Holy Bible - Obsidian Study Guide

Mordecai Honored

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Mordecai Honored

Overview

  • Testament: Old
  • Book: Esther
  • Chapters: Esther 6
  • Summary: The night the king could not sleep, he had the royal records read to him and learned that Mordecai had once uncovered a plot against his life but received no honor; Haman was compelled to publicly honor the very man he intended to hang.

Details

That night — the night between Esther’s first and second banquets — the king could not sleep and commanded the book of chronicles to be read to him. The reader came to the account of how Mordecai had reported the plot by Bigthana and Teresh to assassinate the king (Esther 2:21-23). The king asked what honor and dignity had been done to Mordecai for this. He was told: nothing. At this exact moment, Haman arrived in the outer court — he had come early in the morning to ask the king’s permission to hang Mordecai on the gallows he had built. The king summoned him in and asked: “What shall be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour?”

Haman, thinking the king meant to honor him, elaborated: dress him in royal robes, seat him on the king’s horse, and have a prince proclaim before him through the city square “Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honour.” The king ordered Haman to do exactly this for Mordecai the Jew — “and let nothing fail of all that thou hast spoken.” Haman took Mordecai through the streets proclaiming his honor, then returned to his house in grief and shame, his head covered. His wife Zeresh and his friends warned him: “If Mordecai be of the seed of the Jews, before whom thou hast begun to fall, thou shalt not prevail against him, but shalt surely fall before him.” As they were speaking, the king’s chamberlains arrived to escort Haman to Esther’s second banquet.

Key People Involved

  • Haman — Forced to honor his intended victim
  • Mordecai — The honoree; publicly exalted before the city
  • Ahasuerus — The king who ordered the honors
  • Zeresh — Haman’s wife who read the signs of his impending doom

Key Places

  • Susa — The city through whose streets Mordecai was paraded

Important Verses

“Thus shall it be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour. And Haman thought in his heart, To whom would the king delight to do honour more than to myself?” — Esther 6:9-10 (implied from context of v.6)

“If Mordecai be of the seed of the Jews, before whom thou hast begun to fall, thou shalt not prevail against him, but shalt surely fall before him.” — Esther 6:13

Cross-References

Notes

This chapter is the narrative’s comic and providential hinge. The sleepless king, the timing of Haman’s arrival, the specific passage read from the chronicles — all converge in a manner that the narrator presents without comment but that implies divine orchestration. Haman’s humiliation is total: he must publicly exalt the man he intended to destroy, in a procession he designed for himself. His family’s words of doom (6:13) echo the kind of oracular speech associated with prophets, recognizing the theological pattern of those who oppose the Jewish people being unable to prevail.

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