Esther 7
Share
CHAPTER 7
Haman Hanged (7:1–10)
1–4 At the second banquet, Xerxes once again asked Esther what her request was. This time she told him: “. . . grant me my life . . . spare my people” (verse 3). Xerxes must have been bewildered. Then she explained that she and her people had been sold for destruction (verse 4). Esther was referring to the bribe Haman had offered the king to persuade him to order the Jews’ destruction (Esther 3:9). Then Esther added that she would never have bothered the king if she and her people had merely been sold as slaves; it was because they were being sold for destruction that she had petitioned the king.
5 Xerxes still couldn’t have been sure what Esther was talking about. Was she referring to the edict that had been sent out under his name authorizing the destruction of a certain people in his kingdom? (Esther 3:8–9). Even then, the king may not have known who those “certain people” were.
6–7 But he did know that whoever had ordered their destruction had also ordered the destruction of his own queen! Who was the man responsible?
When Esther told him it was Haman, the king left the room in a rage. He may also have left in order to decide what to do. After all, he himself had authorized Haman to issue the edict. How then could he punish him?
Haman, meanwhile, fell on the couch where Esther was sitting in order to beg for her mercy.
8–10 When the king returned, it appeared to him that Haman was trying to molest his wife! That sealed Haman’s fate. One of the king’s servants informed him that Haman had just built a gallows on which he had planned to hang Mordecai that very morning. But on the king’s order, Haman was hanged there instead! (see Proverbs 11:8).
Perhaps by this time Xerxes realized that the people Haman wanted to destroy were the Jews. That meant Esther was a Jew also. The writer gives no indication that Xerxes was troubled by this discovery.
Neither is there any indication that Esther knew about Mordecai’s triumph earlier that same day. Like Xerxes, she must have been amazed at the way things turned out.