Esther 3:12

THE DAY WAS SET;

THE DECREE WAS SIGNED;

THE MASSACRE WAS ANNOUNCED

"Then were the king's scribes called, in the first month, on the thirteenth day of the month; and there was written according to all that Haman commanded unto the king's satraps, and to the governors that were over every province, and to the princes of every people, to every province according to the writing thereof, and to every people after their language, in the name of king Ahashuerus was it written, and it was sealed with the king's ring. And the letters were sent by posts, into all the king's provinces, to destroy, to slay, and to cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day, even upon the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, and to take the spoil of them for a prey. A copy of the writing, that the decree should be given out in every province, was published unto all the peoples, that they should be ready against that day. The posts went forth in haste by the king's commandment, and the decree was given out in Shushan the palace. And the king and Haman sat down to drink; but the city of Shushan was perplexed."

God's people never faced a more terribile threat than this one. The egomaniac Haman had engineered that which might easily have destroyed the entire race of the chosen people; but there was no way that God would have allowed such a thing to happen; because all of the glorious promises of Messiah to redeem men from their sins were contingent upon the preservation of the Israel of God until that Messiah was born in Bethlehem. God had foreseen this threat. He had foreseen it when king Saul was ordered to destroy the Amalekites. Saul failed to do so; but God did not abandon his people.

God used the drunken request of Xerxes to degrade Vashti the queen; he elevated an orphan Jewish girl to take her place; he planted the name of Mordecai in the chronicles of the king; and he would remind Xerxes of that fact at precisely the proper instant. Oh yes, for all of his power and hatred, Haman had undertaken to do that which was impossible.

"And the king and Haman sat down to drink" (Esther 3:15). A little later in this narrative, we shall read of the execution of Haman by what amounted to his crucifixion; but, sad as a thing like that surely is, it should be remembered that Haman was the kind of man who could condemn unnumbered thousands, perhaps even as many as a million people, to murder by wholesale massacre, and then sit down to drink liquor and enjoy himself. The fate encountered by this servant of the devil was fully deserved.