Esther 7-8
Notes
Transcript
We left off last week with Haman having prepared the gallows to hang Mordecai on. Before Haman could ask the king to hang Mordecai he was met with a question from the king about what should be done for the man that the king delights to honor. Haman thinking that the king would want to honor him gave an answer that he thought would bring himself the most honor. Unfortunately for Haman, King Ahasuerus couldn’t sleep that night so he called for the book of the records of chronicles to be read to him and he learned that Mordecai had foiled an assassination attempt against the king and nothing had been done to honor him. So the question was about honoring Mordecai the man that Haman most despised.
The result you may remember is found in verses 10-14.
Verses 1-4
Verses 1-4
Now don’t forget that this is banquet #2. At the first banquet Esther asked the king and Haman to come back the next day so that she could tell the king about Haman’s plan to kill all the Jews in the Persian Empire.
Notice how carefully Esther approaches the topic. First she asks for her own life to be spared before telling the king that all of her people have been decreed to be destroyed, killed, and annihilated. Notice however that she doesn’t even tell the king or Haman (who is standing right there) that she is a Jew. She is going to let the reality of the moment sink in before she reveals that she is a Jew.
It seems that this was the best way to speak to the king about such matters since Haman didn’t come right out and tell the king that he wanted to kill all the Jews either...
8 Then Haman said to King Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people scattered and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of your kingdom; their laws are different from all other people’s, and they do not keep the king’s laws. Therefore it is not fitting for the king to let them remain.
9 If it pleases the king, let a decree be written that they be destroyed, and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver into the hands of those who do the work, to bring it into the king’s treasuries.”
Verse 5
Verse 5
The answer is twofold isn’t it?
It is both Haman and the king who are at fault.
Haman is at fault for making the request and the king is at fault for not investigating the request before signing it into law. And once something was signed into law by a Persian king it could not be nullified.
10 So the king took his signet ring from his hand and gave it to Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the enemy of the Jews.
11 And the king said to Haman, “The money and the people are given to you, to do with them as seems good to you.”
So the king is guilty although he was ignorant of what he had done.
Verse 6
Verse 6
Welp, Haman’s day just got worse!
Haman was not just an adversary and enemy of the Jews, he was an adversary and enemy of King Ahasuerus and the Persian Empire because he was really only worried about himself and not the king’s honor or the good of Persia.
Imagine Haman’s surprise when he found out that Esther was a Jew!
Imagine also how all of this came into focus for Haman and the king. They now understood why Esther invited both of them to the banquet.
Verses 7-8
Verses 7-8
Whether the king was merely upset about the fact that Haman wanted to kill Esther and her people or whether he was upset because he realized that Haman used the king and made him look like a fool we do not know for sure. All we know is that the king is furious!
There’s an old Jewish writing that says that the angel Gabriel pushed Haman onto the couch just as King Ahasuerus came back into the room.
The covered Haman’s face - for execution
Verses 9-10
Verses 9-10
That which Haman thought to use to destroy Mordecai has become the instrument of his own death.
14 Behold, the wicked brings forth iniquity; Yes, he conceives trouble and brings forth falsehood.
15 He made a pit and dug it out, And has fallen into the ditch which he made.
16 His trouble shall return upon his own head, And his violent dealing shall come down on his own crown.
Again we remember the promise the Lord made to Abraham about him and his eventual offspring...
3 I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Chapter 8
Chapter 8
Verses 1-2
Verses 1-2
Not only did Haman lose his life, but now his home and his position are given to the very Jews he tried to kill.
Haman thought all of the stuff and all the honor of men actually mattered and that he actually needed it all. Where did those aspirations lead him? To his very painful, humiliating, and terrifying death.
Not only did he die in pursuits of all of those things, but now his family will suffer tremendously as well. Not only did his wife and children lose Haman, but they are now out of their home as well. Not only that but in that culture it was viewed necessary to also destroy the heirs of those who tried to kill you so that they wouldn’t seek revenge later.
Verses 3-6
Verses 3-6
Remember that letters with the king’s seal had already gone out to all the provinces calling for the death of the Jews...
12 Then the king’s scribes were called on the thirteenth day of the first month, and a decree was written according to all that Haman commanded—to the king’s satraps, to the governors who were over each province, to the officials of all people, to every province according to its script, and to every people in their language. In the name of King Ahasuerus it was written, and sealed with the king’s signet ring.
13 And the letters were sent by couriers into all the king’s provinces, to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all the Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, and to plunder their possessions.
14 A copy of the document was to be issued as law in every province, being published for all people, that they should be ready for that day.
Just because Haman was now dead did not mean that all of this would just blow over. This was made into law and that law still stood.
So Esther is requesting that a new set of decrees be written and distributed to remedy the situation so that all of the Jews would no longer be killed.
Verses 7-14
Verses 7-14
Notice in verse 7 it seems that the king is making a case that he is for them by reminding them that he started the process of dealing with this situation so that they know he will finish dealing with it on their behalf.
Please consider that this particular king was a vengeful, prideful man who goes down in history as perhaps the most feared Persian king ever. He was not a man who worshipped the God of the Bible, He was a pagan through and through who we have no indication that he loved Esther but merely that she was his trophy wife.
Ahasuerus has no reason to come to the rescue of Esther or the Jews in the way that he is. I would say again that this is yet more evidence of God working in the background through the circumstances taking place arranging all the tiny details for His glory even though His name is not mentioned once in this book.
Remember what we have learned about God in these situations...
1 The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, Like the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He wishes.
So the king tells Mordecai and Esther to write a new decree. Haman wrote the first decree and now Mordecai and Esther get to write the next one to deal with the first.
The new decree says that the Jews are legally allowed to defend themselves from all of those who would try and destroy and plunder them.
The couriers who rode on royal horses went out hastened - This was an urgent message that needed to get out quickly.
The Persians had the fastest most advanced mail delivery system of their day. They had stables about every few miles so that the riders could ride fast to the next stable and hand off the correspondence to the next rider who was waiting and continued to do that all the way to their destination so that mail or decrees from the king could arrive in the quickest possible way.
In about 440 BC, Herodotus wrote...
“Nothing mortal travels so fast as these Persian messengers. The entire plan is a Persian invention; and this is the method of it. Along the whole line of road there are men (they say) stationed with horses, in number equal to the number of days which the journey takes, allowing a man and horse to each day; and these men will not be hindered from accomplishing at their best speed the distance which they have to go, either by snow, rain, heat, or by the darkness of night. The first rider delivers his despatch to the second and the second passes it to the third; and so it is borne from hand to hand along the whole line, like the light in the torch-race, which the Greeks celebrate to Vulcan (Hephaestus). ”
Verse 15
Verse 15
It seems that Mordecai is now in what we might call the position of a Prime Minister.
This again was all part of God’s plan.
God took an orphaned exiled Jewish girl and made her queen and has now made her older cousin who raised her 2nd in command of the greatest nation on the earth at that time!
God has been working all of these things out in the background the entire time. No doubt this also was beneficial for the returned exiles in Jerusalem at this time and helped set the stage to benefit Nehemiah’s work with the returned exiles in rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem under the next king of Persia named Artaxerxes.
There are always so many things God is doing in the background that we don’t always see.
The city of Shushan rejoiced and was glad...
Not just the Jews, the whole capital city.
Verse 16
Verse 16
Not just the capital city, but all of the Jews!
Verse 17
Verse 17
Whether they became Jews because they were scared of the consequences of attacking the Jews or because they recognized God’s sovereign hand upon His people...
Many became Jews.