Chapter Six

1–3. The king remembers Mordecai’s favor and expresses a desire to reward him. 4–11. Haman, unsuspecting, invents the highest reward, and thus becomes himself the executor of the king’s will to exalt Mordecai. 12–14. Haman’s disappointment.

Esther 6:1. On that night the Lord took sleep away from the king, and he commanded [a servant] to bring the memorial book of daily records; and they read them before the king, A more precise translation (without mention of God’s name): “that night sleep fled from the king”...

Esther 6:3. And the king said: What honor and distinction has been given to Mordecai for this? And the servants of the king who attended him said: Nothing has been done for him. “Nothing has been done for him”—say the “servants” of the king in response to his question about rewarding Mordecai. The Greek addition (before the first chapter), by contrast, among the consequences of Mordecai’s service points out that “the king commanded Mordecai to serve in the palace and gave him gifts for this” (Esth 1:1). It has already been said above that Mordecai’s advancement to the court is sufficiently justified by other reasons as well (Esther’s advancement), and therefore, while acknowledging in any case the greater naturalness of the way things are presented in this passage, one can make but some effort to reconcile this apparent contradiction with the Greek addition. It can be supposed that Mordecai did indeed receive something and some gifts at the time for his service, but this “something” and the “gifts” were so insignificant compared with the greatness of the service that they could easily be forgotten by this time and gave full grounds to say that “nothing has been done for him” (Mordecai).

Esther 6:4. [When the king was asking about the favor of Mordecai, Haman came into the court,] and the king said: Who is in the court? And Haman had come then to the outer court of the king’s house to speak with the king to have Mordecai hanged on the stake which he had prepared for him. Esther 6:5. And the servants said to the king: See, Haman is standing in the court. And the king said: Let him enter. Esther 6:6. And Haman came. And the king said to him: What shall be done for the man whom the king wishes to honor? Haman thought in his heart: Whom else would the king wish to honor but me? Esther 6:7. And Haman said to the king: For the man whom the king wishes to honor, Esther 6:8. let them bring royal robes in which the king dresses, and a horse on which the king rides, and let them place a royal crown upon his head, Esther 6:9. and let the robes and the horse be put into the hands of one of the king’s chief nobles,—and let them clothe the man whom the king wishes to honor, and lead him on horseback through the public square, and proclaim before him: This is what is done for the man whom the king wishes to honor! Esther 6:10. And the king said to Haman: [You have spoken well;] at once take the robes and the horse, as you have said, and do this for Mordecai the Jew, sitting at the king’s gate; omit nothing of what you have said. Esther 6:11. And Haman took the robes and the horse and clothed Mordecai, and led him on horseback through the public square and proclaimed before him: This is what is done for the man whom the king wishes to honor! It would be hard to imagine a more burning wound to pride and self-love than the king’s command to Haman with respect to Mordecai. The man who the king himself had exalted to such a height that he called him “second” (Esth 4:8) to himself, “father” (Esth 3:13) and so forth, and distinguished with such honors as the prone worship of subjects before him,—had to play the role of servant in the triumph of his mortal enemy, for whom he had even already prepared a gallows. Aside from the explanation of this unexpectedly incomprehensible exchange of roles by the arrangement of Divine Providence, punishing Haman’s pride and presumption that had gotten out of hand, we can also allow the supposition that the royal favorite was already falling sharply in the king’s eyes by this time, and therefore Esther’s complaint was only the final blow to his overthrow, though the most strong and decisive.

Esther 6:12. And Mordecai returned to the king’s gate. But Haman hastened to his house, sorrowful and with his head covered. Esther 6:13. And Haman recounted to Zeresh, his wife, and all his friends everything that had befallen him. And his wise men and Zeresh, his wife, said to him: If Mordecai, of the race of the Jews, before whom you have begun to fall, is of the Jewish people, you will not prevail against him, but will surely fall before him, [for the living God is with him]. Esther 6:14. They were still speaking with him, when the king’s eunuchs came and began to hurry Haman to go to the feast which Esther had prepared. The extraordinary fate which the Jews experienced from the time of Cyrus the Persian aroused among other peoples at various times envy and enmity, which seized every opportunity to manifest itself, and on the other hand—a vague and mysterious fear before some special enigmatically persistent force, protected moreover by another irresistible higher power (Divinity). This is exactly what is heard in the warning expressed to Haman at his second family council—after the adventure with Mordecai just described: “If Mordecai, of the race of the Jews, before whom you have begun to fall, is of the Jewish people, you will not prevail against him, but will surely fall before him [for the living God is with him].”