7 So the king and Haman went in to feast with Queen Esther. 2 And on the second day, as they were drinking wine after the feast, the king again said to Esther,c“What is your wish, Queen Esther? It shall be granted you. And what is your request? dEven to the half of my kingdom, it shall be fulfilled.” 3 Then Queen Esther answered, e“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. 4 fFor we have been sold, I and my people, gto 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.” 5 Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther, “Who is he, and where is he, who has dared1 to do this?” 6 And Esther said, h“A foe and enemy! This wicked Haman!” Then Haman was terrified before the king and the queen.
Haman Is Hanged
7 And the king arose in his wrath from the wine-drinking and went into ithe palace garden, but Haman stayed to beg for his life from Queen Esther, for he saw that harm was determined against him by the king. 8 And the king returned from ithe palace garden to the place where they were drinking wine, as Haman was falling onjthe couch where Esther was. And the king said, “Will he even assault the queen in my presence, in my own house?” As the word left the mouth of the king, they covered Haman's face. 9 Then kHarbona, one of the eunuchs in attendance on the king, said, “Moreover, lthe gallows2 that Haman has prepared for Mordecai, mwhose word saved the king, is standing at Haman's house, fifty cubits3 high.” 10 And the king said, “Hang him on that.” nSo they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. oThen the wrath of the king abated.
So in reading on through tr rest of Esther, I'm struck by two things... One being, the reaction to the kings decree (that really came from Haman) that it was okay by law to kill all the Jews. And that the people were all ready to do it, in fact like 70,000 thousand or more. I guess I like to hope that if our laws went away and there weren't any penalties for murder that people wouldn't just walk out the next morning and start killing everyone on their block, I hope there is more keeping people from murdering eachother than laws and penalties! And two, I get a little unsettled with many of the old testament stories where the Jewish people return killing with killing.
ReplyDeleteagreed... on all of it.
ReplyDeleteits interesting to me... part of me wants to say, "what the hell??? don't return murder with murder!" and then the other part says, "well, there wasn't a single culture that didn't do the same. In fact, until Jesus, eye for an eye was a GRACIOUS law that didn't allow you to kill someone for breaking your kid's arm." its tough man. but the story is pretty wild. The king wasn't a righteous king at all, but esther won his favor time and time again.