Abide Together: Reflections on Esther 5

In Esther 5, Esther approaches the King and he gives her favor (really it is the LORD who gives her favor) and receives her request.  She asks that he and Haman attend a banquet prepared for them.  The king and Haman attend and she request they come to anther banquet in their honor the next day.   Human is thrilled and goes home to brag to his wife and friends.  In fact he recounts to them “the glory of his riches, and the number of his sons, and every instance where the king had magnified him and how he had promoted him above all the princes and servants of the king.”   He even bragged how he was the only one Esther had invited to the banquet bedsides the king.  He says however, that all this does not satisfy him as long as Mordecai lives.  So he has a gallows built to have Mordecai hanged on it.  Human pride and arrogance are exaggerated to emphasize how ugly this behavior is.  Pride surely comes before the fall and Haman’s fall will be great.  1 Peter 5:6 exhorts followers of Jesus to, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you.”  Lord, keep me humble and always relying on Your grace.

– Bryan McKenzie