Esther 6-7: “The King’s Sleepless Night Leads To Exaltation Of Mordecai / After Dinner Esther Is Granted Her Request And Haman Is Hanged”
By
1. TIMELINE:
These graphs depict the timeline of the Old Testament, and note that the events in the book of Esther cover a period of history after the Babylonian captivity that most believe occurred during the third year of the reign of king Xerxes, or approx. 484-483 BC.
Graph of Persian kings & Jewish companies sent out by them to Judea:
2. In our last study, we looked at chapters 4-5 of the book.
2.1. Because of the news about the decree that the Jews would be killed, we saw that Mordecai and the Jews were deeply grieving and wearing sackcloth and ashes.
2.2. We saw that Mordecai finally asked Esther to consider if the Lord had not placed her there in her position of royalty just for such a moment as this, and to consider that if she did not intercede to the king that she would not escape herself.
2.2.1. We talked about how that each of us as Christians ought to ask ourselves continually when people and opportunities pass into our lives whether or not we also have been raised up in our position or station in life to be used as God’s messenger and vessel to proclaim the gospel.
2.3. Esther finally decided to go and intercede to the king for the Jews, and then she asked for fasting by the Jews for her for three days and nights before she appeared before the king and interceded for the Jews.
2.4. At the end of the three days and nights of fasting and praying by all Israel, Esther appeared before the king and he extended his scepter towards her which kept her from being killed. Then, when the king asked what her request might be, she replied that she would like the king and Haman to appear at a banquet that she would hold for them on that day. The king agreed.
2.5. At this banquet, when the king asked Esther what her request might be, she asked the king yet again to come on the next day with Haman to a banquet, and then at that time she would tell him her request.
2.6. We discussed again God’s providence in allowing this whole evil plot to destroy the Jews be hatched in the first place.
3. In this study, we will look at chapters 6 and 7.
3.1. We mentioned at the outset of studying this book of Esther that it was a book that taught that God exalts the humble and is opposed to the proud. We will see in our study how that Haman and Mordecai change stations in life because of the Lord causing this principle to work.
3.2. In a previous study, we discussed the fact that nothing really happens by coincidence and that the Lord is always working providencially behind the scenes in all that happens. Someone once said that God is always working behind the scenes but that there is also no scene which He has not also moved.
3.3. We will also see more of God’s providence, and this all begins with a sleepless night for king Ahasuerus in which he asks for the book of records to be read before him, and then realizes that Mordecai, Esther’s uncle and guardian, needs to be rewarded for saving his life when he had discovered and revealed to Esther an assassination plot.
3.4. We will see that wicked Haman gets coming to him exactly what he had planned on doing to Mordecai, and we will look at the recompense and judgment of God that is promised for all, a judgment for rewards for the Christian but the judgment of condemnation and eternal suffering for the unbeliever.
3.5. We will talk more about the subject of intercession as we again focus upon Esther’s intercession to the king for her people, the Jews. “Intercession is where you go and plead to someone on behalf of another.” Intercessory praying means to pray to God for the needs of others.
4. VS 6:1-3 - “1 During that night the king could not sleep so he gave an order to bring the book of records, the chronicles, and they were read before the king. 2 It was found written what Mordecai had reported concerning Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s eunuchs who were doorkeepers, that they had sought to lay hands on King Ahasuerus. 3 The king said, “What honor or dignity has been bestowed on Mordecai for this?” Then the king’s servants who attended him said, “Nothing has been done for him.”” – King Ahasuerus cannot sleep on this night and so he asks his attendants to bring to him the book of records, the chronicles, and he discovers that Mordecai once thwarted an assassination plot over the king’s life, and then the king finds out that nothing was ever done to honor or reward Mordecai for doing this
4.1. We see God’s providence again working in this book. A sleepless night for the king results in him realizing that Mordecai needs to be honored for saving the king’s life, and this decision to have Mordecai honored occurs just before Haman enters the palace in the morning so that he can request to the king that Mordecai be hanged on the gallows he (Haman) has built for him at his (Haman’s) house.
4.2. We may never see the righteous exalted and the proud brought down in this life, however we can be sure that if not in this life that at least one day after this life we shall all see the Lord bring this about.
5. VS 6:4-10 - “4 So the king said, “Who is in the court?” Now Haman had just entered the outer court of the king’s palace in order to speak to the king about hanging Mordecai on the gallows which he had prepared for him. 5 The king’s servants said to him, “Behold, Haman is standing in the court.” And the king said, “Let him come in.” 6 So Haman came in and the king said to him, “What is to be done for the man whom the king desires to honor?” And Haman said to himself, “Whom would the king desire to honor more than me?” 7 Then Haman said to the king, “For the man whom the king desires to honor, 8 let them bring a royal robe which the king has worn, and the horse on which the king has ridden, and on whose head a royal crown has been placed; 9 and let the robe and the horse be handed over to one of the king’s most noble princes and let them array the man whom the king desires to honor and lead him on horseback through the city square, and proclaim before him, ‘Thus it shall be done to the man whom the king desires to honor.’ ” 10 Then the king said to Haman, “Take quickly the robes and the horse as you have said, and do so for Mordecai the Jew, who is sitting at the king’s gate; do not fall short in anything of all that you have said.”” – The king asks about which of his officials was currently in the court, and it was reported that Haman was there, so King Ahasuerus asks Haman to name what ought to be done by the king who wants to honor a man, and Haman tells the king what he things should be done to such a man, and the king tells Haman to do those very things to Mordecai
5.1. What we see here occurring in this chapter is the beginning of God exalting the humble and bringing down the proud. The night before this, Haman was sitting at the place of Honor second only to the king, and Mordecai was sleeping outside the gates of the king’s palace. The roles of Haman and Mordecai reverse in one day during this study.
5.2. The previous evening, Haman went to his house and was gloating over his accomplishments, his sons, and how the king had exalted him over everyone but the king. He really thought that nothing could be better in his life, however he didn’t realize that he was on a collision course with the Lord and His plans for this world. In reality, Haman was in a grave position and his world was about to collapse.
5.3. Notice that the scripture tells us here the vain thoughts of Haman’s mind when the king asks him what should be done for the man whom the king seeks to honor : ‘Whom would the king desire to honor more than me?.’ Haman was convinced that the king wanted to honor him, and thus he really embellishes the honor that he thought he was due. Little did Haman realize how wicked his thoughts were and how perilous his fate was at this very moment.
6. VS 6:11-12 - “11 So Haman took the robe and the horse, and arrayed Mordecai, and led him on horseback through the city square, and proclaimed before him, “Thus it shall be done to the man whom the king desires to honor.” 12 Then Mordecai returned to the king’s gate. But Haman hurried home, mourning, with his head covered.” – Haman takes Mordecai and leads him through the square of the city on horseback declaring before him that this is what is to be done to the man whom the king desires to honor, but after this trip around the city Man hurries home mourning and with his head covered
6.1. Haman to his horror, has to honor Mordecai, his arch enemy, in all of the ways that he thought he was telling the king that he (Haman) should be honored.
6.2. Haman knew now that he would never be able to have Mordecai hanged on the gallows he had built up 80 feet high by his house.
6.3. In humiliation and mourning Haman went back to his home ‘with his head covered,’ not wanting anyone to see the face of the wretch he had become.
7. VS 6:13 - “13 Haman recounted to Zeresh his wife and all his friends everything that had happened to him. Then his wise men and Zeresh his wife said to him, “If Mordecai, before whom you have begun to fall, is of Jewish origin, you will not overcome him, but will surely fall before him.”” – Haman’s wife and friends, when he tells them about honoring Mordecai, tell him that he has begun to fall and because Mordecai is a Jew that Haman will surely fall before him
7.1. It is interesting this prophetic insight and word from Haman’s wife and friends. They sensed that the Lord was exalting Mordecai because he was a Jew, and that because Mordecai was a Jew and Haman was opposed to him that he would not overcome him.
7.2. Haman’s wife and friends had evidently heard of various miraculous victories that the Lord had given them in their battles all through the centuries, and they might have also known that it was Israel who had almost completely annihilated the Amalekites in the past (the ancestors of Haman the Agagite). Haman’s wife and friends surely also knew the stories of how the Israelites had been delivered from slavery in Egypt, with the Lord performing ten miracles in the process and then parting the Red Sea. Likewise, they had surely heard about the Lord giving the Israelites victory over all of their enemies under Joshua when they went in and conquered all of the peoples and took possession of the land that the Lord had promised them.
8. VS 6:14 - “14 While they were still talking with him, the king’s eunuchs arrived and hastily brought Haman to the banquet which Esther had prepared.” – As Haman’s wife and friends were talking with him the king’s eunuchs came to take him to the banquet Esther had prepared for them
8.1. By this time, Haman had forgotten all about the banquet set for that day with the king and queen. He was in no celebratory mood to go to a banquet either, after having to exalt and before all of the people of Sushan, Mordecai, his arch enemy. He knew it was one of the greatest of displays of honor ever given a man by his king.
8.2. The eunuchs had to come and get Haman for the banquet, and then because he was running late for the banquet, they ‘hastily’ brought him to it.
9. VS 7:1-4 - “1 Now the king and Haman came to drink wine with Esther the queen. 2 And the king said to Esther on the second day also as they drank their wine at the banquet, “What is your petition, Queen Esther? It shall be granted you. And what is your request? Even to half of the kingdom it shall be done.” 3 Then Queen Esther replied, “If I have found favor in your sight, O king, and if it pleases the king, let my life be given me as my petition, and my people as my request; 4 for we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed and to be annihilated. Now if we had only been sold as slaves, men and women, I would have remained silent, for the trouble would not be commensurate with the annoyance to the king.”” – As Haman and King Ahasuerus were dining with the queen, the king asked her what her request was, promising to answer her and give her up to half of his kingdom, and she asked the king for her life and the life of her people so that they would not be killed and annihilated
9.1. Esther had fed the king on two successive days at two marvelous banquets, and he had drunk and become merry of heart, and now he was anxious to grant to his beloved queen the desire of her heart.
9.2. The perfect time had come for Esther to now speak to the king of her request. Her wisdom, as well as God’s grace working in her life, is seen in that just when the king’s heart was most disposed to grant her request, she now is forthright in presenting her case.
9.2.1. We Christians need to learn from Esther that there is a time for us to speak, and there is also a time for us to be silent. We need to pray for the discernment to know God’s leading of us regarding when and how we use our tongue and the things we speak to others.
9.3. King Ahasuerus asked queen Esther for the third time what her request for him is, promising beforehand to grant her request. Esther does not hesitate at this point to make her request to the king.
9.4. Queen Esther finally makes her passionate plea to the king: ‘let my life be given me as my petition, and my people as my request; 4 for we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed and to be annihilated.’ Notice how emotionally packed this statement is, but notice also that her wording that she and her people are ‘to be destroyed, to be killed and to be annihilated’ were the exact words that were in the decree that the king had signed and issued, at Haman’s request. Note also that Esther names the fact that her people had been ‘sold’ because Haman had made a deal with the king that if the edict was approved that he himself would foot the bill for doing this.
9.5. Queen Esther tells the king that if her and her people ‘had only been sold as slaves, men and women’ that it would not have been a big enough deal for her to have to brought it up to the keen, and she ‘would have remained silent.’
9.6. In some ways, Esther’s interceding for her life before the king is similar to what a person does when they come to salvation through the King of Kings. All of us as people are under a sentence of death, for the wages of sin is death, and thus we deserve and are scheduled to die. It is only the One who sits upon the throne of glory who can pardon our sins and spare our life. We merely need to ask Him in faith to forgive us and come into our life, believing that he alone can save us and remove the sentence of death that hangs over our life, and that because of his death in our place and for the wrongs that we have done. In that way, and by the trust in Him and what He did on Calvary’s cross, can we come to be forgiven and have eternal life.
9.7. In our previous study, we talked about the sacred call of intercession in prayer for someone else. But, seeing what Esther did here that her people might be saved reminds me also of the sacrifice that others make to go out and preach the gospel to all those who are lost in order that they might be saved. In fact, it reminds me of what is known as the Moravian Missionary Calling:
Two young Moravians heard of an island in the
West Indies where an atheist British owner had 2000 to 3000 slaves. And the
owner had said, "No preacher, no clergyman, will ever stay on this island. If
he's ship wrecked we'll keep him in a separate house until he has to leave, but
he's never going to talk to any of us about God, I'm through with all that
nonsense." Three thousand slaves from the jungles of Africa brought to an island
in the Atlantic and there to live and die without hearing of Christ.
In the late 1700's a British planter owned an entire island in the West
Indies off the coast of South America. Several thousand black slaves toiled in
the sugar cane fields under the burning sun. The atheist planter vowed that no
missionary would ever set foot on the island to talk about God. 3000 slaves were
doomed to live and die without hearing of Christ.
Two young Germans in their 20's from the Moravians sect heard about their
plight. They sold themselves to the British planter for the standard price for a
male slave used the money they received for their sale to purchase passage to
the West Indies. The miserly atheist planter would not even transport them.
The Moravian community from Herrenhut came to see the two lads off, who
would never return again, having freely sold themselves into a lifetime of
slavery. As a member of the slave community they would witness as Christians to
the love of God.
Family members were emotional, weeping. Was their extreme sacrifice wise?
Was it necessary? As the ship slipped away with the tide and the gap widened.
The housings had been cast off and were curled up on the pier. The young men saw
the widening gap. They linked arms, raised their hands and shouted across the
spreading gap "May the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of His suffering."
This became the call of Moravian missions. And this is our only reason for
being...that the Lamb that was slain may receive the reward of His suffering!
10. VS 7:5-6 - “5 Then King Ahasuerus asked Queen Esther, “Who is he, and where is he, who would presume to do thus?” 6 Esther said, “A foe and an enemy is this wicked Haman!” Then Haman became terrified before the king and queen.” – When King Ahasuerus asks queen Esther who it is who would presume to do this to her, she answers that it was this foe and enemy, this wicked Haman
10.1. When queen Esther says that the man who had threatened these things against her and her people was none other than ‘this wicked Haman,’ it was as if a lightening bolt had struck Haman. Now he knew that, rather than see Mordecai his foe hanged on this day, he himself was most likely going to be put to death.
10.2. Notice here how queen Esther now really nails the character of Haman for what it is as she not only calls him a ‘wicked’ man but also a ‘foe and an enemy.’
10.3. Haman is now ‘terrified’ before the king and queen.
11. VS 7:7-10 - “7 The king arose in his anger from drinking wine and went into the palace garden; but Haman stayed to beg for his life from Queen Esther, for he saw that harm had been determined against him by the king. 8 Now when the king returned from the palace garden into the place where they were drinking wine, Haman was falling on the couch where Esther was. Then the king said, “Will he even assault the queen with me in the house?” As the word went out of the king’s mouth, they covered Haman’s face. 9 Then Harbonah, one of the eunuchs who were before the king said, “Behold indeed, the gallows standing at Haman’s house fifty cubits high, which Haman made for Mordecai who spoke good on behalf of the king!” And the king said, “Hang him on it.” 10 So they hanged Haman on the gallows which he had prepared for Mordecai, and the king’s anger subsided.” – At hearing that it was Haman who had determined to take the queen’s life as well as the life of her people, he arose from the table in anger and went into the palace garden, and then Haman began to beg for mercy from queen Esther, but when the king came in and found Haman falling on the couch where Esther was, he asked if Haman would even assault the queen with the king in the house, and the king’s attendants came and took Haman and hanged him on the gallows he built at his own house
11.1. King Ahasuerus now could sit at the table no longer and ‘arose in his anger’ and walked away into ‘the palace garden’ to collect his thoughts and determine what he must now do to rectify such a horrible situation which he realized his beloved Esther, and her people, found themselves.
11.2. King Ahasuerus must have felt that he shared with Haman in culpability for having signed this terrible edict to have all of the Jews in all of the provinces of his kingdom be slaughtered. He was probably was mad at himself as well as Haman.
11.3. King Ahasuerus finally had the blinders taken off of his eyes here and now fully realized the wicked character of this man Haman. He must have also felt used and manipulated by a man whom he now realized he had allowed for insufficient reasons to become one of his most trusted advisors. Thus, he was very angry at Haman, and also most likely felt foolish and gullible at the same time.
11.4. After the king left the banquet room, Haman knew that only the queen could intercede for him so his life could be spared. He began to try to somehow beg the queen’s forgiveness and make her have pity upon him. But, when he falls forward onto the couch where Ester is sitting to most likely grab a hold of her feet and beg for mercy, the king walks in just in time to see Haman’s indiscretion. The king asks Haman whether he was now trying to force himself sexually upon the queen, and to the king’s aides this was the pronounce of a death sentence, and they immediately put a cover over Haman’s head as was customary for one who had been condemned to death and thus found unworthy to even be looked upon.
11.5. Notice here in our story how quickly the king’s aides, who just previous had been Haman’s confidants and supporters, now are quick to carry out his judgment and even suggest that Haman be hanged upon the gallows he had built at his own house. The friends a person has of those who are in this world are often very fickle, and they are definitely “fair weather” types for the most part. It is a rare thing in this world for friends to unconditionally love another, or be devoted to a person regardless of whether they get some sort of payback or recompense for this.
11.6. We are tempted when reading this story to exalt the character of King Ahasuerus for decreeing to have wicked Haman put to death, however in the same manner that it was totally unjustified in decreeing at the request of Haman that the Jews everywhere in his province should be put to death, so also it was unjust for him to declare a death sentence upon Haman when he misconstrued Haman’s motives as he walked into the room and found Haman falling down upon the couch upon which the queen was sitting.
11.7. The Lord rewards the wicked in perfect accord with their wickedness, and in our study here we see what is referred to as “poetic justice” in that wicked Haman is hanged on the very gallows that he had built intending to have Mordecai hanged upon. In the book of Judges, there is a story of a king named Adonizedek that illustrates the truth that God will judge everyone who is not His people in perfect accord with the things that they have done: Judges 1:1-7: “1 Now it came about after the death of Joshua that the sons of Israel inquired of the Lord, saying, “Who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites, to fight against them?” 2 The Lord said, “Judah shall go up; behold, I have given the land into his hand.” 3 Then Judah said to Simeon his brother, “Come up with me into the territory allotted me, that we may fight against the Canaanites; and I in turn will go with you into the territory allotted you.” So Simeon went with him. 4 Judah went up, and the Lord gave the Canaanites and the Perizzites into their hands, and they defeated ten thousand men at Bezek. 5 They found Adoni-bezek in Bezek and fought against him, and they defeated the Canaanites and the Perizzites. 6 But Adoni-bezek fled; and they pursued him and caught him and cut off his thumbs and big toes. 7 Adoni-bezek said, “Seventy kings with their thumbs and their big toes cut off used to gather up scraps under my table; as I have done, so God has repaid me.” So they brought him to Jerusalem and he died there.”
11.8. Though people in this life may get away with a lot of wrong doing, one day each person shall have to stand before the Lord and on that day each one who does not know the Lord shall end up like Haman, being rewarded in punishment according to his/her deeds: 2 Corinthians 5:10: “10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”
12. CONCLUSIONS:
12.1. Be a faithful intercessor as was Esther, faithful not only to pray for others, but also to present the gospel to others.
12.2. Be sure that you are trusting in the work that Jesus Christ did upon the cross in procuring salvation for you, and trusting that Jesus Christ has forgiven you of your sins and given you the free gift of eternal life.