Est. 7: How's Haman Hangin'?

Esther 7:10 "So they hanged Haman on the gallows he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the king's fury subsided."

Esther still hasn't told Xerxes about her request, and he's getting kind of impatient. This is obviously important to her. He must have been wondering what was taking so long for her to tell him. Man, I'd freak out. Can you imagine his initial thought when Esther finally tells him that her request is to simply spare her life (which she took into her hands by approaching the king in his court without previous appointment), and the lives of those of her people. 

Esther goes on to tell Xerxes that she and her people had been marked for annihilation. Slavery, meh, that's no cause to go before the king. 

Xerxes appears to have no clue who would do such a thing to his queen, despite having co-signed on Haman's genocide of the Jews. How often does he do this? I mean, really. Perhaps he didn't want to believe it was Haman, his trusted official. There had to be some other legislation pushed through that he missed or forgot about. But Esther tells him, yeah, it's Haman, who is sitting right there in front of them. 

Xerxes leaves in a huff, enraged probably.  He comes back just in time to see Haman falling on the couch with Esther to beg her for his life. It looks to Xerxes (who is not thinking rationally again) that Haman is in the midst of making a play for Esther. Yeah. In the middle of being sentenced to death. That Haman is a hound dog!  

So Haman is hanged on the gallows that were built for Mordecai. The innocent was spared, as the evil one was executed.

Est. 6: Mordecai's Honor

Esther 6:11 "So Haman got the robe and the horse. He robed Mordecai, and led him on horseback through the city streets, proclaiming before him, 'This is what is done for the man the king delights to honor!'"

So King Xerxes is laying there in bed and he can't sleep. Just as we go flip on the TV or the radio or something, he needed some sort of a distraction, so he has his chronicles read to him...the things that happened during his reign. I usually listen to a radio to fall asleep, because I can't stand total silence. Maybe this is something I have in common with a king! Pretty sweet.

So anyway, the reader gets to the part where Mordecai narcs on the two guys who were conspiring against Xerxes. Suddenly it strikes him. I imagine he sits straight up in his enormous bed and wonders aloud, "What...how have we recognized Mordecai for this?" Saving the life was a pretty big deal. "Nothing has been done for Mordecai." Well, now they have to figure out some stuff to do for Mordecai. Someone important would have to give him some advice. He notices Haman in the court. Xerxes probably thinks Haman can give him some good advice on how to honor someone.

Haman, who is there ironically to discuss Mordecai's death, had just had the gallows erected for that purpose. Amazing.

Xerxes' conversation with Haman from this point on reminds me of an episode of "I Love Lucy." One character is talking about something, while the second character thinks that first character is talking about something else. Xerxes questions Haman, asking, "What's to be done with someone who the king delights to honor?" Haman, flattered and presuming it is he, not Mordecai, the king delights to honor, wracks his brain trying to think of the most amazing way ever for the king to honor someone. One by one, Haman throws out honor after honor, including dressing the honoree in royal robes, parading him around town, and proclaiming aloud, "See how the king honors those who he delights in."

Can you imagine the deflation and the feeling of utter worthlessness Haman must have felt when the king instructed him to go do this with Mordecai the Jew? The same Mordecai who aggravated him for no real good reason constantly, just a refusal to honor him? The same Mordecai who Haman spent all evening building gallows for?

So there was Haman, parading Mordecai all over town, honoring him with a king's honor instead of hanging him from the gallows. 

Haman presumed too much. Here God preserved Mordecai. Mordecai who had received little or no honor at the time he had saved the king, patiently waited until God timed it to reward him. And in a really ironic, painful-to-the-other-guy way. Gloryhounds will get their comeuppance. And those who wait will receive their reward.

And Haman barely has time to go cry to his wife and friends before the eunuchs come and haul him off to Esther's banquet. It had to be piling on for Haman at this point, as his friends told him there was no standing up to jews. They have their special God in charge of them. He was as good as dead. 

Est. 3: Haman's Jewnocide

Esther 3:13 "Dispatches were sent by couriers to all the king's provinces with the order to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews—young and old, women and little children—on a single day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar, and to plunder their goods."

So Xerxes promotes this guy Haman, giving him the highest position of the nobles in all the land. I don't know if it was because Haman was the guy who hung the conspirators or whatever, or if he was involved at all. Xerxes also issues a decree that everyone had to bow to Haman. I find it somewhat interesting that with credit given Mordecai for uncovering the plot, the king doesn't give Mordecai the same sort of honor. Mordecai ends up being the one guy who refuses to bow to Haman. Of course this doesn't go over well with Haman. 

It wasn't enough to just want to kill Mordecai for his shows of disrespect, Haman seizes this opportunity to blame the Jews nationwide for being a people who refuse to obey the kings laws...they have these weird customs, and apparently only worship one God. A God who is no king of men. Haman isn't recorded as telling Xerxes that he is referring to the Jews. But insubordination of anyone is enough to freak Xerxes out to the point that he gives carte blanche to Haman to eliminate this threat completely. 

I don't know how sneaky Haman is being, but it appears he is not being fully honest with Xerxes, who, until this point doesn't appear to have any specific beef with the Jews. We do know that Mordecai believes that Esther would be distasteful to Xerxes for being a Jew, but that probably wouldn't be cause to ride along with genocidal plans.

So the plot goes forward, and dispatches are sent out under Xerxes' name to annihilate anyone of Jewish ancestry and to plunder their land. Celebrating their plans, Xerxes and Haman sit down to drink. I didn't know why the last verse mentions the city of Susa was "bewildered," but I think its probably because they don't know why they now have to kill their Jewish neighbors and take their stuff. That would be kind of weird. It would be hard for me to kill my neighbor just because the leader now tells me too. Meh, when in Persia...