So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the wrath of the king abated.
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?
The plot returns on the plotter
Haman had the gallows built for Mordecai. He is the one who dies on it. Scripture had already warned where such plans end.
Leslie M. GrantSo 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.
A J PollockWhen 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.
Blind pride
Haman took the advice of the people closest to him and never guessed the outcome.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinThen 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.
The word behind "gallows"
Some have objected that an eighty-foot structure could not stand at a private house. The Hebrew word answers that.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinCritics 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.
A hidden hand
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.
An Outline of Sound WordsMordecai 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.
Two men, two exchanges
Mordecai did nothing to save himself. He refused to bow and left the outcome where it belonged.
C. H. MackintoshHe 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.
What the scene pictures
Commentators read this scene in two directions. One looks back to the cross.
Michael HardtIt 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.
H. L. RossierThis 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.
Summary
- 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.