Esther 7
PATSatan filled thine heart?’’ Made thee so daring and presumptuous. The like, Ecclcs. viii. 11. Vcr. G. And Esther said, Tlie adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman. She found now that she need not fear to speak plainly. Tlien Haman was afraid before the king and the queen.’] For he could not but see the danger he was in to lose his greatness and his life. And his fear was the greater, now he knew the queen was one of that nation whom he had conspired to destroy. «
Esther 7:1
id O the king and Haman came to banquet with Esther the queen.
Esther 7:2
And the king said again to Esther on the second day, at the banquet of wine. When his heart was merry, and highly delighted with his entertainment. What is thy petition, queen Esther? and it shall be granted thee: and what is thy request? and it shall be performed, even to the half of the kingdom.] This promise, renewed the third time, gave her courage to present her suit to him.
Esther 7:3
Then Esther the.queen. Lifting up her eyes to heaven, as the Targum enlarges it. Answered and said, If I have found favour in thy sight, O king, and if it please the king.] Thus she prefaced to her request, when she only beseeched him to accept of a banquet from her. Let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request.] That is, the life of her people.
Esther 7:4
For we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. For Haman had offered a great sum of money to purchase their destruction. She uses so many words, that she might express the outrageous mischief intended against them, which was no less than their extermination. But if we had been sold for bond-men and bond-women I had held my tongue.] For that might have turned to the" king’s profit, and they might, at one time or other, have recovered their liberty. Although the enemy could not countervail the king’s damage.] The king would not have gained so much as he would have lost by it. But there is another interpretation which Aben Ezra mentions, who takes the Hebrew word hat zar not to signify an enemy, but distress, misery, and trouble. Which makes this sense, If they had sold ns for slaves, I had not troubled the king with my petition, because that misery of ours would not have been so much to the king’s damage. (See De Dieu.) Ver. 5- Then the king Ahasuerus answered and said unto Esther the queen, Wlto is he, and where is he, that durst presume in his heart to do so?] It seemed incredible that any man should entertain such a thought (for the king, I suppose, had forgot the decree Hainan had obtained from him), to cut off a whole nation. In the Hebrew the words arc, WJio is he whose heart hath filled him to do so? A speech like that in the New Testament, Acts v. 3. " Why hath
Esther 7:7
And the king, arising from the banquet of wine in his wrath, went into the palace-garden. To take breath, and cool himself; being in a great commotion, by variety of passions boiling and struggling in him. For as he loved the queen, so he loved Haman; and yet was full of indigna- ■ tion that he should engage him in such an odious design. And Haman stood up to make request for his life to Esther the queen.] Who he thought might have so much tenderness, as to take compassion upon him and forgive him. For he saw that there was evil determined against him by the king.] Which he discerned by the king’s countenance, and by his going out of the room in a great fume and violent passion; which, it is likely, broke out into threatening words.
Esther 7:8
Tfien the king returned, out of the palace-garden into the place of thebanquet of wine; and Haman was fallen upon the bed whereon Esther was. They sat, or rather lay upon beds, as they ate and drank: and Haman fell down as a supplicant at the feet of Esther, laying his hand upon her knees, and beseeching her to take pity upon him. I have not read any where that this was the manner among the Persians; but it was among, the Greeks and Romans, to embrace the knees of those whom they petitioned to be favourable to them. Insomuch, that it was a rite in their religious worship to touch the knees of their gods. (See Pliny, lib. xi. cap. 45.) And thus Sulpitius Severus takes it to have been done here, " Deinde regressus rex, vidit Am an reginae genua amplexum."’ Then said the king, Will he force the queen also before me in the house?] The king finding him in this posture, interpreted it, as if he were so impudent as, before the king’s face, and in his own palace, to offer violence to the queen’s chastity. Not that he believed this was his intention; but in his furious passion he turned every thing to the worst sense, and made use of it to aggravate his crime. As the word went out of the king’s month, they covered Haman’sface.] That he might not see the face of the king any more; or rather, as a man condemned, this told him his doom: for it is likely the king, when ho saw him in that posture, made a sign what they should do with him, which immediately was performed. Though Aben Ezra saitli, this was always done to those with whom the king was angry, though they were not put to death; to shew them what they deserved, never to see the king more. Vcr. 9. And Harbonah, one of the cfutmberlains, said before the king.] The latter Targum saith, that this Harbonah was one of Hainan’s counsel, who advised him to set up the gallows to hang Mordccai; but, seeing this strange turn of affairs, incensed the king, by telling him what Haman designed against him who had saved the king’s life. Behold also the gallows, fifty cubits high, xvhich Haman had made for Mordecai; xuho had spoken good for the king, standeth in the house of Haman J] Upon which he intended to make Mordecai an example to all those that should presume to offend him. Then the king said, Hang him thereon.] But whether dead or alive is not said, as Salmasius observes; who shctfs, by many instances, (in his book De Crucc, p. 494.) that it was the manner of the Persians, first to cut off the heads of malefactors, and then to hang them on a gibbet. Joscphus, indeed, saith, that he commanded Haman, Ik aravpov icpiliavSlvra inroOavtiv, to be put to death hanging on a cross: but crucifying was not a Persian punishment; nor did the Romans let the bodies of malefactors die on the cross themselves; but they extinguished them some other way.
Esther 7:10
So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Tlien was the king’s wrath pacified. The latter Targum here adds a great deal of frivolous stuff, how the king sent for Mordecai, and charged him to see the execution done upon Haman; and how he begged of Mordecai to spare his life^ at least not to hang him, who had been so great, like a varlct, &e. but he concludes very well, that now was verified the observation of Solomon, (Prov. xi. 8.) " The righteous is delivered out of trouble, and the wicked cometh in his stead." I cannot think fit to end this chapter without taking notice of a reflection which a great man of our own church made long ago upon it: that, in this wonderful deliverance of the Jewish nation, there was no extraordinary manifestation of God’s power, no particular cause or agent, that was in its working advanced above the ordinary pitch of nature; and yet the contrivance, or suiting of those ordinary agents appointed by God, is more admirable than if the same end had been effected by means truly miraculous. That a king should not sleep is not unusual, nor that he should solace his waking thoughts by hearing the annals of his own kingdom, or the journals of his own reign, read to him, &c. But that he should lie aw T ake at that time especially, when Haman was watching to destroy the Jews, and that, in the chronicles of the kingdom, they should light on that place where Mordecai’s unrewarded services were recorded; and that he should resolve forthwith to do him honour; and Haman come in at that very nick of time when the king was so disposed; and should ignorantly determine what honour should be done him, and be made the instrument of it: this was from the keeper of Israel, who neither slumbers nor sleeps, and was truly marvellous in his people’s sight, as Dr. Jackson speaks in his second sermon upon 2 Chron. vi. 39, 40. where he observes, that miracles arc in their nature more apt to affect the sense; but such secret contrivances of God’s wisdom and providence do more affect the understanding: the one works astonishment, the other admiration. For which reason, miracles were more frequent in the infancy of our religion, to enforce unbelievers to give ear to the words of life, and to take God’s promises (which otherwise they might have slighted) into serious consideration: but now the ways of God’s wisdom, or secret dispositions of his providence, are more apt to cherish the seed of life sown in the hearts of believers. Miracles k by continual frequency would cease to be miracles, and not be wondered at; whereas the unsearchable ways of God’s wisdom in contriving extraordinary suc-r cesses, by means ordinarily, will incessantly breed in us matter of admiration: and his wise contrivances are still,