Then Harbona, one of the eunuchs in attendance on the king, said, “Moreover, the gallows that Haman has prepared for Mordecai, whose word saved the king, is standing at Haman's house, fifty cubits high.” And the king said, “Hang him on that.”
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."
"Whose word saved the king"
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.
H. L. RossierEveryone 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.
The courtiers turn
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
What the gallows was
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.
Morrish Bible DictionaryThe 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 trap springs backwards
The one thing Haman built with his own hands now condemns him. The king needs no trial and no second thought.
Leslie M. GrantThe 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."
Pride and the timing of the fall
The timing sharpens the reversal. Commentators trace the fall back to one thing in Haman: his pride.
C. H. MackintoshBut "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!
The names Esther gives him
Haman is finally named for what he is. One writer hears in those names an echo of a greater enemy.
H. L. RossierThis 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.
The shadow of the cross
Haman dies on the wood he built for Mordecai. One writer sees in that exchange the pattern of a greater victory.
Michael HardtHaman 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.
Summary
- 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.