Chapter 7
THE catastrophe soon follows the second banquet. The murderous plotter against Israel, in their low estate for their sins, perishes by that which he designed for Mordecai.
“And the king and Haman came to banquet with Esther the queen. And the king said again unto Esther on the second day at the banquet of wine, What is thy petition, queen Esther? and it shall be granted thee: and what is thy request? even to the half of the kingdom it shall be performed. Then Esther the queen answered and said, If I have found favor in thy sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request” (vers. 1-3).
For the third time the king renews his desire to know and to grant the queen's petition. He who was made to remember his forgotten deliverer did not forget that some deeply-felt request of Esther remained behind. The moment ordered by His secret providence Who alone can order aught aright was now come. And the queen unburdened her pent up soul freely in terms the most pathetic as to her people, the most indignant as to their enemy. “For we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. But if we had been sold for bondmen and bondwomen, I had held my peace, although the adversary could not have compensated for the king's damage. Then spake the king Ahasuerus and said unto Esther the queen, Who is he, and where is he, that durst presume in his heart to do so?” (vers. 4, 5.)
Astonished to the highest degree, and with burning wrath, the king demands, who and where was he that could dare to do a villainy so monstrous, now to learn, to his amazement, how he himself had been entrapped into it by his own prime minister. Esther however spoke only of him who had malice against her people. “And Esther said, An adversary and an enemy, even this wicked Haman. Then Haman was afraid before the king and the queen” (ver. 6). The king would feel his own part. No wonder that in his agitation he sought to be alone; while Haman made abject supplication to the queen, for he could not doubt the fate that otherwise awaited him. His very earnestness exposed him to the king's mistaken resentment when he returned; and the information of Harbonah furnished the occasion for immediate execution. “And the king arose in his wrath from the banquet of wine [and went] into the palace garden: and Haman stood up to make request for his life to Esther the queen; for he saw that there was evil determined against him by the king. Then the king returned out of the palace garden into the place of the banquet of wine; and Haman was fallen upon the couch whereon Esther was. Then said the king, Will he even force the queen before me in the house? As the word went out of the king's mouth, they covered Haman's face. Then said Harbonah, one of the chamberlains that were before the king, Behold also, the gallows fifty cubits high, which Haman hath made for Mordecai, who spoke good for the king, standeth in the house of Haman. And the king said, Hang him thereon. So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then was the king's wrath pacified” (vers. 7-10).
When the favorite falls, not a voice is raised to shield him from those who till then had bowed most servilely before him; nay, he who was blamed for his presumption in refusing it to Haman is now praised for his service to the king. Such is man, inconstant as the wind, and not least so at court. But He who rules unseen accomplishes His righteous judgment wherever He sees fit, till the day when He will act immediately and perfectly by the One Whose right it is to the joy and peace of all the earth.