And Haman said to king Ahasuerus, There is a people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of thy kingdom; and their laws are diverse from [those of] every people, and they keep not the king's laws; and it is not for the king's profit to suffer them.
Haman has the king's ear, and he uses it to ask the king to destroy a whole people — without ever saying who they are. He makes three claims: they are scattered everywhere, their laws differ from everyone else's, and the crown gains nothing by keeping them.
The reason Haman gave the king was not the reason Haman had. Notice what the story tells us openly, and what it keeps in the dark.
There was the secret. God does not appear. There is no intimation in the history that God had spoken about Haman! Yet here was the secret reason; but the only public reason that appears is that Mordecai was a Jew.
Haman chose his words with care. He builds the charge in stages, and he leaves out the name of the people. (The commentator below calls Ahasuerus by his other name, Xerxes.)
He tells the king about a certain people who live in his kingdom. He avoids mentioning their name. If he had named them, the plot would not have succeeded. Xerxes must have known the famous history of the Jews well. He also knew that ever since Cyrus, the policy of the Persian Empire had been to protect the Jews. Haman's accusation is twofold. First: their laws are different from those of every people. Second: they do not keep the king's laws. And then the verdict: it is not for the king's profit to tolerate them. They were a separate people, following their God-given law. It was this religious side that stirred up Satan's hatred. Through Haman he now urges the murder of the whole race.
Part of Haman's charge was true. The Jews were scattered through the provinces, and they did live by a different law. But one writer looks past the charge to why such a people draw hatred at all, and to how the plot ended.
At the start, everything pointed the other way; in the end Satan defeated himself, as he always does. Haman's plea to the king was plausible. God's people are always an offence to the rest of mankind, simply because they are His. The proud and boastful feel it most. This stays true even when their own unfaithfulness costs them His open favour, and that is exactly what had happened.
Haman pointed at the Jews as a people scattered among the provinces. Scripture uses that same description of Israel, and it reaches into the New Testament.
The term is applied to the nation of Israel, now scattered throughout the world (Esther 3:8). The letters of James and 1 Peter were written especially to believers among them.
Haman's complaint has a shape: these people live by different customs, so they are a danger to the state. One writer ties it to the charge later brought against Paul and Silas at Philippi.
He tells the king that a people is scattered through his realm, and that it is not to his profit to let them live, because their customs are different from all other people. That was the secret of the world's hatred then, and it still is (see Acts 16:20-21).
Acts records the wording: "These men are Jews, and they are disturbing our city. They advocate customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to accept or practice" (Acts 16:20-21, ESV).
The book of Esther never names God, and Haman never names the Jews. But behind the minister stood something more than personal spite.
The enemy always watched for any circumstance that might serve his ends. He used men as his instruments to defeat God's purpose of salvation. Ahasuerus was the tool of Haman. Haman was the tool of Satan. And God allowed it all, so that He might triumph in delivering His people. What a scene to consider! Man shows blindness and spite. The enemy shows malice and craft. God shows fixed purpose and grace. All this comes out to us in the book of Esther.
- Name hidden. Haman never says "the Jews." He left the name out on purpose. The king knew their history, and Persia had protected them since Cyrus.
- Motive hidden. The king heard one reason: this people keeps its own laws. Haman's real reason stayed secret, and the record never states it.
- Half true. Part of the charge was accurate. They were scattered, and their law was different. But God's people offend the world because they are His. That stays true even when their own unfaithfulness has cost them His open favour.
- Charge repeated. "Their customs are different" was the secret of the world's hatred then, and it still is. The same charge met Paul and Silas at Philippi.
- God hidden. Ahasuerus was Haman's tool. Haman was Satan's. God allowed it all, so that He might triumph in delivering His people. His name never appears in the book; His hand does.
If it please the king, let it be written that they may be destroyed, and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver into the hands of those that have charge of the affairs, to bring [it] into the king's treasuries.
Haman has just asked the king to wipe out a whole people, and now he names his price in silver. Why would a man who already had the king's ear offer to pay at all?
Haman knew what a king would ask first. Killing a whole people costs the treasury money. His silver answered that, and did more besides.
Haman, like his dark master, Satan, was cunning enough to anticipate an objection from the king's side. Would the kingdom not lose money if a whole people were wiped out? To remove this financial concern he offers to pay 10,000 talents of silver (about 20 million dollars) for the slaughter of the Jews he wants. With it he tempted the greed of the king. At the same time he flattered the king's pride. He implied that it must be a small thing for him to lose a whole people worth only 10,000 talents. And Haman probably calculated this too: the bigger the sum he offered, the more flattering it would feel to the king to wave it away.
Why would such a plea work at all? The offence was not what these people had done. It was whose they were.
Haman's plea to the king was plausible. God's people, just because they are His, are always an offence to the rest of mankind, and especially to the proud and boastful. This stays true even when their own unfaithfulness costs them His open favour, as was in fact the case… So Haman proposes their destruction, offering a round sum for the treasury in return.
A man willing to pay out of his own pocket has a private motive. The king missed that evidence, though he had taken advice over a much smaller matter.
Surely the king ought to have realised that Haman had a personal axe to grind. Haman would pay this great amount himself to have this people destroyed. But the king had great confidence in this scheming Amalekite. Haman cared far more for his own reputation than for the Persian kingdom… Strangely, the king had consulted his princes about what to do with Queen Vashti (ch. 1:13-15). In this far more serious case he acted like a dictator!
Grant calls Haman an Amalekite. That name goes back to an old feud.
He was called "the Agagite," which linked him with the Amalekites, a people who had attacked Israel out of pure malice. God had pronounced unending war against them. That is why Mordecai refused to honour Haman. The refusal so wounded Haman's pride and stirred his anger that he plotted to destroy not only Mordecai but every Jew in the king's lands.
The king never took the money. He waved it away and handed over the people instead.
Haman proposes to enrich the king through this destruction… Ahasuerus refuses the silver. He hands the people over to Haman, "to do with them as seems good to him." What indifference, what a hardened heart we find in this king! The name of Israel has no meaning for him. One of his favourites, a wicked man, matters more to him than the life of a whole nation — and a ruler ought to care for his people!
Haman had bought his decree. He had not counted on the God who was watching.
His offer of the immense sum of 10,000 talents of silver ought to have shown the king that he had some sinister end in view… But God was watching over all. On that very night He caused the king to remember what Mordecai had done for him… So God watched over His people in their captivity and made the scheme of their enemy fall on his own head.
Haman is not the first man of his kind.
The Agagite now stands out as the representative of the great enemy, the proud rebel who stands against God, His people and His purposes. There has been such a man in every age… Pharaoh, in Egypt; Amalek, in the wilderness; Haman, here in the day of the dispersion; and Herod, in the New Testament. Self-exaltation, godless pride, and defiance of the fear of God, along with deep-rooted hatred of His people, are some or all of the marks on each of them.
- Bought. Haman offers 10,000 talents to buy a written decree — money aimed at the king's greed and his pride at once.
- Plausible. A separate people always offends the proud. The payment made the murder look like profit.
- Exposed. A man paying his own silver for state policy has a private grudge. It went back to an old feud, and the king should have seen it.
- Waived. The king refused the silver and handed over the people instead. He valued neither.
- Overruled. The scheme fell on the buyer's own head. God was watching all along.
And the king took his ring from his hand, and gave it to Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the Jews' enemy.
The king's signet ring changes hands here, and with it the power to turn one man's hatred into law. Scripture pauses to give the man who receives it a title: the enemy of the Jews. Behind that title lies a feud far older than the Persian court.
A ring in that court was not jewellery. It was a working tool of government, and the king hands it to Haman.
Then the king gave him his ring. It was a ring to seal a document. Every ring had a seal. Handing over the king's ring with its seal handed over royal authority and power to the man who received it. So Haman now held royal authority. The haughtiness of the king appears now. Not only does he turn over his signet ring, but he also makes Haman a present of the enormous sum he had offered to the king. In cold blood Xerxes gives over this unknown people into the hands of this wicked enemy.
The verse names Haman's family, and that name carries a history. Agag was the royal line of Amalek, a nation under a standing sentence from God.
Haman was the son of Hammedatha the Agagite. Josephus explains his foreign name by calling him an Amalekite by race, and Jewish tradition says the same. So Haman was an Amalekite. This explains why Mordecai refused to bow down before Haman. He belonged to the race the Lord had sworn to fight for ever, and which He told Saul to destroy completely. Ex. 17:16; Deut. 25:19; 1 Sam. 15:3.
One writer sees a long campaign behind Amalek. It runs from the desert years to Haman, and on to Bethlehem, with the same hidden aim throughout.
Without Moses' prayer on the mountain and without Joshua, he would have destroyed the people. David defeated him at last, yet even then he did not treat the fight as finished. Now the people are captive. Their unfaithfulness has brought them to the lowest point of humiliation. So Satan stirs up Haman the Agagite to wipe out the weak remnant of this people. And let us not forget his hidden purpose: to take Israel away from Christ, the king God had planned and promised. Could there be a more deceitful plan, a more satanic one, than that? This book teaches us that Satan is frustrated in his efforts, yet he does not consider himself beaten. He attacks Israel's very Leader, Christ. At His birth he tries to kill Him through a new Agag, in the massacre at Bethlehem.
The king hands over the ring without one question about the people he is condemning. He also misses what his adviser stood to gain.
The king ought to have realised that Haman had a personal axe to grind. Haman was ready to pay this huge sum out of his own pocket to have this people destroyed. But the king placed great confidence in this scheming Amalekite. Haman cared far more for his own reputation than for the Persian kingdom. The king therefore agreed, and gave Haman liberty to do just as he desired (vv. 10-11). It seems strange that the king consulted his princes about what to do with Queen Vashti (ch. 1:13-15). Yet in this far more serious case he acted like a dictator!
Why did this hatred settle on this people? One writer names the reason underneath it, and the way such plots end.
Haman's plea to the king sounded plausible. God's people, just because they are His, are always an offence to the rest of mankind, and most of all to the proud and boastful. This stays true even when their own unfaithfulness has cost them His open favour, as it had here… At first, that ending looked the least likely of all; in the end Satan, as always, defeated himself.
The title given to Haman here follows him through the rest of the book. But the decree he seals with this ring does not get the last word.
Haman accuses the Jewish people before the king, and this verse names him "the enemy of the Jews" (v. 10; cf. 8:1; 9:10, 24). All of it matters for what we learn about Satan and his agents (cf. Rev. 12:4, 10). A royal decree then makes his plan law: every Jew must die (v. 12-15)… How good to know that the king later passes a second decree which overturns the first. That second decree turns a sentence of death into life and peace.
- The ring — the signet stamped documents and made them law. Giving it away gave away royal authority, and Haman now acts with the king's own power.
- The hand that takes it — Haman is an Agagite, from Amalek's royal line. God had sworn lasting war on that nation, and the old feud is why Mordecai would not bow.
- The hand that gives it — a king who asked nothing and checked nothing, and made a gift of the silver too. He took advice about his queen, but not about the life of a whole nation.
- The hatred underneath — God's people offend the proud just because they are His. That stays true even when their unfaithfulness has cost them His open favour.
- The reversal — the king later issues a second decree that overturns the first. The sentence of death becomes life and peace.