Haman was not pleased with Mordecai. In fact, he wanted Mordecai to die. Better yet, all of Mordecai’s people should die, too. They were all different. They followed their own rules. It was time to cleanse the kingdom of every last one of them. That would surely please the king. There would be no more blatant disrespect for the king’s rules for the kingdom.
Why did Mordecai refuse to comply with the expected behavior of bowing to Haman? We’re not told why Haman was promoted by the king. We do know that this promotion made Haman the most powerful man in the kingdom (besides the king, I’m sure). Presumably, with that much power comes respect, and people were expected to respect this powerful man. Mordecai could not bring himself to show respect. Did he know something about Haman? Or, did he reserve his bowing to God?
Haman’s ancestry would be a group of people who were enemies of the Jews. That could be another reason for Mordecai’s refusal. At this point, the important thing to take away seems to be how Mordecai listened to his conscience and followed the faith of his fathers. He wasn’t going to conform for the sake of fitting in and avoiding attention.
We are seeing a beautiful set up to Purim, the Jewish festival still celebrated today. What we read in this passage tells us the history, explains the plot, how it was turned into a decree, and how it all started with Mordecai’s allegiance to his faith and not Haman. We’ll look at the tradition of Purim in future readings in Esther. For now, keep in mind that all of this happened as a result of one man’s own insecurity and abuse of power.
This chapter ends with a bit of a cliff hanger. You can picture Haman and King Xerxes sitting down for a celebratory drink. The decree has gone out. The kingdom will be purged of the Jews, and the date was set. And then we read, “but the city of Susa fell into confusion.” What does that mean? Confused about what exactly? We’ll have to wait and see as the story plays out. My guess is that the people were totally perplexed on why out of the blue such nice people, their Jewish friends and neighbors, were going to be put to death in a such a savage way.
Take some time today to spend in prayer. Talk to God about your allegiance to him and what that looks like. Can you be more devoted?
Let’s pray. Lord, I always love to see other people’s faith played out in their actions or even inactions. I want to be more focused on you and what you want from me. You have given me a job to do, Lord, and I want to complete it to the best of my ability. Give me the resources I need to bring your message to the world. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
