Esther 5-7
Chapter 5
Here Esther approaches the king, and he accepts her. So she invites him and Haman to dinner.
Meanwhile, Haman is so incensed at Mordecai that he has a gallows built to hang him on it and plans to ask the king for his life.
Chapter 6
God caused the king to have insomnia, so that he'll have the records read to him, possibly to read himself to sleep. But by early morning he's realizing that Mordecai had saved his life, but had not been rewarded for it.
Just then Haman comes in to ask to kill Mordecai, and the king asks him his ideas on what to do for someone the king wants to honor.
Haman's pride has him so self-deluded that he can't think of anyone the king would want to honor except him.
So now, Haman must honor Mordecai instead of killing him! Wow. God knows how to turn the tables, doesn't He!
6:13 says that Haman's friends are warning him that he will fall before Mordecai, because he is a Jew. So the plot thickens.
Chapter 7
This is the second night in a row that they're having dinner with Esther. Here is where we see some real "poetic justice"!
Esther tells Xerxes that Haman is the evil man who determined to destroy her and her people, so Haman is hanged on his own gallows he built for Mordecai!
No weapon fashioned against you will prevail, Isaiah 54:17, and
Whoever digs a pit, he will fall into it, Proverbs 26:27.
We have seen in this story how God set up the whole stage for this scene to play out and show how He knows what evil people are doing to attack His people, and how He is foiling all their plans.
And God's sense of humor is evident in this book.
We don't always see how He evens up the odds and gives the wicked their due in this life, but He does here.
There are still loose ends to be tied up, and God always finishes what He started. Tomorrow we'll see how He does this. I love a good ending!
O my Father, You are so good, so great, so smart and clever. Words fall short of Who You are.
I want to know You, Father; and You want me to know you. This little side story shows me a little more of Your character and personality.
Father, You have given me this whole body of writings: all the stories, all the sayings, all the teachings; to tell me Who You are. And even all this cannot come close to all You are!
Father, what You have revealed of Yourself, what my brain can comprehend, is no more than an itty-bitty drop of all the oceans of this Earth. And You are greater than that: You are all the aether that this Universe swims in. And even more.
We, all creation, is Your imagination! If You weren't thinking about us, we would not exist!
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
