Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Esther 3:5

And when Haman saw that Mordecai bowed not, nor did him reverence, then was Haman full of wrath.

Est 3:5-6

And when Haman saw that Mordecai bowed not . . . then was Haman full of wrath.

Vanity and cruelty

Haman manifests by his behaviour the intimate connection there is between vanity and cruelty.

1. Vanity is a form of magnified egotism. When a vain man looks out on the world it is always through the medium of his own vastly magnified shadow. Like the Brocken Ghost, this shadow becomes a haunting presence standing out before him in huge proportions. He has no other standard of measurement. The good is what gives him pleasure; evil is what is noxious to him.

(1) Egoism utilises the sufferings of others for its own ends. No doubt cruelty is often the result of sheer callousness. It is not so in Hamans case; he is irritated, and vents his annoyance in a vast explosion of malignity that must take account of the agony it produces, for in that agony its own thirst for vengeance is to be slaked.

(2) Egoism promotes cruelty by destroying the sense of proportion. Self is not only regarded as the centre of the universe; like the sun surrounded by the planets, it is taken to be the greatest object, and everything else is insignificant when compared to it. What is the slaughter of a few thousand Jews to so great a man as Haman? It is no more than the destruction of as many flies in a forest fire that the settler has kindled to clear his ground. The same self-magnification is visibly presented by the Egyptian bas reliefs, on which the victorious Pharaohs appear as tremendous giants driving back hordes of enemies or dragging pigmy kings by their heads. It is but a step from this condition to insanity, which is the apotheosis of vanity. The chief characteristic of insanity is a diseased enlargement of self.

2. Vanity leads to cruelty through the entire dependence of the vain person on the good opinion of others. In this vanity differs from pride. A proud man is satisfied with himself, but the vain man is always looking outside himself with feverish eagerness to secure all the honours that the world can bestow upon him. While a proud man in an exalted position scarcely deigns to notice the dim, common people, the vain man betrays his vulgarity by caring supremely for popular adulation. Therefore, while the haughty person can afford to pass over a slight with contempt, the vain creature who lives on the breath of applause is mortally offended by it and roused to avenge the insult with corresponding rage. (W. F. Adeney, M. A.)

The misery of pride

A man of principle would have respected the conscientiousness of the act, even though he might have laughed at what he regarded the smallness of the scruple. A man of ordinary common sense would have treated the whole affair with indifference; but Haman valued his office just because it carried with it the right to such homage, and therefore what would have been a mole-hill, or hardly so much, to others, was a mountain to him. The proud man thus increases his own misery; and little slights, which other people would not so much as notice, are felt by him with great keenness. He whose arm has been recently vaccinated is very sensitive where the pustule is, so that a push which you would think nothing of is agony to him. Now, in precisely the same way the proud man is touchy, as we say; the slightest infringement on his dignity wounds him to the quick, and when other people are laughing he is vowing revenge; for, as this story illustrates, the passions are all near of kin, and one prepares the way for another. Brooding over the refusal of Mordecai to do him reverence, it became so magnified in his estimation that he determined to punish it; there was revenge. That he might gratify that revenge, it became necessary to bring the peculiarities of the Jewish nation before the king, and he requested their destruction on the ground that they were not profitable to the monarch, whereas the sole reason why he suggested their extirpa tion was that Mordecai had slighted him; there was falsehood. Then, in planning their massacre, there was murder. Here, therefore, were four sins all in a line, each rising above the other in enormity–pride, revenge, falsehood, murder. People think, sometimes, that pride is no great sin; some almost speak of it as if it were half a virtue; but, as this and other histories make plain, it is the germ of other evils that are worse than itself, and therefore we ought to be on our guard against allowing ourselves to become its victims. And how shall we best counteract it? I reply, by cultivating a sense of responsibility. That which we have, whether it be ability, or wealth, or exalted position, we have received as a trust, and we are to use it, as stewards for God, in the service of our fellow-men. Let us keep pressing the questions, Who hath made me to differ from others? What have I that I have not received? For what purpose have I been entrusted with these things? And the more we ponder these, the less we shall be inclined to plume ourselves on our possessions, and the more we shall be stirred up to the service of our generation by the will of God. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)

Injured vanity

A man will forgive you anything, Professor Huxley said, if you do not injure his vanity. Once do that, and he will never forgive you.

Evil passion its own penalty

Now, it may be thought by some that the case of Haman allowing himself to be so chafed and perturbed by a trifle as to be made miserable in the midst of so many advantages, is to be regarded as altogether extreme and without parallel; but we believe that on examination it will be found that the wicked always receive part of their punishment in the violence of some unhallowed passion which blinds them to all the real benefits of their lot. Is there not a gnaw ing disease in the heart of the covetous man, for example, which prevents him from enjoying the good things which are placed within his reach, just because he has not yet acquired all that he wishes to possess? And still, as he gets more and more, is he not as far as ever from being satisfied, since he has not yet reached the point at which he aims? Or again, look to the man who is the slave of envy, and mark how miserable this base passion makes him. He has ample means of enjoyment, which he can call his own; but his neighbour has something which pleases him better, and just because that one thing is awanting to himself, he can find no satis faction in the varied blessings which a kind providence has showered upon him. His neighbours good is to him what Mordecai at the kings gate was to Haman. In like manner, I might advert to the working of the more violent passions of anger and revenge as a cause of intense torment to those who cherish them, and as altogether preventing them from taking advantage of many sources of happiness which lie open to them on every side. I might also allude to the misery which wounded vanity and affronted pride often bring to those who have high notions of their own importance, as when a trifling word or action will discompose them for many days together, and deprive them of their relish for the things that formerly pleased them, and made them happy. But enough has been said to show how by a just retribution the ungodly, following their natural tendencies and passions, work out their own passion. How different is the picture presented to us, where grace reigns in the heart. Although corruption is not altogether eradicated from the spiritual man, yet its power is subdued; the fierce passions are tamed, love takes the place of envy, malignity, and wrath; and the believer, seeking and finding his chief enjoyment in God, remains comparatively unruffled by those incidents which breed so much vexation and disquietude in the breast of the ungodly. (A. B. Davidson, D. D.)

Wounded pride

Wounded pride excites revenge, and this always burns hottest in the weakest minds. How insatiable is revenge, especially when it is associated with national and religious rancour! Haman learned that Mordecai was a Jew, a name that called up the bitterest recollections in the breast of an Amalekite, and he resolves at once on the total extermination of that people. (T. McCrie, D. D.)

A favourite lust

And it has always been one of the devices of the enemy to drive men into criminal excesses to their own ruin, through the instrumentality of some favourite lust or appetite. It was the covetous spirit of Judas that opened a way to the tempter to hurry him on to betray the Saviour. (A. B. Davidson, D. D.)

Then was Haman full of wrath.

The penalty of an evil passion

How dreadfully this wrath flamed in his bosom we learn from the method which he took to express it. We may observe, at present, what misery pride, by its own nature and inseparable consequences, brings upon men. No proud man ever received all that respect, or was treated with all that delicacy of regard, which he thought his due. Now pride mortified by neglect or contempt, kindles a fire in the soul which burns, and torments, and destroys. (G. Lawson.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

And when Haman saw that Mordecai bowed not, nor did him reverence,…. For, after the information given him, he observed and watched him, to see whether he bowed and did him reverence or not:

then was Haman full of wrath; exceedingly displeased and angry; it was such a mortification to him he could not bear.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

(5) And when Haman saw that Mordecai bowed not, nor did him reverence, then was Haman full of wrath. (6) And he thought scorn to lay hands on Mordecai alone; for they had shewed him the people of Mordecai: wherefore Haman sought to destroy all the Jews that were throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus, even the people of Mordecai.

Mark the true Amalekitish spirit in this monster of iniquity. Suppose that Mordecai was ever so deserving of death, was it not enough, Haman, to cut him off; but thou must destroy a whole nation with him? Alas! what a desperate height the bad passions of bad men are capable of advancing to. But, Reader! may we not spiritualize the passage, and behold in it (like Pharaoh in Egypt) the hatred of the world against the church of JESUS. It was the enemy of souls which caused this hellish design to take flame in the breast of Haman. And at the bottom of this intended destruction, it was JESUS, and his church and people, which the Devil aimed at one blow to destroy. Oh! how precious it is, to behold the LORD’S watchful eye over his people. Destroy it not, (saith He that looketh on) there is a blessing in it. Yes! JESUS is in it, and it cannot be hurt. Isa 65:8 .

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Est 3:5 And when Haman saw that Mordecai bowed not, nor did him reverence, then was Haman full of wrath.

Ver. 5. And when Haman saw ] Stirred up by these pestilent flatterer, qui crabronem furiosum magis irritaverant, as one saith, he took special notice of Mordecai’s irreverence, which with more discretion he might have dissembled. When an inconsiderate fellow had stricken Cato in the bath, and afterwards cried him mercy, he replied, I remember not that thou didst strike me. It is a sign of weakness to be too soft and sensible of an indignity; “I was as a deaf man that heard not, and as one dumb, in whose mouth is no reproof,” Psa 38:13-14 . The best apology to words and carriages of scorn and petulance is that of Isaac to Ishmael, viz. patience and silence.

That Mordecai bowed not, &c. ] A great business to enrage him so much, but that he was set on by that old man slayer.

Sic leve, sic parvum est, animum quod laudis avarum

Subruit, aut reficit –

So trivial, so small is it, the spirit because greedy of praise, will be undermined or restored. A small wind raiseth a bubble, ambition rideth without reins, and hath inhabitatorem Dracohere Apostatam, the devil at inn with it.

Then was Haman full of wrath ] He swelled like a toad, glowed like a devil; being transformed as it were into a breathing devil, he seeks the utter extirpation of that people, of whom, concerning the flesh, Christ was to come, Rom 9:5 , wishing the same to them which Caligula in a rage did to the people of Rome, I would ye had all but one neck, that I might cut you all off at one blow, E . Josephus tells us, that he brake out into this blustering speech, Liberi Persae me adorant. Hic autem, servus cum sit, tamen hoc facere dedignatur: The Persians, though free men, reverence me, and yet this slave thinks himself too good to do it. This he uttered no doubt with a very harsh and hateful intention of the voice, such as was that of the two brethren in evil, whose anger was fierce and their wrath cruel, when, Gen 34:31 , they answered their aggrieved father, Should he deal with our sister as a harlot? Gen 49:5 ; Gen 49:7 ; where the word Zonah (harlot) hath a great letter, to note their vehemency, rage, and rudeness.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

that Mordecai: Est 3:2, Est 5:9

full of wrath: Est 1:12, Gen 4:5, Gen 4:6, Job 5:2, Pro 12:16, Pro 19:19, Pro 21:24, Pro 27:3, Pro 27:4, Dan 3:19

Reciprocal: 1Sa 18:8 – the saying Ezr 4:15 – this city Est 9:24 – the enemy Psa 73:6 – Therefore Pro 16:18 – General Ecc 7:9 – hasty Dan 3:13 – in his Mat 5:22 – That

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

A STURDY ALIEN

Haman saw that Mordecai bowed not.

Est 3:5

I. A sturdy soul was Mordecai.He was not going to give a prostration of homage, which he reserved for God alone, to the haughty noble who sprang from the hated race of Amalek.

II. What a contrast within and without the palace when the decree was signed!Within, revelry, the king and Haman sat down to drink. Without, perplexity and alarm, for who could anticipate what the near future might disclose, if the king could sacrifice an entire nation for the whim of a favourite? But God was standing within the shadow, keeping watch above His own. For

III. They always lose who fight against God.They may be great, like Haman. They may be able, unscrupulous, ambitious. They may exact homage from every one. The chances are, we say, that they shall march from success to success. But the Lord of hosts is their antagonist. His boundless power, His sovereign authority, His invincible might, are opposed to them. So it is our safety never to ally ourselves with them.

IV. They always win who side with God.They may be forgotten and despised, like Mordecai at the gate. But they are ruled by principle and conscience. They cannot give honour to what is not true, what is not honest, what is not good. The short man who could not bow, Oliver Cromwell said of James Guthrie, and it is their character. All things work together for these mens good. The system of nature, the ordinances of grace, the Holy Spirit within the soul, the Saviour on the thronethese are their friends. Tis better, Robert Browning sings, being good than bad.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

Est 3:5. Then was Haman full of rage Josephus tells us, that Haman, taking notice of this singularity in Mordecai, asked him what countryman he was, and finding him to be a Jew, broke out into a violent exclamation at his insolence, and in his rage formed the desperate resolution, not only to be revenged on Mordecai, but to destroy the whole race of the Jews; well remembering that his ancestors, the Amalekites, had been formerly driven out of their country, and almost exterminated by the Jews.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments