Chapter 3: 4-6
The book of Esther: A study of God in action
when nothing appears to be happening!
by Patsy Norwood (c) 2023 - 2024. All Rights
Reserved.
Happy New Year Everyone!
May you be abundantly blessed by our Heavenly Father this year!
It’s time to pick back up with our study on the book of
Esther, so let’s get started with a mini review of where we ended in our last
lesson.
We left off with the king’s servants asking Mordecai why he wasn’t
obeying the king’s command to bow down to Haman. Be sure to go back and read all of lesson 11
to see what led up to Mordecai’s refusal and his being questioned.
Let’s see what happens next starting with verse 4 …
4 Now it happened, when they spoke to him daily
and he would not listen to them, that they told it to Haman, to see whether
Mordecai’s words would stand; for Mordecai had told them that he was a Jew.
Mordecai’s fellow workers questioned him daily, possibly every
time Haman went in and out of the palace gates, it sounds like they did more
than question him though. It sounds like
they tried to persuade him to stop disobeying and bow down to Haman, but
Mordecai would not listen. (Can we call this peer pressure?)
With fellow co-workers and or acquaintances like that, who
needs enemies. These ‘co-workers’ told
Haman, and do you see why? They wanted
to see if Mordecai would stay faithful after his confession that he was a Jew
since it was well known that Jews only worshipped God.
Haman might never have noticed Mordecai’s refusal to bow down
had it not been for these tale bearers.
This was a time of testing for Mordecai! Do we experience times of testing? I believe we do and like Mordecai the bottom
line is whether we will remain faithful during persecution and or hard times or
give in to the circumstances.
5 When Haman saw that Mordecai did not bow or pay
him homage, Haman was filled with wrath.
If Haman hadn’t noticed Mordecai before, he does now! The idea that someone refused to bow down to
him made him not just angry, but furious.
Haman, I believe your egotistical pride is showing!
6 But he disdained to lay
hands on Mordecai alone, for they had told him of the people of Mordecai.
Instead, Haman sought to destroy all the Jews
who were throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus—the people of
Mordecai.
Only one man amongst many who refused to bow down and Haman
was instantly angry enough to kill a whole culture of people.
The Jews! Those were the people that Haman's ancestors had been feuding with for a very long time. Could this be an opportunity for Haman to strike the next blow in this ongoing ancestorial feud? Could this be why Haman didn't want to go after just Mordecai, but the whole Jewish people?
One commentary I read said that when Haman was told who Mordecai’s people were, “he thought it beneath him to lay hands on him alone”.
Did he think that one Jew wasn't enough when all of them could be at his disposal, is that what caused him to pause and take a step back? After all, he was second in command under the King and had great power at his disposal.
Here's an excerpt from a commentary titled Studies in Ezra,
Nehemiah, and Esther that gives us some insight …. “One of the points which
set ancient Israel apart from the nations around them was their (sometimes)
steadfast refusal to bow down to any god other than Jehovah. If the Satraps knew of this trait (surely,
they did) and the historic antagonism between the Jews and the Amalekites, this
would explain the bitter resentment Haman appeared to feel toward Mordecai.”
Is it possible that Mordecai felt the same kind of resentment or something similar toward Haman ... for the same reason?
Mordecai: Jewish
ancestry
Haman: Amalekite
ancestry – hated all Jews
Hmmm, sounds like this could be the basis for a conflict of
major proportions! (We talked about the
root of all this back in lesson 11.) It
absolutely never pays to disobey God!
For whatever reason, Haman wasn’t content to just go after
Mordecai, he wanted to wipe out the whole Jewish population throughout the
whole kingdom. To do this, though, he
had to get the King’s permission, do you see where this is going? Haman’s heart had to be pure evil to come up
with such a plan.
In our next lesson:
Esther 3: 7-9, Haman seeks permission from the king to carry out his
evil plan, but he’s sneaky about it!
I hope you’ve enjoyed today's lesson. Don't forget
to leave a comment and if you're enjoying this class, please share the link
with other ladies who you think might enjoy it as well.
Links to previous lessons:
Until the next class ...
patsy @ From This Heart of Mine; (c) 2023 - 2024 by Patsy Norwood ~ All Rights Reserved.
Our next door neighbors are South American and when they moved here 17 years ago he asked me where all the Spanish speakers were. I told him there was a Mexican family up at the entrance of the neighborhood and his immediate reply was that they do not associate with Mexicans. This completely baffled me and still does because this guy and his wife would give you the shirt off their backs. My own family heritage has deep seated prejudices that I have struggled with for decades. So I immediately thought of that and wondered about Haman's family heritage and the way his family may have had ingrained disdain for Jews that would make him almost giddy to be able to have a chance to do away with the Jews as a whole back when we wrote Esther. You confirmed that here with his heritage.
ReplyDeleteLana, I spent considerable time researching this as I couldn't understand why Haman didn't immediately jump at the chance to 'get' Mordecai. After researching it all it made so much more sense ... prejudices can run deep, and it seems that Haman had a deep one against the Jews. Great comment!
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