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Esther’s third request to the king
7
📚So the king and Haman came to the banquet with Esther the queen. 2 📚And again the king said to Esther, on the second day at the banquet of wine, “What is your petition, queen Esther? It will be granted you. And what is your request? Even up to half of the kingdom, it will be done”.
7:2 The third time the king had asked this (Esther 5:3, 6).⚜
3 📚Then Esther the queen answered and said, “If I have found favour in your sight, O king, and if it pleases the king, let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request.
7:3 At last Esther is persuaded of the king’s sincerity and tells him what is in her mind.⚜
4 📚For I and my people are sold to be destroyed, to be killed and to be annihilated. And if we had been sold as male and female slaves, I would had held my tongue, although the compensation the enemy offers could not make up for the king’s loss”.
5 📚Then King Ahasuerus answered and said to Esther the queen, “Who is he, and where is he, who dares to presume in his heart to do so?”
6 📚And Esther said, “The adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman”. Then Haman was terrified 📖 before the king and the queen.
God takes vengeance on Haman
7 📚And the king, getting up from the banquet of wine, in his rage went into the palace garden, and Haman stood up to ask Esther the queen for his life, for he saw that the king was determined to harm him.
8 📚Then the king returned from the palace garden to the place of the wine banquet, and Haman had fallen on the couch where Esther was. Then the king said, “Will he even force the queen in my presence, in the house?” As the word went out of the king’s mouth, they covered Haman’s face.
9 📚And Harbonah, one of the officials, said to the king, “Look, the fifty cubits high gallows, which Haman had made for Mordecai, who spoke good on the king’s behalf, is standing at Haman’s house”. Then the king said, “Hang him on it”.
7:9 Once before an Amalekite begged an Israelite for his life – 1 Sam 15:32-33. It seems some of them were better at boasting than dying.⚜
10 📚So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the king’s rage subsided.
7:10 God’s justice is not always revealed so quickly or so dramatically. But it is always at work and will inevitably prevail – Ps 7:11; 9:16; 18:25-27; 37:35-38; 94:23; 96:13; Prov 11:5-6; Dan 6:24; Acts 17:31; Gal 6:7.⚜