Esther 7:5

Then the king Ahasuerus answered and said unto Esther the queen, Who is he, and where is he, that durst presume in his heart to do so?

Ver. 5. Then the king Ahasuerus answered, &c.] It seems he did not yet, by all that Esther had said, understand whom she meant; so high an opinion he had of Haman his minion, the only ornament and bulwark of the empire, the greatest publicola, and most esteemed patriot. The king, therefore, as not thinking him so near at hand, hastily asketh, He said and said (so the Heb. hath it) to the queen.

Who is he, and where is he] Who is that sirrah, he, and where is that sirrah, he? Quis hic ipse, et ubi hic ille? words of utmost indignation and readiness to be revenged; such as were those of Charles V emperor: If that villain were here (speaking of Farnesius, the pope's general, who had ravished certain ladies) I would kill him with mine own hand; or those of fiery Friar, who, openly in the pulpit at Antwerp, preaching to the people, wished that Luther were there, that he might tear him with his teeth (Paraei Medul. Hist. profan. Erasm. Ephesians 1:16, ad obtrectat). But could this king possibly so soon forget what himself had not two months before granted to be done against Esther's people (which was with his right hand to cut off his left)? or did he not all this while know what countrywoman his beloved Esther was? and might he not expect that the Hamanists should come and take her forcibly from him to execution, by virtue of his own edict, as Daniel's adversaries had dealt by him, though Darius laboured till the going down of the sun to deliver him, but could not? Daniel 6:14; and as Stephen Gardiner and his complices attempted to do by Queen Catharine Parr, had not her husband, Henry VIII, rated them away, and graciously rescued her out of their bloody fingers?

That durst presume in his heart to do so?] Heb. Whose heart hath filled him to do so? Cuius cor persuasit ipsi, so Vatablus. Whose heart hath persuaded him thus to do. The devil had filled Haman's heart, sitting abrood thereon, and hatching there this horrid plot, Acts 5:3. But (to do the devil right) Haman had suffered the sun (nay, many suns) to go down upon his wrath, and thereby given place to the devil, Ephesians 4:26,27. Nemo sibi de suo palpet (saith an ancient), quisque sibi Satan est; Let no man deceive his own heart, each man is a Satan to himself; and though men bless themselves from having to do with the devil, and spit at his very name, yet they fetch not up their spittle low enough; they spit him out of their mouths, but not out of their hearts, as "being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity," Romans 1:29. Haman's heart thus stuffed might well have said to him at the gallows, as the heart of Apollodorus the tyrant seemed to say to him, who dreamed one night that he was flayed by the Scythians, and boiled in a cauldron, and that his heart spake to him out of the kettle, It is I that have drawn thee to all this. Eγω σοι τουτων αιτια. Those in hell cry so surely.