WWUTT 779 Why Mordecai Wouldn't Bow to Haman?

When we read the story of Esther, often it's said that the reason Mordecai would not bow before Haman was because he was keeping the second commandment. But that's actually not the reason why Mordecai wouldn't bow when we understand the text.

Esther, Mordecai, and the Refusal to Bow to Haman

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the Word. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we feature New Testament Study, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our Q &A on Friday.

Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. We continue in our Old Testament study today in the book of Esther. If you want to open up your Bible and turn with me there to Chapter 3, that's where we'll begin today. You know, it just occurred to me that if I continue the current trajectory that I'm on, and I have no intention of changing it, I'm going to be going through Job and John at the same time.

Boy, that's a mind-blowing couple of books to be studying at the same time. So we're doing John in our New Testament study, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. We'll finish up Esther in probably the next month or so, and then I'll just keep going from there right into the book of Job.

So Esther Chapter 3 is where we are. And at the beginning of the story, we started with Ahasuerus, king of Persia, Xerxes I, celebrating himself for 180 days. And then he gathered all of his lords together for a feast that lasted seven days.

Toward the end of that feast, he summoned his queen, Vashti, to come and present herself in front of everybody so that they could see what a gorgeous, beautiful wife that Ahasuerus had. But Vashti wouldn't participate.

This made Ahasuerus very angry. He summoned his wise men, and they said that Vashti needed to be removed as queen, and this was an order that can never be reversed. But then Ahasuerus got very lonely, so he asked his young men what he should do, and the young men said, well, you need to get all of the maidens of the kingdom together and pick which maiden you want to marry, and that person will become your wife, and she'll replace Vashti.

So all of this was done. So all of the husbands in the kingdom, their wives would not rebel against their husbands, but that wives would remain submissive to their husbands, even to the point that Ahasuerus was looking for a bride among the peasants rather than marrying somebody of noble blood, as Vashti likely would have been.

So we know that King Ahasuerus chose for himself Hadassah to be his wife, or more popularly known by her pagan name, Esther. I mentioned when we started this study that there were similarities between the story of Esther and the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis, and their names is one of those similarities.

Joseph was his Hebrew name that meant God will add, because Joseph was the favored son of Jacob, born to his favorite wife, Rachel. When Joseph was sold into slavery in Egypt, eventually he interprets some dreams for Pharaoh, and Pharaoh puts him second in command over Egypt, and his name was changed from his Hebrew name, which pointed to God, and instead he was given a pagan name, which pointed to one of the pagan gods.

Joseph's name became Zaphonath-Paneah, and the same is the case with Esther. Her Hebrew name was Hadassah, but Mordecai, her cousin, who raised her as though she were his own daughter, he didn't want her heritage to be known.

He wanted to keep that concealed, and she was not to say that she was a Jew to anybody, so he changed her name to Esther, named after a pagan goddess. So this is the woman that King Hadassah chooses to be his wife.

Mordecai discovered a plot to kill the king, and he let Esther know about it. Esther told the king, and then the men who were plotting to kill the king ended up getting arrested and killed. And so this act of heroism on Mordecai's part was written down in the book of the Chronicles in the presence of the king, and that's where we ended last week at the conclusion of chapter two.

So now we pick up in chapter three today, after these things, King Ahasuerus promoted Haman the Agagite, son of Hamadathah, and advanced him and set his throne above all the officials who were with him.

Now this is an interesting piece of drama here that we're reading about at the start of chapter three. Haman is an Agagite. That means he is a descendant of King Agag. Agag was killed by Samuel in 1 Samuel 15.

He was supposed to have been killed by Saul. The instruction of God to King Saul was that he would fight against the Amalekites and King Agag, that all of the people and all of their livestock, everything that they possessed would be devoted to destruction.

The intention was that the Amalekites would be utterly wiped out by King Saul had he followed God's instruction. But that's not what Saul did. He killed most of the people, but he spared King Agag. And then he took some of the spoils from war to himself, the best of the sheep and oxen and of the fattened calves and the lambs, and all that was good and would not utterly destroy them.

All that was despised and worthless, they devoted to destruction. That's 1 Samuel 15 9. Then in verse 10, the word of the Lord came to Samuel. I regret that I have made Saul king for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.

And Samuel was angry and he cried to the Lord all night. And Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning, and it was told, Samuel, Saul came to Carmel and behold, he set up a monument for himself and turned and passed on and went down to Gilgal.

And Samuel came to Saul and Saul said to him, Blessed be you to the Lord. I have performed the commandment of the Lord. So Saul is telling Samuel, I did what God commanded me to do. And Samuel said, Then what is this bleeding of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the oxen that I hear?

In other words, no, you didn't devote all the livestock to destruction. I hear them. And Saul said, I have brought them from the Amalekites for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God and the rest we have devoted to to destruction.

So Saul is kind of backhandedly blaming the people for this. Well, the people spared the best of the sheep and oxen. Then Samuel said to Saul, Stop, I will tell you what the Lord said to me this night.

And he said, Saul responded to him, Speak. And Samuel said, Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. In other words, Saul, you can't be blaming the people for this.

You're responsible for this. The Lord sent you on a mission and said, Go devote to destruction the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed. Why did you not obey the voice of the Lord?

Why did you pounce on the spoil and do what was evil in the sight of God? And Saul said to Samuel, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. I have gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me, and I have brought a gag, the king of Amalek, and I have devoted the Amalekites to destruction.

But the people took the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the things devoted to destruction to sacrifice to the Lord, your God at Gilgal. So now Saul is even trying to say, Hey, there were there were noble intentions here.

We were going to sacrifice these things unto God. Samuel's response at that point was, Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to listen than the fat of rams.

For rebellion is as the sin of divination and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has also rejected you from being king. And Saul said to Samuel, I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.

Now, therefore, please pardon my sin and return with me that I may bow before the Lord. See, even in this so-called confession that Saul is making, he's still not truly repentant. He's not admitting that he did evil.

He's still blaming the people. His only sin was that he feared the people instead of God. That's what Saul is admitting to here. Samuel said to Saul, I will not return with you, for you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel.

As Samuel turned to go away, Saul seized the skirt of his robe and it tore. And Samuel said to him, the Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day and has given it to a neighbor of yours who is better than you.

And of course, that's foreshadowing to King David. Also, the glory of Israel will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man that he should have regret. Then Saul said, I have sinned, yet honor me now before the elders of my people and before Israel and return with me that I may bow before the Lord, your God.

So Samuel turned back after Saul and Saul bowed before the Lord. Then Samuel said, bring here to me a gag, the king of Amalekites. And a gag came to him cheerfully. A gag said, surely the bitterness of death is past.

And Samuel said, as your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women. And Samuel hacked a gag to pieces before the Lord in Gilgal. This was what Saul was supposed to do.

And Samuel ended up doing that for him. Then Samuel went to Ramah and Saul went up to his house in Gibeah of Saul. And Samuel did not see Saul again until the day of his death. But Samuel grieved over Saul and the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel.

And when we read that the Lord regretted, it's not the same way that we experience regret, but simply that God changed his mind about Saul as king over Israel. His blessing was previously with him and now it had been removed from him since Saul had been so rebellious.

Instead, the blessing of God was going to go to David, who would be anointed to be Saul's successor over the throne of Israel. So had Saul obeyed the command of God and devoted to destruction the Amalekites in totality the way that God told him to, we would not be in the situation that we're about to be in in the book of Esther, where Haman plots against the Jews to have them destroyed because of a certain action that Mordecai will not do in his presence.

So we have it mentioned here at the start of Esther chapter three that Haman is an agagite. He is a descendant of King Agag, who was not devoted to destruction as Saul had been instructed to do to the Amalekites.

Haman ends up becoming second in command under King Ahasuerus. Eventually that becomes Mordecai, but that's not until the end of the story. So verse two, all the king's servants who were at the king's gate bowed down and paid homage to Haman for the king had so commanded concerning him, but Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage.

Then the king's servants who were at the king's gate said to Mordecai, why do you transgress the king's command? And when they spoke to him day after day and he would not listen to them, they told Haman in order to see whether Mordecai's words would stand for he had told them that he was a Jew.

And when Haman saw that Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage to him, Haman was filled with fury, but he disdained to lay hands on Mordecai alone. So as they had made known to him, the people of Mordecai, Haman sought to destroy all the Jews, the people of Mordecai throughout all the kingdom of Ahasuerus.

Now, oftentimes when this story is relayed, Mordecai's reaction to Haman, his refusal to bow before him. Oftentimes whenever we tell this story, it's often said that the reason why Mordecai did not bow down to Haman is because of the commandment.

The second commandment, you shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them for I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God.

And so whenever we talk about the reason why Mordecai did not bow down before Haman, it's often the second commandment that is cited. But that's not the reason why Mordecai did not bow. Again, as I mentioned at the start of our study, the law is never mentioned in the book of Esther.

The temple of God is never mentioned. God himself is never mentioned in this book. So this is not a reference to Mordecai upholding the second commandment. And that's why he won't bow down before Haman.

There are plenty of occasions that we have in the scriptures of someone bowing before a king. David bowed to Jonathan. He bowed down to Saul. The prophet Nathan bowed down to David. So we have these various occasions of people bowing before kings.

That was not uncommon. That was not unusual. This instruction that has been given here to Mordecai that he's expected to bow down before Haman would not have ordinarily been something that Mordecai would have refused to do.

But the reason why he did not bow down before Haman was because Haman was an agagite. That's the reason why he didn't bow. It goes back to first Samuel 15. It has absolutely nothing to do with the second commandment, because the second commandment is you will not bow down to false gods and serve them.

Haman was an enemy to the Jews. And that's very clearly seen here by the fact that Mordecai wouldn't bow down to Haman. And Haman decided, well, if Mordecai is not going to bow to me, I'm going to kill all of the Jews.

It was the Jews who killed, you know, my great, great, great grandparents agag. None of the Jews are going to bow down to me. All right. Then I'll wipe them all out. Now, this is a massive amount of pride on Haman's part, but we've seen men filled with pride in this story thus far.

You had a hazardous who was honoring himself. You had the the young men who considered their wisdom to be greater than the older, wiser men. You've got Haman now who is so puffed up with pride. He's acting like a spoiled brat just because somebody won't bow to him.

He's going to wipe out an entire race of people, a wicked and evil man. This Haman is and he has just the position of authority to be able to pull off this plot to commit genocide and kill off all of the Jews.

So verse seven in the first month, which is the month of Nisan in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus, they cast per, that is, they cast lots before Haman day after day and they cast it month after month till the twelfth month, which is the month of Hadar.

Now, there's kind of some dramatic irony here because the month of Nisan is the month in which Passover is being celebrated. When the Jews celebrate their deliverance from the hands of the Egyptians and and pretty soon they're going to need deliverance from the hands of Haman, who is plotting to kill, wipe out all of the Jews.

It's also in the month of Nisan that Jesus Christ was crucified. So we're kind of pointing to that a little bit a few hundred years into the future. And it is by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that we have been delivered from slavery to our sin and have instead become fellow heirs in the kingdom of God, just as the people of Israel will receive deliverance by the end of this story.

So we receive deliverance by the sacrifice of Christ. Verse eight. Then Haman said to King Ahasuerus, there is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom.

Their laws are different from those of every other people, and they do not keep the king's laws so that it is not to the king's profit to tolerate them. If it please the king, let it be decreed that they be destroyed.

And I will pay ten thousand talents of silver into the hands of those who have charge of the king's business, that they may put it into the king's treasuries. So the king took his signet ring from his hand and gave it to Haman, the Agagite, the son of Hamadatha, the enemy of the Jews.

And the king said to Haman, the money is given to you, the people also to do with them as it seems good to you. So it's indicated here that even Haman's descendancy, who he was descended from, has been an enemy of the Jews for hundreds of years.

And it's that reason why Mordecai would not bow to him. Verse 12. Then the king's scribes were summoned on the thirteenth day of the first month, and an edict, according to all that Haman had commanded, was written to the king's satraps and to the governors over all the provinces and to the officials of all the peoples, to every province in its own script and every people in its own language.

It was written in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed with the king's signet ring. Letters were sent by couriers to all the king's provinces with instruction to destroy, to kill and to annihilate all Jews, young and old, women and children, in one day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, and to plunder their goods.

A copy of the document was to be issued as a decree in every province by proclamation to all the peoples to be ready for that day. The couriers went out hurriedly by order of the king, and the decree was issued in Susa, the citadel, and the king and Haman sat down to drink.

But the city of Susa was thrown into confusion. Now why is that? Well, because this order was absurd. And even the citizens of the Persian Empire were looking at this order going, why? Why are we going to wipe out an entire race of people?

They're not doing anything wrong. They're not even raising rebellion. They pay their taxes. They do everything that they're supposed to do. And we're going to be wiping this people out. Even the people of Persia thought that this was an absurd order.

And yet the aloofness of the king, along with Haman, they just end up partying instead of even, you know, the king's not even really considering what it is that Haman has requested of him and what he has executed in the name of the king.

So Haman is going to attempt to do to the Israelites what Saul was supposed to have done to the Amalekites. He was supposed to have wiped them out. He failed. So Haman is going to try to return the favor and wipe out all of the Jews.

Of course, he is going to fail because God's providential hand is working in the midst of all of this to deliver the Jews out of this extreme persecution so that the Messiah would be born a few hundred years from now, who will save his people from their sins.

All who believe on the name of Jesus Christ are forgiven their sins, given his righteousness and will have eternal life in his eternal kingdom, his empire, which will never be overthrown or struck down.

Jesus is king who reigns forever and ever. Amen.

Christ's Deliverance Through Providence and the Coming Messiah

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