6 And Esther said, Our hater and attacker is this evil Haman. Then Haman was full of fear before the king and the queen.
For the light of the sinner is put out, and the flame of his fire is not shining. The light is dark in his tent, and the light shining over him is put out. The steps of his strength become short, and by his design destruction overtakes him. His feet take him into the net, and he goes walking into the cords. His foot is taken in the net; he comes into its grip. The twisted cord is put secretly in the earth to take him, and the cord is placed in his way. He is overcome by fears on every side, they go after him at every step. His strength is made feeble for need of food, and destruction is waiting for his falling footstep.
If only you would put the sinners to death, O God; go far from me, you men of blood. For they go against you with evil designs, and your haters make sport of your name. Are not your haters hated by me, O Lord? are not those who are lifted up against you a cause of grief to me? My hate for them is complete; my thoughts of them are as if they were making war on me.
They are not in trouble as others are; they have no part in the unhappy fate of men. For this reason pride is round them like a chain; they are clothed with violent behaviour as with a robe. Their eyes are bursting with fat; they have more than their heart's desire. Their thoughts are deep with evil designs; their talk from their seats of power is of cruel acts. Their mouth goes up to heaven; their tongues go walking through the earth.
Till I went into God's holy place, and saw the end of the evil-doers. You put their feet where there was danger of slipping, so that they go down into destruction. How suddenly are they wasted! fears are the cause of their destruction. As a dream when one is awake, they are ended; they are like an image gone out of mind when sleep is over.
In that very hour the fingers of a man's hand were seen, writing opposite the support for the light on the white wall of the king's house, and the king saw the part of the hand which was writing. Then the colour went from the king's face, and he was troubled by his thoughts; strength went from his body, and his knees were shaking.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Esther 7
Commentary on Esther 7 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 7
Es 7:1-6. Esther Pleads for Her Own Life and the Life of Her People.
4. we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed—that is, by the cruel and perfidious scheme of that man, who offered an immense sum of money to purchase our extermination. Esther dwelt on his contemplated atrocity, in a variety of expressions, which both evinced the depth of her own emotions, and were intended to awaken similar feelings in the king's breast.
But if we had been sold for bondmen and bondwomen, I had held my tongue—Though a great calamity to the Jews, the enslavement of that people might have enriched the national treasury; and, at all events, the policy, if found from experience to be bad, could be altered. But the destruction of such a body of people would be an irreparable evil, and all the talents Haman might pour into the treasury could not compensate for the loss of their services.
Es 7:7-10. The King Causes Haman to Be Hanged on His Own Gallows.
7. he saw that there was evil determined against him by the king—When the king of Persia orders an offender to be executed, and then rises and goes into the women's apartment, it is a sign that no mercy is to be hoped for. Even the sudden rising of the king in anger was the same as if he had pronounced sentence.
8. Haman was fallen upon the bed whereon Esther was—We do not know the precise form of the couches on which the Persians reclined at table. But it is probable that they were not very different from those used by the Greeks and Romans. Haman, perhaps, at first stood up to beg pardon of Esther; but driven in his extremity to resort to an attitude of the most earnest supplication, he fell prostrate on the couch where the queen was recumbent. The king returning that instant was fired at what seemed an outrage on female modesty.
they covered Haman's face—The import of this striking action is, that a criminal is unworthy any longer to look on the face of the king, and hence, when malefactors are consigned to their doom in Persia, the first thing is to cover the face with a veil or napkin.
9. Harbonah, one of the chamberlains, said before the king, Behold also, the gallows—This eunuch had probably been the messenger sent with the invitation to Haman, and on that occasion had seen the gallows. The information he now volunteered, as well it may be from abhorrence of Haman's cold-blooded conspiracy as from sympathy with his amiable mistress, involved with her people in imminent peril.
10. So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai—He has not been the only plotter of mischief whose feet have been taken in the net which they hid (Ps 9:15). But never was condemnation more just, and retribution more merited, than the execution of that gigantic criminal.