Chapter 6
THIS portion opens with that which looks a slight matter under His hand Who works unseen; but it proved full of the most important consequences. The king could not sleep and asked for the strangest soporific that was ever sought—to hear the records of the kingdom. He had forgotten the best deed yet rendered to him. When two of his chamberlains plotted against his life, Mordecai came to know their wickedness and saved the king. But unaccountably as it seemed, it was quite forgotten. The king, now on hearing, inquired what was done, and learns to his own shame that so great a debt was unrequited; which made him the more urgent to remember it now.
“On that night sleep fled from the king; and he commanded to bring the book of records of the chronicles, and they were read before the king. And it was found written that Mordecai had told of Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king's chamberlains, of those that kept the door, who had sought to lay hands on the king Ahasuerus. And the king said, What honor and dignity hath been done to Mordecai for this? Then said the king's servants that ministered unto him, There is nothing done for him” (verses 1-3).
Even so, though a neglected duty was now to be repaired, far more was in His mind Who wrought secretly, and, what was most surprising, by means of the bitterest enemy, not merely himself to honor in the highest degree him whose ruin he was at that moment come to seek, but to deliver a whole people, His own people, whose existence was at stake. The banquet which seemed abortive on their behalf, the delay which in all likelihood must have tried Mordecai, was just the occasion to prepare the way effectively for the overthrow of the enemy, and the exaltation of the instrument of a greater preservation.
“And the king said, Who [is] in the court? Now Haman was come into the outward court of the king's house to speak unto the king to hang Mordecai on the gallows that he had prepared for him. And the king's servants said unto him, Behold, Haman standeth in the court. And the king said, Let him come in. So Haman came in. And the king said unto him, What shall be done unto the man whom the king delighteth.to honor? Now Hainan said in his heart, To whom would the king delight to do honor more than to myself? And Haman said unto the king, For the man whom the king delighteth to honor, let royal apparel be brought which the king useth to wear, and the horse that the king rideth upon, and on the head of which a crown royal is set: and let the apparel and the horse be delivered to the hand of one of the king's most notable princes, that they may array the man [withal] whom the king delighteth to honor, and cause him to ride on horseback through the street of the city, and proclaim before him, Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honor. Then the king said to Haman, Make haste, [and] take the apparel and the horse, as thou hast said, and do even so to Mordecai the Jew, that sitteth at the king's gate: let nothing fail of all that thou hast spoken. Then took Haman the apparel and the horse, and arrayed Mordecai, and caused him to ride through the street of the city, and proclaimed before him, Thus shall it be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honor” (vers.4 -11).
So it is, the pride of the wicked blinds them to their own destruction no less than to hate the righteous they despise. He Whose eyes are over all is slow to act that men may show out what they are, while in the end He accomplishes His counsel manifestly to His own glory. Haman, after honors beyond example, assured that he only could be the one whom the king delighted to honor, and invited by the king to indicate its largest measure, was certainly unbounded in his suggestions; and thus did he fall into the pit which he had himself made, and which awaits those who ignore and defy Him Who never forgets His own, however faulty, or those who hate and would injure them. Mark however how all seems to flourish brightly for the enemy and to threaten inescapable danger for His own till the hour is about to strike.
Nor could any issue be more evidently righteous. The man (whose immense benefit to the king, in the discovery of murderous treason, had passed into oblivion) is justly honored, and so much more because of his own unselfishness and that of the queen his near relation. The man, who only sought his own things and the destruction of those who, owning the true God, stood in his way, by his own advice plays the part of attendant on the one whom he most abhorred, and whose immediate and ignominious death he appeared to have within the hollow of his hand. But no power in present things allowed to Satan annuls the will of the invisible God. What will it be, when the “old serpent” is consigned to the bottomless pit, and Immanuel takes the public rule of the world?
Meanwhile at the last moment the wicked man is not left without solemn warning, as is often given, before the blow of doom falls on his guilty head; and this warning from the last quarter whence it might be expected. His own mortification and misery prepared him for bearing the worst. What a contrast with the righteous who returned in peace and lowliness to his post of duty!
“And Mordecai came again to the king's gate. But Haman hasted to his house, mourning and having his head covered. And Haman recounted unto Zeresh his wife and all his friends everything that had befallen him. Then said his wise men and Zeresh his wife unto him, If Mordecai, before whom thou hast begun to fall, [be] of the seed of the Jews, thou shalt not prevail against him, but shalt surely fall before him. While they [were] yet talking with him, came the king's chamberlains, and hasted to bring Haman unto the banquet that Esther had prepared” (vers. 12-14).