Today, in episode 521, we continue Esther’s cycle: looking at the prominent characters in the book of Esther. We have already looked at King Ahasuerus in episode 519 and Mordecai in episode 520. Don’t worry, we will get to Esther in the next episode.
Today’s episode looks at the person who is the cause of all the trouble in the book of Esther. This one man’s pride sets in motion a set of events that could not have been anticipated. Not all people in the Bible are good examples. But all people are an example of some kind. This man is an exceptionally vivid example of what kind of man NOT to be.
What stands out to you from Haman’s story?
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Today, we look at Haman’s story.
Some People Just Will Not Be Happy
Some time after Esther becomes Queen, the king promotes a man named Haman to be his second in command. Haman was given authority over all the other princes of the nation who answered to the King.
In the 12th year of King Ahasuerus’ reign, Haman experiences some frustration in his work. When Haman would walk through the king’s gate, all the king’s servants who were present would bow down before Haman and they would pay him homage (worship him, basically). However, there was one man who would not do this. That man was Mordecai.
Mordecai’s explanation seems to only be that he is a Jew (Esther 3:4). The other servants don’t make any headway convincing him to show more honor to Haman. The servants told Haman to test Mordecai’s resolve, because “I am a Jew” seemed like a flimsy reason. Haman soon found that Mordecai would not be swayed and Haman was “filled with rage” (Esther 3:5).
While there was a standing command from the king (Esther 3:2), there doesn’t seem to be a law for Haman to hold Mordecai guilty of violating. At least he makes no effort to go that route. Instead, it is not enough to punish Mordecai, Haman intends that he will destroy ALL of the Jews throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus. All of this because one man hurt his pride.
So, we find Haman gambling by casting lots to determine which month he should enact his revenge against the Jewish people. The lot lands on the 12th month of that year.
Haman now proceeds to get the king’s approval for this very large undertaking.
Haman Hatches a Plan
Haman tells the king, “There is a certain people scattered and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom; their laws are different from those of all other people and they do not observe the King’s laws, so it is not in the king’s interest to let them remain. If it is pleasing to the king, let it be decreed that they be destroyed, and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver into the hands of those who carry on the king’s business, to put into the king’s treasuries.” (Esther 3:8-9).
Maybe this is the answer to the question of whether or not Mordecai was doing anything wrong by not honoring and worshiping Haman. If the Jews had the freedom to observe their own laws and not observe the King’s laws, then Mordecai’s answer, “I am a Jew” makes a little more sense. Since we are several kings past Cyrus who came and granted the Jews the freedom to head back to Jerusalem and to build the Temple, their having some freedoms within the nation makes sense as well. Again, they really are not being treated as slaves at this point. They are just part of the fabric of the nation of Persia.
OK - Haman keeps it generic, he doesn’t tell Ahasuerus which people are going to be destroyed. He just says these people are trouble and not worth keeping in the nation. To make it more appealing to the king, Haman offers to pay a crazy amount of money to cover the costs of the venture.
The king hands Haman his signet ring and tells him to do what he wants, especially since it is his own money being spent.
Is it strange that the king didn’t ask for more details? I don’t know. This is his top advisor. The princes were the ones who would be going about the provinces and aware of what was happening directly with the people. Maybe it didn’t occur to the king that someone would unjustly annihilate a whole nation of people who are living among them. Maybe this was more common in their day than we would be used to. I don’t know, but the text makes it clear that what Haman is doing is extreme for the circumstances.
So, Haman gets the scribes to write a decree that will make it law for all the provinces of Persia to “destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all the Jews, both young and old, women and children, in one day, the 13th day of the 12th month…and to seize their possessions as plunder.” That is a pretty thorough order!
The decree goes out, and rightfully so, the people of Persia are confused and concerned. The king and Haman just go on about their business.
The Queen Invites Haman to Dinner
Not long after the decree goes out, Haman gets a nice surprise - an invitation to dinner with the King at a banquet prepared by the Queen just for them! After dinner, the Queen invites them to dinner again the next night, and Haman heads home feeling pretty pleased with himself. When he encounters Mordecai in the king’s gate, and again Mordecai disrespects him, Haman is filled with anger again. He keeps his cool and goes home, where he sends for his wife and friends so he can complain about his problem.
Haman proceeds to list all of his accomplishments and prosperity, “yet all of this does not satisfy me every time I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate.”
His good wife and friends try to make him feel better by offering a solution to his problem: why not just build a 50 cubit tall gallows and ask the king to hang Mordecai from it tomorrow morning? Then Haman can go enjoy his second banquet with the King and Queen. This pleases Haman, so the gallows are built.
That seems a lot to accomplish overnight, but maybe they didn’t mind working through the night. Who knows?
An Unexpected Result
So, the next morning, with new gallows ready and waiting, Haman leaves early to talk to the king about hanging Mordecai. Before he can even ask for an audience with the king, he is called by the king’s servants to come see the king.
The king asks Haman, “What is to be done for the man whom the king desires to honor?”
Haman, of course, thinks there couldn’t be anyone other than him who the king would want to honor, so he offered a grand idea.
“For the man whom the king desires to honor, 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; 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.”
The king loves this idea! He says, “Perfect. Get the things you listed and do so for Mordecai the Jew who is sitting in the king’s gate.” He adds - do not neglect to do any of the things you suggested.
So, on the morning Haman had hoped to be hanging Mordecai from the gallows he had built expressly for that purpose, instead Haman is publicly showing honor to Mordecai, parading him around the city square in the king’s finery, and crying out this is the way the king chooses to honor people.
Poor Haman!
Well, once he is done honoring Mordecai - Mordecai goes back to the king’s gate, and Haman covers his head and goes home in shame. It says he “hurried home, mourning”. This day is NOT going the way Haman thought it would.
Once he is home, he tells his wife and his friends about his humiliation. The response from the people who suggested the gallows and thought Haman was certain to be the man on top for a while? If Mordecai, who you have fallen so low in front of, is of Jewish origin - you will not overcome him. You will fall before him.
All confidence is gone.
Just then, the king’s eunuchs show up to bring Haman to the banquet the Queen had prepared.
I have to say, I can feel his pain. If he weren’t so evil, I would almost feel sorry for the guy. To have been so wrong about your situation! The humiliation is painful to watch. But, wait, we aren’t done.
The Hits Just Keep on Coming
Haman goes to dinner. When the meal is finished, the king asks the Queen what it is she wants to ask him. Then Esther tells the King who she is and how the decree affects her and her people in a most unjust way. She declares she could have accepted if they had been sold into slavery - but for them to be decreed to be annihilated is just too much. The king asks who would have done this to her and her people. Esther declares, “A foe and an enemy is this wicked Haman!”
The king is angry - and he has been drinking - so he leaves the room to calm down in the garden. Meanwhile, Haman is panicking. He can tell the King is wanting him dead. He starts to beg Queen Esther to spare his life!
Can you imagine the audacity?! This man has spent months preparing to kill a whole nation of people simply because one man offended his sense of entitlement. But now, when his actions are laid out for all to see, he dares to ask for mercy! And in his desperation, he loses all sense of propriety - he dares to hang over the Queen, so much so that when the king comes in after having calmed himself down - this new insult is too much. There is only one answer. Servants come and cover Haman’s face.
One of the eunuchs speaks up with some helpful information for the king. “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!”
The king says, “Hang him on it.”
Esther 7:10 says, “So they hanged Haman on the gallows which he had prepared for Mordecai, and the king’s anger subsided.”
What poetic justice! On the very day that Haman was seeking to hang Mordecai for offending his vanity, Haman is hanged to die on those gallows for the attempted murder of the Queen and her people and for not showing proper respect and honor to the King by treating his Queen with honor.
The Lessons from Haman
So, we talked about how good it would be for a man to be like Mordecai in episode 520. Haman is the direct opposite of Mordecai.
Want to teach your son how NOT to be as a man?
Read him the story of Haman.
A man rises to power, working his way up the ladder. He achieves greatness - but HOW he does so is all important.
Haman’s attitude about Mordecai is only validated by his equally evil-minded wife and friends. Their solution to the problem isn’t to be more forceful with the man, no, just kill him! They thought he had a good enough position with the king to ask him to have Mordecai hanged - couldn’t he just as easily have asked him to have Mordecai beaten if what he was doing was against the king’s laws? There HAD to have been some recourse within the law IF what Mordecai was doing was outside the law. None of the servants act like it is. In fact, they seem to encourage him to bow because it will make things easier for him, not because he is doing something wrong. Haman was far too bothered by this one man not thinking him as great as he thought himself.
There is nothing manly or attractive about Haman when his pride is wounded.
Crawling to his wife and friends to whine about what he perceives has been done to him is completely unattractive. He is not a man. He is a child.
Lying to deceive the king about his plans, this shows him to be a lowly person too.
Compared to Mordecai, Haman is so small. And he KNOWS it - hence the heated response to Mordecai’s quiet refusal to treat Haman in a way that he doesn’t deserve.
Go through Haman’s stories and make a list of all the ways he deals with the circumstances in front of him. There is a bible verse for every one of the vile things he thinks, says or does.
Haman is a beautiful story of evil getting their just desserts. It doesn’t happen every day in this life. Sometimes the wicked seem to get all the good things in life. But come the judgment, every wicked deed will be dealt with as soundly and justly as Haman’s were in this story.
Men, be self-aware enough to choose NOT to be like Haman.
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