Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Email
Print

INTRODUCTION TO ESTHER CHAPTER 7

A second dinner party was planned and Esther invited the king and his henchman.  While sipping wine and eating dainties the king is still curious about Esther’s request so, again he brooches the question and she was primed and geared up. Esther rolls out one of the documents and points out that she and other loyal palace personnel and the entire nation were slated for execution.  The king sees that he has been bamboozled by his chief of staff. He takes a walk to collect himself and returns to find Haman bending over his wife in an inappropriate position and yells, so you are trying to rape my wife in the dining hall. The story unfolds like an accordion.

EXPOSITION TO ESTHER CHAPTER 7

1 So the king and Haman came to banquet with Esther the queen.

“Esther knew well the perils of standing up to autocratic Xerxes: she had gotten her job because of the king’s furious response to a queen’s brashness (1:12–2:7). Esther’s “banquet plot” shows that she had mastered the wiles necessary to soften the king. She grew increasingly bold and more direct, finally convincing the king to issue another decree, countering the one against the Jews─a rare turnabout for a Persian ruler.” Compton’s Complete Interactive Bible

2 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? and it shall be performed, even to the half of the kingdom.

Esther now was bound with the threefold cord of a promise thrice made to reveal to the King at this very banquet what she was wanting.

3 Then Esther the queen answered and said, If I have found favour 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:

She answers the king’s question:  If I’ve brought you any pleasure, please give me the one thing I ask for.  Please do not kill my people. Please, please, please let me and my people live.

4 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 tongue, although the enemy could not countervail the king’s damage.

If we had been put on the slave market I wouldn’t have brought it up; I wouldn’t even have bothered you with it but we have been sold, I and my people to be massacred and totally eliminated.

5 Then the king Ahasuerus answered and said unto Esther the queen, Who is he, and where is he, that durst presume in his heart to do so?

This is such a monstrous deed who would do such a thing?

6 And Esther said, The adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman. Then Haman was afraid before the king and the queen.

I’ll tell you who it is and he is sitting right here at the table with us.

Haman is terror stricken. At this point the king realizes that he has been hood-winked!  The love of his life is destined for annihilation and the man that saved his life was destined to be destroyed along with the entire populace of Jews from India to Ethiopia.  

7 And the king arising from the banquet of wine in his wrath 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.

The king is so angry that he storms out of the room and takes a stroll in the palace gardens and while he is gone Haman is like a condemned criminal on death row making his last appeal to the governor.  

8 Then the king returned out of the palace garden into the place of the banquet of wine; and Haman was fallen upon the bed whereon Esther was. Then said the king, Will he force the queen also before me in the house? As the word went out of the king’s mouth, they covered Haman’s face.

Haman is down on his knees begging. When the king returns he sees Haman lying across the couch where Esther is and now he roars, “What are you doing ─You tried to kill millions and now you are trying to rape my wife in the banquet hall.  As the king’s words echo around the banquet room the security guards pin Haman to the floor and pull a black bag over his head.

9 And Harbonah, one of the chamberlains, said before the king, Behold also, the gallows fifty cubits high, which Haman had made for Mordecai, who had spoken good for the king, standeth in the house of Haman. Then the king said, Hang him thereon.

Harbonah tells the king that Haman had the construction company build a gallows 75 feet high to put Mordecai on. “Hang him on his own gallows!”

Yells the king─hang him.  Hang him, hang him, hang him reverberates around the room like an echo chamber.  The king doesn’t call for his seven wise men that bungled everything in the first chapter he merely takes everything into his own hands.

10 So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then was the king’s wrath pacified.

The king didn’t cool off till the execution of Haman took place.  

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Email
Print