Esther 5:9

HAMAN PREPARES FOR THE EXECUTION OF MORDECAI

"Then went Haman forth that day joyful and glad of heart; but when Haman saw Mordecai in the kinifs gate, that he stood not up, nor moved for him, he was filled with wrath against Mordecai. Nevertheless, Haman refrained himself, and went home; and he went and fetched his friends and Zeresh his wife. And Haman recounted unto them the glory of his riches, and the multitude of his children, and all the things wherein the king had promoted him, and how he had advanced him above the princes and servants of the king. Haman said moreover, Yea, Esther the queen did let no man come in with the king unto the banquet which she had prepared but myself; and tomorrow also am I invited by her together with the king. Yet all this availeth me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king's gate. Then said Zeresh his wife and all his friends unto him, Let a gallows be made fifty cubits high, and in the morning speak thou unto the king that Mordecai may be hanged thereon; then go thou in merrily with the king unto the banquet. And the thing pleased Haman, and he caused the gallows to be built."

The picture of Haman that emerges here is a good example of, "The deceived sinner, glorying in himself, hating God, and God's people."[11] "Although Esther's maids and other attendants knew of her Jewish race, Haman obviously did not; and that ignorance was is undoing."[12]

Some critics have found fault with the height of the gallows mentioned here, making it either imaginative, untrue, or ridiculous, but they overlook the key fact that the text does not say how high the gallows was. The text only states that Haman's advisers recommended a gallows that high. As a matter of fact, the Hebrew here is not `gallows' at all, but `tree.'[13] Crucifixion was the usual form of punishment in Persia. It was Zeresh, Haman's wife, who mentioned that the gallows should be fifty cubits high (some eighty or ninety feet), but that was nothing more than such a remark as that once heard in the old west that, "So and so should be hanged as high as heaven"!

Archibald Duff has an excellent explanation of how this was probably done. "This stake would have been some ten feet high, but set aloft upon a citadel (or the city wall), as in the case of Nicanor (2 Maccabees 15:35)."[14]

It is hard to understand why the mother of ten sons would have desired to see any man crucified; and her unwomanly suggestion found its terrible retribution when she saw her husband and ten sons all crucified on the same day.[15]

"Although God's name was not mentioned in Esther, probably because the narrative might have been copied from Persian court records; yet God's providential care of his children is nowhere more visible than here."[16]

The shameful character of Haman is featured in this verse. In spite of innumerable blessings and preferments above all others except the king, he was an egomaniac.

"He was a coarse, undisciplined man, little better than a savage; and yet he was the chief minister of the greatest monarch in the world at that time. Worldly prominence and power are no proof of goodness or greatness of soul."[17]

"Haman's unhappiness because of Mordecai's refusal to honor him is true to the type; for it is lesser men who magnify and exaggerate slights; the great are able to overlook them."[18]