Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Esther 3:6
And he thought scorn to lay hands on Mordecai alone; for they had showed 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.
6. But he thought scorn etc. ] Haman’s wrath was so excessive that to punish the man who excited it seemed to him as nothing. The whole nation to which his enemy belonged must perish. A little more than forty years previously, at the accession of Darius Hystaspes, there had been a general massacre of the Magi, when the people “slew every Magus who came in their way” (Herod. iii. 79). This and other instances [67] which might be adduced illustrate the tendency towards passionate and excessive vengeance on the part of the Oriental disposition, which holds human life cheap. Some, however, have seen in Haman’s conduct the operation of a wider principle in the shape of race-hatred, paralleled in later days by anti-semitic outbursts upon the continent, or the persecution of Eastern Christians by the Turks.
[67] For example, when Cyaxares and the Medes invite to a banquet a large number of Scythians, whose depredations had proved troublesome, and massacre them when drunk (Herod. i. 106).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
To destroy all the Jews – In the East massacres of a people, a race, a class, have at all times been among the incidents of history, and would naturally present themselves to the mind of a statesman. The Magophonia, or the great massacre of the Magi at the accession of Darius Hystaspis, was an event not then fifty years old, and was commemorated annually. A massacre of the Scythians had occurred about a century previously.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Est 3:6
Wherefore Haman thought to destroy all the Jews that were throughout the whole kingdom.
Plotting in vain
We proceed to consider the scheme of destruction which Haman arranged with the utmost craft. It seemed in its arrangement perfectly secure. Its accomplishment appeared certain and beyond resistance.
1. Hamans malice was extreme, equal to any result to which it might lead. There was no reluctance, no holding back in the carrying out his purposes of wickedness to the utmost.
2. Hamans plan was extremely crafty and determined. It involved many successive steps, and he faithfully persevered through them all. But what avails all this plotting against God? How mad and silly seem all the well-arranged plans of this scheme of wickedness when the providence and power of God are brought into the account! The secrecy of the plan is nothing. He that is higher than the highest regardeth it. An infinite power unseen is contending against him. Remember the story of Elisha, and his servant on the hill of Samaria (2Ki 6:15).
3. We see the people whom Haman desired to destroy given entirely into his hands. The king makes him an unlimited grant. The king said unto Haman, The silver is given to thee, the people also, to do with them as it seemeth good to thee. Mordecai rent his clothes, and put on sackcloth with ashes, and went out into the midst of the city, and cried with a loud and bitter cry, etc. Alas, what extended sorrow among men the arbitrary wickedness of man is able to produce! Ambition deluges the earth with blood. The wicked covetousness of a few may doom myriads to misery, with no relief. The pride of this world will not stop to hear; the business of this world will not stop to consider; the prosperity and self-indulgence of this world will not be troubled with the griefs of the absent suffering; the indifference of this world cannot take the trouble to read, or think, or act, concerning them.
4. We see on the side of the Jews no power to resist. The highest human power was irrevocably pledged to their oppressor. Every advantage is on the side of the oppressor. But God has His own plans already laid and fixed.
5. We are ready to ask, in reference to the case before us, How could any one ever present greater difficulties? But God delights in overcoming difficulties, and in causing the faith of His people to endure in the midst of all discouragements. He allows the obstacles in their path to accumulate to the utmost. And God graciously honoured the faith which He imparted by fulfilling all its expectations in a manner the most complete. If you come to serve the Lord, you must endure your part of the trials which His people meet. (S. H. Tyng, D. D.)
Revenge
Justice is said to blindfold herself that she may hold the scales evenly, not knowing what has been put into each; but revenge shuts both eyes that it may see no scales at all. What monstrous disproportion between the offence and the penalty, to avenge a small personal affront received from one Jew by causing to perish in one day all Jews, old and young! To say nothing of Nero or Domitian, nor of Radama in Madagascar–for these, being heathen, had to that extent the same excuse as Haman–let me recall in a few words a well-known story. There were many Protestants in France after the Reformation, some of them nobles, all of them peaceful citizens. Their numbers and their growth vexed the Pope, and especially vexed the Popes niece, Catherine de Medici, queen of France, and mother of three of its kings. Suddenly, while one of her sons, Charles IX., was young, Catherine made peace with the Huguenots, and displayed great zeal in enforcing new laws in favour of her Protestant subjects. After two years, without any warning, on the eve of St. Bartholomews Day, there began a massacre in which six thousand persons perished in Paris alone, and fifty thousand in the provinces of France, within three days. When the joyful tidings reached Rome, public thanks were given in the churches. Haman would have rejoiced in the bloodshed; but he must have owned himself outdone in cunning and blasphemy. Catherine succeeded where Haman failed; her victims were effectually blindfolded, and she took the name of a holy God and a merciful Saviour to justify an act which even those of her own creed now blush to acknowledge. (A. M. Symington, B. A.)
Enmity to Gods people
We see how enmity to Gods truth and His people displays itself with restless activity for the accomplishment of its ends. (A. B. Davidson, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
He thought scorn; he thought that particular vengeance was unsuitable to his quality, and to the greatness of the injury.
Haman sought to destroy all the Jews; which he attempted, partly, from that implacable hatred which, as an Amalekite, he had against them; partly, from his rage against Mordecai; and partly, from Mordecais reason of this contempt, because he was a Jew, which, as he truly judged, extended itself to all the Jews, and would equally engage them all in the same neglect and hatred of his person,
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
And he thought scorn to lay hands on Mordecai alone,…. That would not be a sufficient gratification of his revenge; he was too low and mean a person only to wreak his vengeance on; nothing short of his whole nation would satisfy him:
for they had showed him the people of Mordecai; that they were the Jews; for Mordecai had told the king’s servants, that talked with him on the subject, that he was a Jew, and gave that as a reason why he could not and would not reverence Haman:
wherefore Haman sought to destroy all the Jews that were throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus; even the people of Mordecai; and that not merely to be revenged on Mordecai, but because he plainly saw, that both by his example, and upon the same principle with him; they would all to a man refuse to give him reverence; and therefore he was resolved to root them out of the whole empire, that he might not be mortified by them.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
6. He thought scorn Literally, it was contemptible in his eyes. To punish Mordecai alone was too little a thing, in his estimation, to reconcile his offended honour. The whole nation or race of Mordecai must perish to make atonement for this his sole offence. Such wholesale massacres were not uncommon in the East. For the offence of the pseudo-Smerdis the Persians sought to destroy all the Magi, and even celebrated the event by a festival called Magophonia “the slaughter of the Magi.” Herod., 3:79. Such a tyrant as Xerxes, with such a minister as Haman were just the men to cause such slaughter upon slight provocation.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Est 3:6 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.
Ver. 6. And he thought scorn to lay hands on Mordecai alone ] He thought it a small matter, saith Josephus, , a thing below him, too little for his revenge, which, like fire, burneth all it can lay hold upon, especially when as here it ariseth from ambition, which, like choler adust, if constructed and stopped in its course, is a dangerous passion, and endeth in burning fevers and madness. Haman thought scorn, contempsit in oculis suis, contempt in his eyes, so the Hebrew, to foul his fingers with Mordecai alone, the whole nation must perish, and all the children of God that were scattered abroad, as he once said, Joh 11:50 ; Joh 11:52 . In like manner, nostri temporis Hamanus, saith Merlin upon this text, the Haman of our time (meaning the duke of Guise, as I suppose), when as by the king’s favour he was promoted, and promised himself the crown, there being but one family only that stood in his way, he desired together with it to overturn all the Reformed religion and to root out all the remembrance of the Churches in France. Hence the Parisian Massacre, wherein Merlin had his part, being household chaplain to the admiral, and by a miracle of God’s mercy escaping those hellish cut throats. The first occasion of that bloody massacre, I have somewhere read, was this (Other things I know were pretended, as if the Protestants had plotted and practised against the king, queen mother, and the princes of the blood, and coin stamped with this inscription, Virtus in rebelles, &c. Courage in rebellion). The pope sent to the cardinal of Lorraine, brother to the duke of Guise, a table, wherein was painted our lady with a little child in her arms, by the most excellent painter in Christendom, and consecrated with his own hands, and enclosed it in a case of silk, and a letter with it, giving him high commendation and thanks for his zeal against the Huguenots. The messenger that carried the present fell sick by the way, and finding one going into France, entreated him to deliver the present to the cardinal. The cardinal read the letter, and laid the table on his bed, for he would not open it, till he might do it with greater solemnity. For this purpose he invited the duke of Guise to dinner with many other great personages. In the meanwhile one that liked not the cardinal, found means to change the table, &c. At dinner the letter was read, and the table taken out of the case in the sight of the cardinal and all his guests, wherein was painted in place of our lady and her child, the cardinal of Lorraine stark naked, the queen mother, the young Queen of Scots, and the old duchess of Guise naked also, hanging about the cardinal’s neck, and their legs wrapped between his legs. I cannot say much for the man that did this prank; but that the cardinal and his complices should thereupon design all the French Protestants to destruction, should butcher thirty thousand of them in a month, one hundred thousand of them in one year, some say three hundred thousand; that upon the news of it the pope should proclaim a jubilee for joy, and the cardinal of Lorraine give the messenger a thousand crowns, &c. This was matchless atrocious savagery, this was Haman-like hatred, this was cruelty beyond that of Simeon and Levi, which made good Jacob, in a deep detestation of that dreadfulness, cry out, “O my soul, come not thou into their secret,” &c, Gen 49:6 .
For they had showed him the people of Mordecai
Patientia laesa fit furor.
Wherefore Haman sought to destroy all the Jews ] Ut sanguineam
famem expleret; as a wolf, breaking into the fold, kills all the
flock; as fowlers take away the young and the dams together, putting
both into the bag (which God forbade, rough man, came with four hundred cut-throats at his heels, to
destroy the mother with the children, Gen 32:11 prince ef Wallachia, was wont, together with the offender, to execute
the whole family, yea, sometimes the whole kindred; as Selilnus, the
Great Turk, in revenge of the loss he received at the battle of
Lepanto, resolved to put to death all the Christians in his
dominions, in number infinite; as Philip of Spain sailed out of the
Low Countries homewards, vowing to root out all the Lutherans there,
and protesting that he had rather have no subjects than such (Hist.
of Count. of Trent, 417); as cruel Dr Story, a great persecutor in
Queen Mary’s reign, and hanged for a traitor in Queen Elizabeth’s,
whose death he had conspired, cursing her daily in his grace at
meals, and greatly repenting that he and others had laboured only
about the young sprigs and twigs, as he phrased it, while they should
have stricken at the root, and clean rooted it out (A.D. 1571, Camd.
Eliz.); lastly, as the gunpowder Papists, who had prepared by
proclamations to further that horrid plot (if it had taken effect)
upon the Puritans, and under that name to have murdered all those
that had but looked toward religion.
That were throughout the whole kingdom ] Herein he showed himself
a right Amalekite, Mali corvi malum ovum,
( P ), as one said of Tiberius, He presumed
he might have what he pleased of the king, and, therefore, made
account to make but a breakfast of his enemies, the Jews, to whom he
said in his heart, as once Caligula did to the Roman consuls,
Rideo, quod uno nutu meo iugulare vos omnes possim, I cannot but
laugh to think that I can nod you all to death.
Even the people of Mordecai ] Who were more renowned by him than
Co was by Hippocrates, Thebes by Epaininondas, Stagira by Aristotle,
Hippo by Augustine, &c.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Haman sought. Another assault of Satan against the nation through whom the Seed of the woman was to come. See App-23.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
sought: Psa 83:4, Rev 12:12
Reciprocal: 1Sa 22:16 – and 1Sa 23:10 – destroy the city Psa 12:8 – when Psa 37:12 – General Psa 73:6 – Therefore Psa 94:20 – frameth Psa 124:3 – Then they Pro 14:17 – a man Pro 21:24 – haughty Pro 24:2 – General Pro 27:3 – but Pro 28:15 – so Ecc 7:9 – hasty Jer 33:24 – thus Dan 3:8 – and accused Dan 3:13 – in his Mat 5:22 – That Act 12:4 – intending
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Est 3:6. And he thought scorn to lay hands on Mordecai alone He thought that particular vengeance was unsuitable to his quality, and to the greatness of the injury; wherefore Haman sought to destroy all the Jews Which he attempted from that implacable hatred which, as an Amalekite, he had against them; from his rage against Mordecai; and from Mordecais reason of this contempt, because he was a Jew, which, as he truly judged, extended itself to all the Jews, and would equally engage them all in the same neglect. And doubtless Haman included, those who were returned to their own land; for that was now a province of his kingdom.