Esther 5:10

Why did he not kill him at once? According to Persian law, anyone who sat at the king's gate put himself under the protection of the king. As long as he was there, he was safe. If Haman had killed Mordecai, his enemies would have reported to the king that he had murdered a man who had placed himself under the protecting wings of the king, who had appealed for protection. Haman knew the possible consequences. So he fetched his friends and his wife Zeresh.

Haman was sitting on cloud nine! He left the banquet with a joyful heart. Yet there was one matter that greatly annoyed him. Mordecai was in the king's gate, evidently having changed out of his sackcloth, but he gave Haman no recognition at all (v. 9). So Haman's joy was spoiled by intense anger.

He cannot stand all this. It is too much for him. His heart is overcharged; gratified pride has filled it to the brim. He cannot contain himself; but corruption drives him along the way of nature — a sad verdict against nature. Yet so it is. It was natural that he should display all his glories to his wife and his friends. Flesh and blood can appreciate it; and pride must have as many courtiers and admirers as it can get. And it must have its victims too. Mordecai still refuses to bow; and a gallows fifty cubits high is raised for him to be hanged on.

Haman's satanic hatred is even stronger than his pride. All his glory has no more value to him until he has taken his revenge. His friends and his wife encourage him: "Go in joyfully with the king to the feast." He receives every congratulation the world can offer him. The price is that the same people, after flattering his desires, later tell him, "you will surely fall before him."

The things that Satan offers people in order to seduce them are always like this. Once they have them — like Haman, who had reached the satisfaction of his pride — they are of no further use, until some new craving is satisfied. So sinners are led from one desire to another, from one illusion to another, until the day of judgment.

This was the way of leading the great adversary on to the full ripening of his rebellion. It brought him to that great height of pride and self-satisfaction from which the hand of God had prepared from the beginning to cast him down.

So it is: the pride of the wicked blinds them to their own destruction just as it blinds them into hating the righteous they despise. He whose eyes are over everything is slow to act, so that people may show what they are. In the end He carries out His purpose plainly, to His own glory.