So the king and Haman went in to feast with Queen Esther. And on the second day, as they were drinking wine after the feast, the king again said to Esther, “What is your wish, Queen Esther? It shall be granted you. And what is your request? Even to the half of my kingdom, it shall be fulfilled.” Then Queen Esther answered, “If I have found favor in your sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be granted me for my wish, and my people for my request. For we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated. If we had been sold merely as slaves, men and women, I would have been silent, for our affliction is not to be compared with the loss to the king.” Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther, “Who is he, and where is he, who has dared to do this?” And Esther said, “A foe and enemy! This wicked Haman!” Then Haman was terrified before the king and the queen.
Exposing evil is a risky business. It is tough to navigate. In the above story we have the demise of Haman unfolding. To know the context would help the lesson to learn. Haman had come to hate Mordecai, who was Queen Esther’s legal guardian, the daughter of his deceased brother. It appears as though Mordecai had adopted her. Haman didn’t like Mordecai because he showed him great disrespect:
Esther 3:1-2 (ESV)
After these things King Ahasuerus promoted Haman the Agagite, the son of Hammedatha, and advanced him and set his throne above all the officials who were with him. And all the king’s servants who were at the king’s gate bowed down and paid homage to Haman, for the king had so commanded concerning him. But Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage.
As a result, Haman made it his life’s mission to destroy Mordecai. Haman, in his anger, knew nothing about the relationship between the Kings wife, the Queen Esther and Esther and the Jews, who Haman had convinced the King to kill. The entire plan is fraught with peril. God had orchestrated this entire plan in order to both save the Jewish people and to promote Mordecai and Esther in this kingdom. Remember, Mordecai and Esther were captives in the country. This is the time of Israel’s captivity. God gives Esther wisdom to expose one of her captors, to the king (who was the leader of her captors). God put Esther, despite her captivity, in the exact place she needed to be to both rescue her people and her “uncle” Mordecai. She was emboldened to expose Haman. She took the risk to do so because she operated in faith to God for the results. She throws the party to create the moment she would be in the exact favor of the king. We should never underestimate how God wants to use us in the master plan of His doing. God put Esther in this position before Mordecai ever was in Haman’s sights. Mordecai’ s obedience to God to not bow down to a foreign god was the right thing to do and it was rewarded by God putting Esther in the right place to save him, even before He did it. Pretty amazing.
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