Esther 7:6

The king had not yet connected Haman's recent decree with the Jewish nation. He asked in anger, "Who is he, and where is he, who would dare presume in his heart to do such a thing?" Esther's answer was brief, but like a lightning bolt: "The adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman!" (v. 6).

The king learns, to his amazement, how his own prime minister had trapped him into it. Esther, however, spoke only of the one who had malice against her people. The king would feel his own part in it.

There is an enemy; there is one who tries to frustrate all the plans of God. Of all the races of the earth, one stood out as hostile to God's people of old — the Amalekites. The Lord swore against them, and called on His people to keep up constant war against that race. He would blot them out from under heaven. God's righteous judgment fell on the Amalekites in particular, because they hated His people. Now this Haman belonged not only to Amalek, but even to the royal family of Amalek.

With flashing eyes, she pointed her finger at the guest beside her and said, "An adversary and an enemy, even this wicked Haman!" The scene is beyond comparison. Then Haman was afraid before the king and the queen. He expected the terrible storm that would break over his head.

"Then Haman was afraid" — as well he might be — "before the king and the queen." Haman knew well that this was a sentence of death.

Esther stands in very close fellowship with the mind of God. She seems to have watched God's method with these proud enemies, for she takes God's own way exactly with wicked Haman. She is not in a hurry. She lays her plans so that the heart of that Amalekite fills to the brim with pride. Then he would fall, in God's way, at the peak of that pride.

God does not only use circumstances or events to carry out His purposes. He also uses people — godly people like Mordecai and Esther, and ungodly, wicked people like Haman... The book of Esther shows this in the great enemy and hater of the Jews called "this wicked Haman" (7:6). In the end, his wickedness brought about his own destruction and their salvation. People may call this irony, but it is nothing of the kind. It was God's hand and purpose. It was also the result of Haman's own free choice, and he was fully responsible for all his decisions and actions.

In our chapter we are still in the second phase. Here Esther receives vengeance on the enemy, as a first instalment of what was promised to her. This enemy is at last revealed as "the Adversary, the Enemy, the Wicked one" — names the Word gives to Satan and to the Antichrist. It is too late for him. Anguish grips this man who had sought the death of the righteous, and whose folly had gone so far as to attack Israel's protector!