Esther 5

Chap. V. Ver. 1—14. Esther appears twice before the king, and invites him and Haman to her banquet. Haman prepares a gibbet for Mordecai.—It was the third day before Esther could summon courage to approach the king, and then all she dare do, was to invite the king and Haman to her banquet; horror and consternation. and, when they came, she had not courage to name her object, but only asked them to come again. Haman, however, was greatly delighted with the honour done him, and the respect paid him, little thinking of the queen’s real design; as he neither knew that she was related to Mordecai, nor of the same nation. Haman goes home and boasts to his friends of his riches and his honours; but is by the way again mortified by the unbending Mordecai, “who stood not up, nor moved, for him:”

a clear proof, as we conceive, that it was not the nature or degree of submission to which Mordecai objected; but the degradation of a Jew submitting to an Amalekite—a son of Israel to a descendant of the accursed Agag. As to the wife of Haman, she is so elevated with her “husband’s supposed good fortune, that she advises him to have a gallows erected fifty cubits (i.e. about thirty yards) high, and on the next day to move the king to hang Mordecai thereon; and not to wait the slow approach of the general massacre of his nation. He is delighted with the project, and determines to apply to the king on the following morning to have it executed: but little did Haman think of the secret counteraction now Truly, “God works in a mysterious way.”

• Sometimes the fate of a mighty empire may be shaken and overturned in a dream, as we read in the book of Daniel; at others, the want of sleep may produce the salvation of a nation, as we see in this book of Esther.

Notes on the verses

And who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?—This is the only expression in the whole book which has the most distant reference to the doctrine of divine providence; and this says no more than a heathen might have said in reference to fate. The writer had written with the express desire of excluding the divine being from

Cap. V. Ver. 6. Banquet of wine.—[Olearius, a ment at the Persian court, says, ‘* The floor of the hall was covered with cotton cloth, which was covered with all sorts of fruit and sweetmeats in basins of gold. With them was served up excellent Shiraz wine. At the time, the sweetmeats were removed, to make way for the more substantial part of the entertainment, such as rice, boiled and roast mutton, &c.

When the company had been at table an hour and a half, warm water was brought, in a ewer of gold, for washing; and grace being said, they began to retire without speaking a word, according to the custom of the country.”]—Bagster. It seems as if the describing an entertainment all was covered with cot- After an hour’s

Ver. 8. Let the king and Haman come.—{Esther probably wished another interview, that she might ingratiate herself more fully into the king’s favour, and thus secure the success of her design. But Providence disposed of things thus, to give time for the important event mentioned in the following chapter.}

Ver. 11. Haman told them.—The original implies, (according to Professor Gesenius,) “to announce with commendation.”

((Psalms 19:2).; xxviii. 4.) He boasted, gloried. See

Ver. 12. Haman said.—(Plutarch, in his life of Artaxerxes, informs us, that none but the king’s mother, and his real wife, were permitted to sit at his table; and therefore he mentions it as a condescension in that prince, that he sometimes invited his brothers. Haman, therefore, had some reason to be proud of this favour.)—Bagster.

Ver. 13. Availeth me nothing.—{Pride will ever render its possessor unhappy. Haman, though possessed of immense riches, glory, and honour, and the prime favourite of his king, is wretched, because he cannot have the homage of that man whom his heart even despised! O, how distressing are the inquietudes of pride and vanity!}—Bagster.