When the affair was investigated and found to be so, the men were both hanged on the gallows. And it was recorded in the book of the chronicles in the presence of the king.
The plot against the king ends with an inquiry, a hanging, and one line in the royal archive. That last line — a note filed away while the man who saved the king gets nothing — carries the whole book.
The inquiry and the sentence
The verse packs a whole legal process into a few words. The king's men test the report, find it true, and act. One writer fills in what the plot involved:
Arno Clemens GaebeleinAccording to Jewish tradition they intended to put a venomous reptile in the king's cup when he was about to drink. Mordecai overheard the plot. He told Esther at once, and she told the king in Mordecai's name. She did so guided by the divine hand, which is so evident in this remarkable history. They investigated the plot at once and found the report true. The conspirators were hanged, and the book of the Chronicles records the event.
A picture of a coming reign
Two men plot against the throne, the plot comes out, and punishment follows at once. One commentator reads this as a small model of a government still to come. He quotes an older translation, which reads "hanged on a tree":
William KellyTwo of the king's chamberlains, who kept the door, sought to lay hands on the king, but the thing became known. An inquiry was made, and they were both hanged on a tree. We know well that in that coming day every offender will be found out and dealt with at once. It will no longer be the uncertainty of law. In that day "a king will reign in righteousness." There will be a great discovery and punishment of those who lift up their hands against the Lord.
The benefactor left unrewarded
Justice falls fast on the guilty. Nothing at all happens for the man who saved the king — and that delay is no accident:
William KellyThe traitors were found guilty. But the benefactor was strangely forgotten until the hour of pressing need came. That delay only made his reward more certain, to the shame of the enemy at last. Secret providence ordered everything rightly, however trying appearances might be. Here again, as with the conspirators and Mordecai, the warning given to the king was no chance event. Neither was the fall of Vashti or the rise of Esther. All was in the hand of Him who ruled unseen.
The record filed in the king's presence
Mordecai asks for nothing and steps back. One writer traces every link — who overheard, who carried the message, who wrote the account down — to a single hand:
H. L. RossierIn his dealings with the royal court, Mordecai openly watches out for the king's welfare. He is seated at the gate, to keep any danger from the king's person. Esther's fortune was bound up with Ahasuerus' survival, so Mordecai becomes the king's saviour. Then he quietly withdrew and asked nothing for himself. He let Providence direct him, for Providence was all that was left to his oppressed nation. It was Providence that had led those two chamberlains to talk over their plans in Mordecai's hearing. Providence had prepared Esther's ear to receive this news. Providence had arranged for these matters to be recorded in the book of the chronicles, in the king's very presence.
Why God is never named
Nothing in this verse mentions God. One writer takes that silence as the point of the book, not a gap in it:
F. B. HoleThe book of Esther gives us another example of how God moves behind the scenes of man's little world... It is perhaps more striking when we remember that Esther is one of the two books in the Bible in which God is not mentioned. Just where God is not seen, and events move on apparently without Him, there most clearly He is at work behind the scenes.
A written record and its repayment
A king's archive can preserve a good deed for years and then produce it at the right moment. One writer uses exactly this scene to explain what God does with faithfulness that nobody notices:
Edward DennettThe Lord records for everlasting remembrance the conversation — or should we say the names and the words? — of those who were drawn to His name and to one another... An illustration of this may be found in the book of Esther. When the king could not sleep, "he commanded to bring the book of records of the chronicles," and they were read before the king. There they found written an act of loyalty and faithfulness by Mordecai at a time of danger to his king. He was repaid at once, and he was also used to become the saviour of his people. In the same way, but far more perfectly, the Lord has a book of remembrance written about the faithfulness of His people. He never forgets. Nothing escapes His eye or ear.
Summary
- Investigated — The king tests the report before he punishes anyone. He acts only when the plot is "found to be so."
- Written — Providence, not Mordecai, puts the good deed into the chronicles in the king's own presence.
- Forgotten — The traitors are paid at once, the benefactor not at all. The delay is deliberate, saved for the hour of need.
- Unnamed — God is never named in this book. That is where His work behind the scenes shows clearest.
- Remembered — A royal archive kept one good deed. God keeps a book of remembrance where nothing escapes His eye or ear.