Deeper Commentary

Esther 5:1 Now it happened on the third day that Esther put on her royal clothing- Perhaps because as stated in Esther 4:17 she had taken it off in order to mourn and cover herself in sackcloth.

And stood in the inner court of the king’s house, next to the king’s house. The king sat on his royal throne in the royal house, next to the entrance of the house- "The royal house" is literally "the house of the kingdom", the term used for the temple in 2 Chron. 2:1,12. This extends the  impression discussed on Esther 1:7 that we have here a fake, imitation temple of Yahweh. Esther would surely have recalled how she had first entered the king's house, to sleep with him whilst in the contest for becoming Queen. She surely would have looked back and realized that was all of God, somehow, that she 'won' against amazing odds. And this would have been designed to encourage her that God could do the same again. For that is how life is structured.

Esther 5:2 When the king saw Esther the queen standing in the court, she obtained favour in his sight; and the king held out to Esther the golden sceptre that was in his hand. So Esther came near, and touched the top of the sceptre- The record is as it were a video shot by the Divine cameraman. We see her standing there, see her fingers touching the very tip of the sceptre. And we get the feeling that the outcome finally will be good for her.

Esther 5:3 Then the king asked her, What would you like, queen Esther? What is your request? It shall be given you even to the half of the kingdom- Esther was breaking paradigms here; it was the king who always gave invitations, and not his wife. She effectively comes to dominate him, although in a very humble and nervous way, used by God.

An offer "to the half of the kingdom" was a serious offer, and the king makes it three times to Esther (Esther 5:3,6; 7:2). Hearing those words, she could have blurted out her request. Instead, she invites him to the banquet. Why did she not just state her request there and then, seeing he had given the green light to whatever she wanted and would find it hard to retract? We could argue she was cunning and thought a banquet setting, with him drunk, was the better way to go. The banquet is a "banquet of wine" (the wine is stressed in Esther 5:6; 7:2,7,8). He had previously made epic decisions whilst drunk, concerning Vashti and then in signing the pogrom decree for Haman. He was known for his rage and extreme emotionalism. And she knows that effectively rescinding that decree will be hard for him to do if sober and rational. Again we enquire, whether this is the way a faithful Jewish woman would think- to get your husband drunk in order to get them to do a favour for you. It is the behaviour of Lot's daughters, but surely it shouldn't have been the way of a believer in Yahweh. But still God works through it. Or we could see her as overcome by circumstance, not knowing how to respond to the unexpected open cheque he was offering her... and stuck with her plan. For she had already prepared the banquet (:4).

Esther 5:4 Esther said, If it seems good to the king, let the king come with Haman today to the banquet that I have prepared for him-  It seems to me that she intended to ask for mercy for the Jews. But her nerve fails here, and she asks them to come to a banquet. And when they come, her nerve fails her again, and she asks them to come to another banquet. And God worked through that weakness. Because the final request was made the night after he had recalled how Mordecai had saved him. And the intrigue and suspense was built up, his attention was particularly focused upon this one of his many wives, who was demanding his attention two or three days running. I don't personally interpret Esther here as the cleverly calculating, amateur psychologist female. Rather do I see a nervous teenager who gets stage fright at the last minute, twice. And God worked through her nervousness. Perhaps after each failure to make the request, she beat herself up for her weakness. But God worked through it. This is His style, right up to this day. LXX "To-day is my great day"; probably the king didn't even know Esther's birthday, just as he didn't know her family or relationship to Mordecai (Esther 8:1). Maybe it wasn't her birthday, and she just blurted out whatever came into her mind. Through all this, God was working. Although the Name of God doesn't occur in the Hebrew text of Esther, the letters Y-H-V-H are found in various forms throughout the book as acrostics, and this is an example (Esther 1:20; 5:4,13; 7:5,7). The four Hebrew words in the  phrase "may the king and Haman come today", yavo ha-melech v’haman ha-yom, begin with the letters which make up the Yahweh Name: ‘yod – hey – vav – hey’. On one hand, Esther was scheming in a very human way, and hoping to get the king drunk so that he would more easily agree to her request. Yet God puts the stamp of His Name in that- not necessarily of His total approval of her methods.

We may well ask, Why did Esther invite Haman to the banquet? Perhaps because she knew he had the king's signet ring, and the reversal of the decree required that. Possibly because she was a shrewd psychologist who figured that the king would be angry with Haman if he were present. Maybe she believed that pride comes before a fall, and she rightly guessed that inviting Haman would make him proud (Prov. 16:18). But none of these reasons match the Divine hand in it all- that whatever reason, God made Haman faint from a panic attack and collapse on Esther's couch, looking to the king as if he had tried to rape her.

Esther 5:5 Then the king said, Bring Haman quickly, so that it may be done as Esther has said. So the king and Haman came to the banquet that Esther had prepared- The command to bring Haman "quickly" was because such invitations were usually given well in advance, and Esther was breaking all the paradigms by wanting everything quickly, throwing last minute parties. We see in this how she was now thinking fast and on her own initiative, outside the box- whereas previously she is presented as having been dumbly obedient to Mordecai and Hegai. We note from Esther 1:9 that Vashti made a separate feast for the women at the time of the king's great feast. Why is that detail included in the record? Possibly to remind us that the genders were segregated at such feasts / drinking parties. The way Esther invites two men to a private drinking feast with her is therefore paradigm breaking. She is really thinking outside the box, driven to initiative by the extremity of the situation. And so the need is the call in our lives and spiritual growth, time and again. Perhaps her insistence upon the private banquet, rather than grabbing the opportunity to get the king to give her anything, was because she was ambitious enough to actually want Haman killed. And she knew that the drinking party was more likely to achieve that than asking the king for such a favour in a more rational and formal setting.

Esther 5:6 The king said to Esther at the banquet of wine, What is your petition? It shall be granted you. What is your request? Even to the half of the kingdom it shall be performed- This apparently unlimited offer leads us to expect that Esther is now going to seize the moment and ask for the Jews not to be destroyed. The Biblical text often works like this, setting up expectations in the mind of the reader or hearer, and then presenting an unexpected outcome. We are all expecting now for her to make the request, and the next verse heightens that sense of expectation- and we are then the more involved in the plot when again, Esther doesn't make the request as she maybe intended to.

Esther 5:7 Then Esther answered and said, My petition and my request is this- The pause implied in the text heightens our sense of suspense as to whether she will find the strength to make her true request. And again her nerve fails and she rather dumbly asks for more time.

Esther 5:8 If I have found favour in the sight of the king, and if it please the king to grant my petition and to perform my request, let the king and Haman come to the banquet that I will prepare for them, and I will do tomorrow as the king has said- This could be read as saying 'I do have a petition; but your attendance at my banquet tomorrow will mean that you have agreed to the petition I have in my heart, but which I'm not telling you right now'. This would perhaps be the best support for an argument that Esther calculated all this, rather than just getting stage fright each time she was asked to tell her petition. The ambiguity and difficulty of interpretation is intentional- to direct our thinking to her motivations, to get the reader into the mind of Esther. It could also be that she judged her husband not sufficiently drunk in order to press home her request. This doesn't exactly score very highly for her in spiritual terms. This is no Nehemiah desperately praying to God for favour in the eyes of the king as he makes a request for God's people. But the king was busy, as ruler of most of the known world. To devote two evenings one after the other to some mysterious domestic drinking party with his wife whom he had not asked to see him for the last month... was strange indeed. Esther had her request answered- he had attended her banquet. Then, surely, was the time to act. I suggest therefore that on balance, her idea of a second banquet was indeed from stage fright.

In all these things, we see the hand of God. What if Vashti had agreed to come in to the king? What if the king hadn't asked her to flaunt her beauty before his men? What if the king had married a standard Persian beauty queen, and not Esther? What if the king hadn't had a sleepless night? What if Mordecai hadn't overheard the plot to kill the king? What if the king hadn't forgotten to reward Mordecai and had done as usual and rewarded him immediately? What if he hadn't have had a sleepless night? What if Mordecai had not fallen into a personality clash with Haman? What if Haman had drawn a lot to kill all the Jews more quickly? What if Esther hadn't had stage fright and begged the king to come to a second banquet? All this is of God, of His grace, of His higher hand.

Esther 5:9 Then Haman went out that day joyful and glad of heart, but when Haman saw Mordecai in the king’s gate, that he didn’t stand up nor move for him, he was filled with wrath against Mordecai- The record juxtaposes his prideful joy with the jealousy which then beclouds him as he sees Mordecai, dressed in sackcloth, refusing to stand up. The Esther record gives wonderful insight into the feelings and thought processes of the characters in a way in which contemporary literature of the time doesn't; the stories are full of unrealistic exaggerations, whereas the Bible focuses upon real situations and upon the state of the heart. And here we see the typical power of jealousy; a focus upon one man and his actions, eclipsing all other blessings. 

Mordecai has gone beyond not bowing to Haman. He now will not even stand up in his presence. We wonder if this was related to his faith that Esther was going to somehow succeed in her entreaty. If so, we see the first beginnings of actual faith in him. The idea isn't that Haman simply noticed Mordecai in the gate area. To sit in the gate meant to have a position of authority, often associated with being a judge (Job 5:9; 31:21; Prov. 31:23; Ruth 4:1,11). It was Mordecai's senior position which irked Haman so much. Mordecai had presumably removed his mourning garments because it wasn't allowed to sit in the king's gate dressed like that (Esther 4:2). That just possibly might imply that he was living in hope that Esther's appeal would succeed. But I suggest more like he had to return to work, and so he had no option but to remove his mourning garments. In which case again we see the higher hand of God, making Mordecai act as if his mourning was over- because a resolution to the grief had been made possible. He may not have believed that, but the hand of providence made him act like it, to coax him towards faith. It's like finding yourself singing a hymn in church, the words of which are actually far beyond your personal faith at that point. But you reflect afterwards that actually, you sung those words to God.

Esther 5:10 Nevertheless Haman restrained himself, and went home. There, he sent and called for his friends and Zeresh his wife- The impression is given that he wanted to murder Haman immediately, or at least ask the king to authorize it. But he waits for another day, because of the desire to do nothing without first seeking advice. And it was that day which altered the entire outcome. Again we see a man of great power, but bound by his own traditions and legal structures; just as was the king when Vashti refused to come and he wanted to kill her.

Esther 5:11 Haman recounted to them the glory of his riches, the multitude of his children, all the things in which the king had promoted him, and how he had advanced him above the princes and servants of the king- He had ten sons (Esther 9:7). Here again we see a connection with the situation in Esther 1, where the glory of Ahasuerus is presented and then he is manipulated and circumscribed by a woman and his own laws and culture.

Esther 5:12 Haman also said, Yes, Esther the queen let no man come in with the king to the banquet that she had prepared but myself; and tomorrow I am also invited by her together with the king- His overweening pride is being set up for a mighty fall; and this is typical of the Biblical record, to focus upon pride as the reason for judgment. What he was most proud of turned out to be the very point of his destruction.

Esther 5:13 Yet all this avails me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate- This is the power of jealousy; a focus upon one man and his actions, eclipsing all other blessings. He kept in his mind the image of this man "sitting" instead of standing up and bowing. It is such mental images which are the root of so much jealousy. See on Esther 7:7; 6:13. Through all this, God was working. Although the Name of God doesn't occur in the Hebrew text of Esther, the letters Y-H-V-H are found in various forms throughout the book as acrostics, and this is an example (Esther 1:20; 5:4,13; 7:5,7). In this verse 13, it is the final letters of the four Hebrew words which spell YHWH. The term "the king" occurs 190 times in Esther's 167 verses. So often, that we are surely being asked 'Who really is the king here?'. Because the earthly king was so clearly being manipulated by others, and above all by God. The King is clearly Yahweh.

Esther 5:14 Then Zeresh his wife and all his friends said to him, Let a gallows be made fifty cubits high, and in the morning speak to the king about hanging Mordecai on it. Then go in merrily with the king to the banquet. This pleased Haman, so he had the gallows made- 75 feet high. "According to Persian law the power of life and death resided in the king alone". So Haman was assuming that he could get Mordecai executed, even though there was apparently no legal apparatus for him to do so. Again we see a theme of Esther continued- that the characters are all forced to act outside of the law. This was surely to prepare the Jewish audience of the book to realize the limitations of Mosaic law, especially in the casuistic sense in which they liked to use it.

 

Daniel’s prophecy that there would be a time of trouble for Israel, followed by a resurrection and judgment, may have had a potential fulfilment in Haman’s persecution. The LXX of Esther 5 at this point includes her prayer to God, in which she says that Haman was seeking to hinder the work of the temple. This would explain why initially the Samaritans persuaded the Persians to make the work cease, but then (humanly inexplicably) another edict is given for it to resume. The people were delivered (Dan. 12:1), as they were by Michael the Angel manipulating Esther. But the resurrection, judgment and Kingdom didn’t follow, because Israel weren’t ready for it. Then those who turned many to righteousness- i.e. the priesthood, in the primary context- would be rewarded (Dan. 12:3). But Malachi and Haggai repeatedly criticized the priesthood at the time of the restoration for being selfish and not teaching Israel (Mal. 2:7). Daniel and Jeremiah were heartbroken that there had to be such a delay to the full fulfilment of the Messianic restoration of the Kingdom.