Humility and Pride

Esther 5-7

            Esther’s approach to the king is the very picture of humility. Even though the king offers astonishing generosity—“Up to half the kingdom” is repeated several times!—Esther asks only for a banquet. At that banquet, she asks for another banquet. The author offers no explanation for the delay or the second request, but maybe she was just waiting for the perfect moment. She had no presumption the king would look favorably on her ultimate request to save her people, but she plays it easy to ease the way to her petition.

            No so Haman. He is all, “Look at me!” and bluster. He is enraged that Mordecai doesn’t see how special he is. He brags to wife and friends about his importance. He assumes that the king is talking about him when the king asks how he would honor a person. If he weren’t such a despicable, arrogant man, one might almost feel sorry for him, because he doesn’t know that Esther is Jewish nor does he know that she is related to Mordecai.

            And so we have an instance where the wicked get what they deserve and Haman is impaled on the pole built for Haman. Here we see Proverbs 16:18, “Pride goes before destruction,” at work. The God of Israel, never named, casts down the mighty and raises up the lowly (Luke 1:52).