By James Riley Strange, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of New Testament, Samford University
Stand Up and Speak
Esther 7:1–10
Today we see Esther bring to light Haman’s plot and thus end his abuse of power. This week and the next, however, we will also see some failures on the part of God’s people. The story highlights these subtly but we see them. For example, Esther will plead to the king for her own life but she will ignore Haman’s pleas for his. In so doing she misses an opportunity to show mercy to her enemy.
Expose the deeds of darkness. (1–6)
Esther’s deed may have been one of many biblical examples on which Paul drew when he said, “Don’t participate in the fruitless works of darkness, but instead expose them” (Eph. 5:11).
One part of the plot now reaches its climax: Haman is undone but the king’s decree still stands. We are at the second of two banquets planned by Queen Esther, to which she has invited only her husband and Haman. In the first she plied them with wine and when the king promised to give her anything she wanted, she coyly deferred her request until the second banquet the following night. And so the suspense built. Now when the king asks for her request, she reveals both the plot and the plotter.
By doing this she takes another risk. She is divulging her identity as a Jew and because he cannot be counted on to act honorably King Ahasuerus may well follow through with his decree to kill her along with all Jews. Note that he is not bothered by the moral atrocity of killing tens of thousands of innocent people. He is enraged only because his favorite wife could have died.
Leave vengeance in the hands of God. (7–10)
Implicitly Esther is revealing evil for what it is and leaving vengeance in God’s hands. The author of Deuteronomy expresses this principle (Deut. 32:35), and Paul quotes it: “Friends, do not avenge yourselves; instead, leave room for God’s wrath, because it is written, ‘Vengeance belongs to me; I will repay, says the Lord’” (Rom. 12:19).
The story uses both comic and tragic irony in telling of Haman’s downfall. In Chapter 6, the king had read the official record of Mordecai’s role in warning him of an assassination plot 12 years earlier (2:19–23). The king asks for Haman’s advice: What should be done “for the man the king wants to honor?” Thinking Ahasuerus is speaking of himself, Haman proposes a lavish public spectacle, just the sort of thing he himself craves. When his nemesis Mordecai receives the honor and not he, he mourns.
This turnabout is classic comedy but we should not allow it to block the sympathy we feel for the man, for we too know the feeling of a deflated ego. What we read in verses 7–10, by contrast, is dreadful irony. There will be no mercy. Haman will be impaled on the same pole he has erected for Mordecai.
It is too simple to lionize Esther and demonize Haman, for the moral issues the story presents are as complex as its plots and counter plots. Haman isn’t consumed by evil but held captive by pride. The story presents him as a stock character, which makes it easy to despise him. Esther by contrast possesses immense courage but she also withholds compassion when she ignores an opportunity to use her influence with the weak-willed Ahasuerus to make a plea on Haman’s behalf.
Had our own Lord not commanded such mercy, we might delight too much in Haman’s downfall. But He did command it, so while doing justice let us also enact God’s mercy.
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