Up to this point, Haman has been very patient and contrived. He’s a schemer, for sure. But something about this banquet, and the prospect of the one tomorrow got him thinking. He thought of all the ways he must have been the most blessed and wealthy person in all of the Persian kingdom, and how that meant nothing to him if Mordecai wouldn’t bow.

He had passed by Mordecai day in and day out for weeks or months at this point, and Mordecai never once bowed. It was this banquet that Queen Esther threw that got him to contemplate his life, and his patience for Mordecai came to an end. Haman could no longer contain his rage, and he decided it was time to have a confab with his closest friends and family to decide what to do about it.

He brought them together and told them just how little they all meant to him as long as this one lone Jew refused to pay him homage. The speech he gave his wife and kids wasn’t the kind that wins you husband or father of the year, but it was a moment of especially insightful clarity into the mind of this wicked man. The desire for retribution, revenge and death had finally overcome Haman, and he couldn’t stand it anymore. It was eating him alive.

Had it not been for the events that the Lord was going to be simultaneously orchestrating this evening, things would have gone very poorly for Mordecai and the Jews within just a few short hours.

But the Lord is good at manipulating even the proudest of rulers.

What do you think it was about this one time that Mordecai refused to bow that got to Haman so bad?

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Esther is simultaneously a victory and a tragedy. In some ways, If you look at it through a modern lens, it should be called the Victory of Mordecai and the Tragedy of Esther. Esther loses her parents and then is taken into the harem of a despotic king to be used as he wishes. Mordecai ends up, like Daniel, a very high official and ruler in his expatriated land.

This will be a great study of Esther as we look at the emotions, the world and the meanings of one of the most cherished, and often misunderstood books of the Bible.

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