Esther 6:14

And while they [were] yet talking with him, came the king's chamberlains, and hasted to bring Haman unto the banquet that Esther had prepared.

Ver. 14. And while they were yet talking with him] But could not yield him one word of comfort. He hoped haply that they would have found out for him some good occasion, some means of supplanting Mordecai, now his co-rival and counterfactionist, and of incensing the king against him, that he might build upon his ruins. But the hope of unjust men shall perish, Proverbs 11:7, Etiam spes valentissimo perit, so some render it, and themselves with it. As Haman had not one to speak for him when the king frowned upon him; so here he hath not one to speak to his heart, or to shore him up, now that he is upon the fall. Those that before took crafty counsel against God's people, and consulted against his hidden ones, Psalms 83:3, are now at their wits' end, as seeing themselves taken as wild beasts in a snare, δρασσομενος, 1 Corinthians 3:19, "in their own craftiness," yea, they are mad for the sight of their eyes, which that day they should see, Deuteronomy 28:34 .

Came the king's chamberlains, and hasted to brinq Haman] Heb. and hurried and headlonged in a turbulent manner; for it may be the king and queen tarried for him. Could he have been any way excused, he had no such mind to have gone. For his stomach was full, and what if he should meet Mordecai, the new favourite, there, and see him set above him? But now it is no time to consult further with friends, or cast perils by himself. Harbonah hasteneth him, having first taken notice of the lofty gallows, and (as Josephus saith) asked of one of the servants of the house what it meant, and for whom it was prepared? See Esther 7:9 .

Unto the banquet that Esther had prepared] That fatal feast, Ubi manducaret quod apud inferos digereret (August.), where his food in his bowels was turned, it became the gall of asps within him, Job 20:14. Why then should any saint envy the wicked man his fed bits, his murdering morsels? is not his food sauced, his drink spiced, with the bitter wrath of God? Adonijah's feast ended in horror; the ears of his guests were filled (because their bellies had prepared deceit, Job 15:35) with the sound of those trumpets, which at once proclaim Solomon's triumph and their confusion. Ever after the meal is ended comes the reckoning, but at this banquet of Esther it came before, Esther 7:2. And Haman sped not so well as Caesar Borgia's nobles, whom he invited to a feast, and after they had well dined, he cut off their heads.