Esther 3:2

2. The king’s servants… bowed This was but a mark of respect to any officer of high rank, and is a common custom in all courts.

Reverenced Haman The Hebrew involves the idea of prostrate reverence as to a superior being bowing on the knees, and touching the forehead to the ground. משׁתחוים . Septuagint, προσεκυνουν , fell prostrate, worshipped. V ulgate, Flectebant genua et adorabant bowed their knees and adored. The Chaldee paraphrase has it that they bowed down to a statue which had been set up in honour of Haman. This at once explains why Mordecai bowed not. Haman required worship like a god, and this would have been idolatry with a Jew. Mordecai is represented in the apocryphal Esther (xiii, 12) as praying: “Thou knowest, Lord, that it was neither in contempt nor pride that I did not bow down to Haman; for I would have been glad, for the salvation of Israel, to kiss the soles of his feet. But I did this that I might not glorify man more than God; neither would I worship any, O God, but thee.”