And Harbonah, one of the chamberlains, said before the king, Behold, also, the gallows fifty cubits high, that Haman made for Mordecai, who spoke good for the king, stands in the house of Haman. And the king said, Hang him on it!
A servant named Harbona speaks up at the banquet. He points to the gallows still standing at Haman's house, fifty cubits high. It was built for the man whose word had saved the king. One sentence from the king settles everything: "Hang him on that."
Harbona does not just point out the gallows. He reminds the king that Mordecai's word once saved him — older translations read "spoken good for the king." That service had won Mordecai honour in the city, but no position to match it.
Everyone in Shushan already saw Mordecai clothed with royal dignity, because he had "spoken good for the king" (Esther 7:9). But so far this dignity was only moral, so to speak. Right after this, he returned to his post as a servant at the king's gate.
Harbona belonged to the court that had bowed to Haman. Now he supplies the detail that destroys him, and praises the man Haman wanted dead.
When the favourite falls, no voice is raised to shield him from those who until then had bowed most slavishly before him. The man who was blamed for the presumption of refusing that homage to Haman is now praised for his service to the king. Such is man, changeable as the wind, and not least so at court. But He who rules unseen carries out His righteous judgment wherever He sees fit. This lasts until the day when He will act directly and perfectly, by the One Whose right it is, to the joy and peace of all the earth.
after
The Hebrew word behind "gallows" is the ordinary word for a tree or a piece of wood. So we do not know what it looked like. Its great height, though, was deliberate.
The word is ets, often translated "tree" and "wood," and gives no idea of the form of the gallows. It was some framework, made or set up, for hanging Mordecai. Haman no doubt intended by the great height of the gallows (about 23 yards) that the hanging of his victim should be well seen in the city. It was seen from the palace, and, under the providence of God, he was himself hanged on it.
The one thing Haman built with his own hands now condemns him. The king needs no trial and no second thought.
The situation was so electric that at that moment the king was ready to act without hesitation. One servant seized the chance to tell him that Haman had made a gallows to hang Mordecai on. That raised the tension further, and the king did not hesitate to command, "Hang him on it!" (v. 9). So the evil that Haman planned came back violently on his own head, as Ecclesiastes 10:8 warns, "He who digs a pit will fall into it."
The timing sharpens the reversal. Commentators trace the fall back to one thing in Haman: his pride.
But "pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." Haman proved this. He seemed about to plant his foot on the highest summit of his ambition. At that very moment, a just and retributive providence so arranged things that he had to wait on Mordecai. And the very gallows he had ordered for his intended victim served for his own execution!
Haman is finally named for what he is. One writer hears in those names an echo of a greater enemy.
This enemy is at last revealed as "the Adversary, the Enemy, the Wicked one": names which the Word gives to Satan and to the Antichrist. It is too late for him; anguish assails this man who had sought the death of the righteous... The wrath of the king is not appeased until Haman is hung from the gallows which he had destined for Mordecai.
Haman dies on the wood he built for Mordecai. One writer sees in that exchange the pattern of a greater victory.
Haman hangs on the gallows he had prepared for Mordecai, and that is beautifully significant. At the cross, Satan met defeat. By death, he who had the power of death was annulled (Heb. 2:14). What looked like a great defeat turned out to be the greatest victory of all time — and the end of the adversary.
- Built — Haman raised the gallows high so the city could watch Mordecai die. Its height only made his own end more public.
- Spoken — Harbona reminds the king that Mordecai's word had saved him, and the king turns at once.
- Turned — the court that bowed to Haman drops him in a moment. Men change like the wind; God rules unseen and judges justly.
- Reaped — the evil came back on the head of the man who planned it, just as the warning about digging a pit says.
- Answered — the adversary dies on the wood he prepared for the righteous man. In the same way, the cross ended the one who had the power of death.
So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. And the king's wrath was appeased.
Haman dies on the very structure he built for someone else. The king's anger then dies down. The verse raises the question that runs through the whole book: who turned this around, in a story where God is never named?
Haman had the gallows built for Mordecai. He is the one who dies on it. Scripture had already warned where such plans end.
So the evil that Haman planned came back violently on his own head, as Ecclesiastes 10:8 warns, "He who digs a pit will fall into it."
Another writer sets out how it happened, and how fast the king acted.
When Haman's wrongdoing came to light, Harbonah, one of the king's attendants, told Ahasuerus about this gallows. He also told the king what it was for. The king at once ordered Haman himself to be hanged on it.
Haman took the advice of the people closest to him and never guessed the outcome.
Then his friends and his wife Zeresh give him the advice. The gallows they suggest is built to hang Mordecai. Haman waits, perhaps impatiently, for the next day. Then he would go in cheerfully to the king and ask him to put the Jew to death. In his delusion and pride he did not know that he built the gallows for himself.
Some have objected that an eighty-foot structure could not stand at a private house. The Hebrew word answers that.
Critics point to the statement that the gallows was fifty cubits high (eighty feet) and stood in Haman's house. They ask, "How could an eighty-foot pole be gotten into anyone's house?" But the word "gallows" means "tree" in Hebrew. Probably a tree standing in Haman's garden was made ready with a rope to hang the hated Jew.
Mordecai's refusal to bow went back to something God had said about Amalek, the people Haman came from. Haman's response turned a personal grudge into a plan against a whole nation.
Mordecai the Jew, knowing what God had said about Amalek, refused to honour Haman or bow the knee to him. This stirred up the malice of the proud Agagite, so that he decided to destroy the whole Jewish nation. In doing this, Haman challenged the God of Israel, and there could only be one answer to that. God's name is not used in the book of Esther, but we see His government at work. It secured the downfall of Haman and his destruction on the gallows he had put up for Mordecai.
Mordecai did nothing to save himself. He refused to bow and left the outcome where it belonged.
He stood like a rock and let the whole tide of difficulty and opposition roll over him. He would not bow to the Amalekite, whatever the consequence might be. Obedience was his path. The results were with God. And look at the result! In one moment the tide was turned. The proud Amalekite fell from his high position. The exiled Jew was lifted from his sackcloth and ashes and placed next to the throne. Haman exchanged his wealth and honours for a gallows; Mordecai exchanged his sackcloth for a royal robe.
Commentators read this scene in two directions. One looks back to the cross.
It is deeply significant that Haman is hanged on the gallows he had prepared for Mordecai. At the cross, Satan was defeated. Through death, the one who held the power of death was brought to nothing (Hebrews 2:14). What looked like a great defeat turned out to be the greatest victory of all time — and the end of the adversary.
Another looks forward, to a judgment still to come, and notes what stops the king's anger.
This enemy is at last revealed as "the adversary, the enemy, the wicked one." The Word gives these names to Satan and to the Antichrist. It is too late for him. The wrath of the king is not appeased until Haman is hanged from the gallows he had intended for Mordecai. Haman's judgment is carried out before God steps in to deliver His people completely. The judgment of the Antichrist will follow the same order.
- Built — the Hebrew word for gallows means "tree." Haman probably used one already standing in his own garden.
- Blind — pride kept him from seeing the obvious. He measured the height for Mordecai and did not know he was measuring for himself.
- Bent back — the evil returned on the head that planned it, just as the warning about digging a pit said it would.
- Behind it — God's name never appears in Esther, yet His government does. Haman's fall is the answer to a man who challenged the God of Israel.
- Beyond it — an enemy destroyed by his own instrument points to the cross. There the one who held the power of death was undone. Commentators also read the scene forward, to a judgment still ahead.