Esther 5:1-14

Here we have the story of Esther's venture and its success. Things might have been very different, but the graciousness of the king, notwithstanding Esther's violation of the law of the palace, was undoubtedly due to the disposition of that God in whose hand are the ways of kings, whether they will or no.

Her request was at first of the simplest. She invited the king and Haman to a banquet. Haman's overweening pride appears in the account which follows. He gathered his friends, and boasted of his riches and advancement; and now of this last favor, that he alone was invited to accompany the king to Esther's banquet. At the back of selfish ambition some cankering pain forever torments. In the case of Haman it was Mordecai's refusal to acknowledge him or do him reverence, and he frankly admitted to his friends that nothing else satisfied him while Mordecai remained in his way. Acting on the advice of wife and friends, he committed the unutterable folly of attempting to make the time of the banquet merry for himself by having first erected a gallows for Mordecai.