deserved death, what needed our slaughter to be bought out? and if we deserved it not, what horrible cruelty was it to set a price upon innocent blood! It is not any offence of ours; it is only the despite of an enemy that hath wrought our destruction.” Bp. H.—Esther adds that if it had been only a question of bondage, and of selling into such bondage of every man and woman of them, it was not her voice that should have been heard to deprecate, nor her lips that should have been parted in prayer to prevent it. But, she says, the case was one of greater, even of supreme extremity.

They were sold—to death. They were sold, in the words of the opportunely quoted “decree,” “to be destroyed, to be slain and to perish.” P. C.

It has been said that the whole book “breathes nothing but a spirit of pride and revenge”—“a very narrow-minded and Jewish spirit of revenge and persecution”—and that thus it is quite unworthy of a place in the canon. To us it seems that this is a gross misrepresentation. Esther, the heroine, is not a Judith, not even a Jael, but a timid, shrinking woman, forced into action by the danger of her near relative and of her nation. What can be more affecting than her words when first required to take an active part: “Go and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day; I also and my maidens will fast likewise; and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law; and if I perish, I perish!” Or what, again, more touching than her exclamation:

“Oh, how could I endure to see it—the evil which is coming on my people! Oh, how could I endure to see it—the destruction of my kindred!” (8:6.)

So far is she from being revengeful or persecutting, that she declares, apparently from her heart, “If we had been sold for bondmen and bondwomen, I had held my tongue” (7:4). G. R.

5. Who is this? The king is evidently aroused. The words of Esther have gone home to the mark. He throws out his pronouns in a wild confusion of excitement, and then repeats them with the order inverted. “Who is he, that one—and where is that one, he, whose heart has filled him (with the audacity) to do so?"—it is clear that the identification cannot wait. It must be prompt and unmistakable. And the queen is equal to the demand.

6. The man, adversary. The queen sees her advantage; and she speaks with all the vehemence of one who has deeply felt the monstrous injustice of Haman’s plot. The collocation of the words in the Hebrew leaves no doubt that they were accompanied with a gesture of the hand; her scorn and righteous indignation flashed out as she pointed to him. “The man, adversary and enemy, is Haman, the wretch, this (one).” Well might he be terror-stricken in that presence. He reads, in the king’s countenance and in his movements, the angry excitement that has taken possession of him. Street.

8. Haman, in the intensity of his supplication, had thrown himself upon the couch at Esther’s feet. Of course the king did not believe his own words. But he meant to tax Haman with a further offence in not sufficiently respecting the person of the queen; and he thereby suggested to the attendants his instant execution. B. C.

They covered Haman’s face. It was the custom so to cover the faces of condemned criminals, a custom also found among the ancient Romans, in that form of pronouncing sentence on a criminal ascribed by Cicero to Tarquinius Superbus: “Go, officer, bind his hands, veil his head, hang him on the fatal tree.” This custom was noticed in Egypt by Dr. Pococke, who speaks of a man brought before the Bey, like a malefactor, with his hands behind him as if tied, and a napkin put over his head, as malefactors commonly have. Parkhurst.

9. Hang him thereon. Thus, within the compass of a day, Haman’s fortune was completely reversed; but a few hours after he imagined his success most certain, this sentence of condemnation was pronounced upon him. Bp. Andrewes.

When iniquitous enterprises, managed by subtilty or violence, are suddenly and seasonably defeated, then the ever-vigilant eye and the all-powerful hand are concerned. God beholdeth unjust men setting out in their designs; He letteth them proceed in full career till they are reaching the object of their wishes; then instantly He checketh, He turneth them back, He overthroweth them. Thus was Haman’s plot confounded, when he had procured a royal decree, when he had fixed a time, when he had issued forth letters to destroy the people of God; thus declaring how vain is the presumption of the ungodly, how needful and how certain is His protection over His good and faithful servants; how much reason the one hath to dread Him, and the other to confide in Him. Barrow.

10. On the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. That same instrument, which he had reared on high for Mordecai’s destruction, is appointed by Providence for his own; and his shame and punishment are rendered as conspicuous as his former honor and prosperity. Balguy.

In that deliverance of the Jews from Haman’s conspiracy, there is no extraordinary manifestation of God’s power; no particular cause or agent was in its working advanced above the ordinary pitch of nature; and yet the contrivance or suiting of these ordinary agents appointed by God is more admirable than if the same end had been effected by means truly miraculous. For a king not to take kindly rest by night, though in a bed of ease, is not unusual; for a king again to seek to solace his waking thoughts by hearing the annals of his kingdom is more commendable than rare; but that king Ahasuerus should lie awake at that time, specially when Haman did plot the destruction of Mordecai; that, causing the chronicles of his kingdom to be read, the reader should light on the place wherein was recorded Mordecai’s unrewarded good service in discovering the treason intended against the king’s person—this was from the keeper of Israel, who neither slumbereth nor sleepeth, and who was marvellous in His people’s sight. Jackson.

Sooner or later, successful sin will be overthrown. We all “see the prosperity of the wicked,” as the psalmist did, and, like him, we are grieved and troubled by it. But we must be like the patient patriarch, and wait to see “the end of the Lord.” If we wait long enough we shall find that sin meets with its due award. The guilty empire founded in usurpation and bloodshed, and maintained by violence and corruption, goes down and goes out in ignominy and disaster. The guilty adventurer rears his head for many years, but misfortune and misery overtake him in time. Haman goes to the gallows at last. The truth is, that sin carries in itself the seeds of its own discomfiture; these must germinate, and grow, and bear fruit in time. “I have seen the wicked in great power,” etc.; but wait awhile, and “lo, he is not: he has passed away” (Ps. 37: 35).

Sooner or later, persecuted righteousness will triumph. Haman has gone to the gallows, and now Mordecai takes the chief chair of state. Let the godly man who is oppressed by iniquity bear his burden, and also his testimony; let him patiently pursue his course, looking up and looking on, and somewhere in the future the crown of a pure success awaits him—if not here, hereafter. “Weeping may endure for a night”—possibly a long night—but “joy comes in the morning.” It may be the morrow of the distant future, but it will then be the beginning of a cloudless and endless day. P. C.

8:2. Esther set Mordecai over the house of Haman. The “house of Haman” would include, not only the building and the furniture, but the household—the vast train of attendants of all kinds that was attached to the residence of a Persian noble. Esther, having received all this as a present from the king, placed her cousin in charge of it. B. C.—He whom Haman had plotted to destroy was now on the pinnacle of honor and power. “Man proposes, but God disposes.” Haman passed away, and Mordecai sits in his place, and is clothed with power for the saving of the people whom their wicked adversary would annihilate.

3. Continued, spoke, fell at his feet, wept, besought.** Here are five verbs describing the actions of Esther, and they disclose what a world of deep and mingled emotions had taken possession of her soul. They reveal also the nobler and heroic elements of character. Many a one that had undergone what had been laid on her would have ceased now that Haman’s body hung on the gibbet and Mordecai was in the seat of power. But this courageous woman rested not until all the work was done. She carries her people on her heart, and is ever ready to face danger in their behalf. Greene.

5. Reverse the letters devised by Haman.** To ask the king to unsay his own words was impossible. By representing the letters as devised by Haman, and written by Haman, Esther avoids doing so.

6. Esther’s life was now safe, and probably her cousin’s too.** But that was not enough.

Her nation was still in danger. The royal decree had delivered the Jews throughout the empire into the hands of their enemies. In a few months, unless measures were meantime taken to check and hinder the malice of their foes, thousands of Israelites might be exposed to violence, pillage and massacre. The thought was to Esther cruel beyond bearing. “How,” said she, “can I endure to see the evil that shall come unto my people, the destruction of my kindred?” This was patriotism indeed. P. C.

That which gives to the Book of Esther an enduring spiritual value is the noble, patriotic spirit of the Jewish race in the presence of the Gentiles among whom they sojourned, that passionate love of country and home, that generous pride in the independence of their race and creed, which kindled the song of Deborah, which continued to burn in the hearts of her countrymen and countrywomen after the lapse of a thousand years, and broke forth in the pathetic wail, in the courageous defiance, of the Jewish maiden, who, unseduced by the splendors, undaunted by the terror, of the Persian court, exclaimed, with the heroic determination, if need be, to sacrifice her life for her country, “If I perish, I perish! How can I endure to see the evil that shall come unto my people?” Stanley.—None but a truly heroic soul could have uttered such words as these, and with such effect. These speeches themselves afford an argument in favor of the genuineness and authenticity of this book. If they were uttered by Esther, and recorded by the scribes who wrote down all that fell from the lips of the king and those in his presence, and were engrossed in “the book of daily records,” we may well expect to find in these extracts from that book a true reflection of the genius, the character and intellectual ability of this remarkable woman. Put these speeches beside those of any heathen woman of antiquity, and how they tower up in all that constitutes womanly nobility. Greene.

8. The Medo-Persians prided themselves on the unchangeableness of their laws and edicts.** As Darius the Mede could not recede from his decree when he found that it menaced his favorite minister, Daniel; as Xerxes could not recall his word passed to Amestris, though it threatened to make a rebel of his brother; so Ahasuerus was (according to Persian notions) bound by his own act, and could not, without loss of his subjects’ respect, annul the edict which he had allowed Haman to issue in his name, and sign with his signet. It was necessary to have recourse to contrivance. The Jews’ enemies must be allowed to set on them; but the Jews might be permitted to defend themselves. That course had not been forbidden by the first edict; it was expressly allowed by the second. And the governors of provinces might be told to favor the Jews, and, if need were, to take their part. In this way the triumph of the Jews would be secured without the king having to go from his word. G. R.

9. A new decree must issue at once giving the requisite permission, and copies must be at once distributed, that there might be no mistake or misunderstanding. So the “king’s scribes” were summoned and set to work. P. C.

9. This is the longest verse in the Bible. The word rendered “scribe” occurs only in one other place (3:12) in this book. Among the Jews, the position of scribe was one of great importance. Among the Persians, the honor attaching to this term must have been even greater than among the Jews, because fewer of the people in proportion could wield the pen. “Ctesias informs us that the royal archives were written on parchment; and there is abundant evidence that writing was an art perfectly familiar to the educated Persian” (Raselinson). To the satraps, pashas, and princes of the provinces. The satraps were the rulers of the provinces, imperial magistrates representing the king in the provinces. Their authority was purely political and civil, the king making the military commanders always amenable to himself. The number of the satraps and the extent of their jurisdiction varied at different times. Greene.

10,11. This state of apprehension lasted for somewhat more than two months. Then, a little before midsummer, the posts went once more speeding through the land, bearing a royal message. The former decree could not be directly countermanded; and so, to defeat it, the Jews were allowed and encouraged to resist in arms any attack that might be made upon them by the native races among whom they dwelt, and assured of the neutrality—the benevolent neutrality—of the royal forces. At once there was a revulsion of feeling. The Jews were confident of their own strength, if they might freely use it, unhampered by the fear of being taxed with rebellion, and punished by the central authority for insurrection. So, everywhere, “in every province and in every city, whithersoever the king’s commandment and his decree came, the Jews had joy and gladness, a feast, and a good day” (verse 17). The sackcloth was put off; the mourning came to an end; feasting superseded fasting; “joy and gladness” took the place of sorrow and apprehension. G. R.

14. Being hastened. Between Sivan, the third month (June), when the posts went out, and Adar, the twelfth month (March), when the struggle was to take place, the interval would be one of above eight months; and two months would certainly have sufficed to carry the royal mandate to the remotest portions of the empire. Still, seeing how much depended on the mandate, and how necessary it was that the provincial governors should well comprehend the real wishes of the court in the matter (cf. chap. 9:3), we cannot be surprised that all haste was made. B. C.

15-17. Mordecai’s honor and the Jews’ joy. Ahasuerus was not content even now with what he had done for Mordecai. Before his minister quitted the presence, the king presented him with a crown of gold, and a robe and vest of honor; and thus arrayed he proceeded into the city of Susa, where the new edict was already known, and had been received with satisfaction (verse 15). The Persians, who formed the predominant element in the population of the town, sympathized with the Jews, and rejoiced in the king’s favor toward them; while the Jews of Susa, having passed from despair to confident hope, were full of gladness and thankfulness. In the provinces the decree had a still warmer welcome. Its arrival was celebrated with a “feast” (verse 17) and “a good day.” It led also to many of the heathen becoming proselytes to the Jewish religion—some perhaps from conviction, but others because they thought it safer to place themselves manifestly on the Jews’ side before the day of the struggle. P. C.

17. One good effect of this deliverance was, that many of the people of the land that were considerate, sober and well inclined, became Jews, were proselyted to the Jewish religion, renounced idolatry, and worshipped the true God only. Haman thought to extirpate the Jews, but it proves, in the issue, that their numbers are greatly increased, and many added to the Church. H.—Persecution always defeats its own object. Viewed as mere policy, it is the worst that can be employed. Persecute error, and it will spread tenfold; persecute truth, and it will spread a hundredfold. Unless, therefore, you wish the principles you hate to gain ground, persecute not at all. Haman, while he brought utter ruin upon himself by his cruel attempt to exterminate the Jews, raised the latter into an incomparably better position than they occupied before. P. C.

The Jews who remained among the heathen were thus not only to be preserved, as well as those who returned home, but they and their religion were destined to come to honor; and so the future residence of the Jews who remained behind among the heathen would serve ever to diffuse more widely the knowledge and worship of the true God, and to prepare a larger number than that of the Jews only for the advent of Christ. This new favor toward the

Jews was adapted to promote the views of Ezra and Nehemiah (cf. Ezra 9: 8, 9). C. G. B.—The dispersion of the Jews throughout the numerous provinces of the Babylonian and Persian empires became providentially the means of publishing the true religion among the people with whom they were intermixed. Being often eminently distinguished by the royal favor, they were enabled to convey a knowledge of the truth with greater advantage; the evident interpositions of God in the cause of His people also raising exalted sentiments of His religion. Owen.