How did the king's sleepless night save a nation?
On the very night Haman builds a gallows, the king cannot sleep. A chronicle is read, a question is asked, and the man Haman hoped to hang is paraded through the city instead.
This question arose from studying What did Esther risk to save her people?.
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What the Scripture says
On that night, the king couldn't sleep
The pivot of the whole book is a sleepless king. On that night 'the king couldn't sleep,' and he commands the book of the records to be brought and read to him. The smallest detail in the story is the one God is using.
On that night, the king couldn’t sleep. He commanded the book of records of the chronicles to be brought, and they were read to the king.
A service remembered too late for Haman
The chronicle records that Mordecai had exposed a plot against the king and was never honored for it. The king asks what has been done for Mordecai, and learns: nothing. The man Haman means to destroy is, at that very hour, owed the highest honor.
It was found written that Mordecai had told of Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s eunuchs, who were doorkeepers, who had tried to lay hands on the King Ahasuerus. The king said, “What honor and dignity has been bestowed on Mordecai for this?” Then the king’s servants who attended him said, “Nothing has been done for him.”
What shall be done for the man the king delights to honor?
Just then Haman enters to ask for Mordecai's death. The king asks him how to honor a favored man, and Haman, sure it is himself, describes royal robes, a horse, and a herald crying through the city. He has written the script for his own rival's glory.
So Haman came in. The king said to him, “What shall be done to the man whom the king delights to honor?” Now Haman said in his heart, “Who would the king delight to honor more than myself?” Haman said to the king, “For the man whom the king delights to honor, let royal clothing be brought which the king uses to wear, and the horse that the king rides on, and on the head of which a crown royal is set. Let the clothing and the horse be delivered to the hand of one of the king’s most noble princes, that they may array the man whom the king delights to honor with them, and have him ride on horseback through the city square, and proclaim before him, ‘Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor!’”
Do this for Mordecai the Jew
The king turns Haman's words on their author: hurry and 'do this for Mordecai the Jew.' Haman must array Mordecai and proclaim his honor through the square. The enemy becomes the herald of the man he hates.
Then the king said to Haman, “Hurry and take the clothing and the horse, as you have said, and do this for Mordecai the Jew, who sits at the king’s gate. Let nothing fail of all that you have spoken.” Then Haman took the clothing and the horse, and arrayed Mordecai, and had him ride through the city square, and proclaimed before him, “Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor!”
Haman hurried home, mourning
Haman returns with his head covered, and his wife and friends tell him that if Mordecai is of Jewish descent, he will surely fall before him. The reversal that began with a sleepless night is now past turning back.
Mordecai came back to the king’s gate, but Haman hurried to his house, mourning and having his head covered. Haman recounted to Zeresh his wife and all his friends everything that had happened to him. Then his wise men and Zeresh his wife said to him, “If Mordecai, before whom you have begun to fall, is of Jewish descent, you will not prevail against him, but you will surely fall before him.”
As you read, you may wonder…
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Continue this trail
How did the tables turn on Haman?→“So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then was the king’s wrath pacified.”What is the feast of Purim?→“as the days in which the Jews had rest from their enemies, and the month which was turned to them from sorrow to gladness, and from mourning into a good day; that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, and of sending presents of food to one another, and gifts to the needy.”How does Esther point to Christ?→““Go, gather together all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day. I and my maidens will also fast the same way. Then I will go in to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.””How does the book of Esther point forward to the greater exodus?→“Letters were sent by couriers into all the king’s provinces, to destroy, to kill, and to cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day, even on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, and to plunder their possessions.”Hold onto these
Verses to meditate on
On that night, the king couldn’t sleep. He commanded the book of records of the chronicles to be brought, and they were read to the king.
Then the king said to Haman, “Hurry and take the clothing and the horse, as you have said, and do this for Mordecai the Jew, who sits at the king’s gate. Let nothing fail of all that you have spoken.” Then Haman took the clothing and the horse, and arrayed Mordecai, and had him ride through the city square, and proclaimed before him, “Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor!”
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