You remember Haman. He’s the villain in the biblical account of Esther, the made-for-film historical drama that played out mainly in the Persian capital of Susa — today, the Iranian city of Shush — in the fifth century B.C. This story is an archetype of the biblical pattern, the grand story in miniature.
“The weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Corinthians 1:25). That one sentence from the apostle Paul, with poetic simplicity, captures why redemptive history has played out in the strange, unlikely ways that it has.
Woven through Scripture and church history is a consistent and counterintuitive pattern: God cedes the positions of greatest worldly power and influence and wealth to his enemies — those who “take their stand. . . against the Lord and against his Anointed” (Psalm 2:2 NASB) — and then, through the most improbable, unexpected means, overthrows his enemies and redeems his people. He lets Haman build the gallows, and then hangs him on it.
You remember Haman. He’s the villain in the biblical account of Esther, the made-for-film historical drama that played out mainly in the Persian capital of Susa — today, the Iranian city of Shush — in the fifth century B.C. This story is an archetype of the biblical pattern, the grand story in miniature.
Evil Ascends to Power
The crisis at the center of the story is that the Jews living in the Medo-Persian empire under the rule of King Ahasuerus (or Xerxes I) find themselves on the brink of annihilation because of the malevolence of one man: Haman.
Haman was one of the king’s court officials. And at some point, “King Ahasuerus promoted Haman the Agagite, the son of Hammedatha, and advanced him and set his throne above all the officials who were with him” (Esther 3:1). In those days, Haman’s position was called Grand Vizier. He was second-in-command and the king’s most trusted advisor.
Haman loved his powerful, lucrative, and exalted position. By the direct command of the king, one of the enjoyable benefits was that whenever he would enter or exit the palace gate the king’s subjects had to bow low before him, conceding Haman’s superiority (Esther 3:2). But one man denied him that benefit, which incited in him a deadly rage (Esther 3:5).
Weak People in Unlikely Places
Mordecai was a Jew living in Susa thanks to Nebuchadnezzar’s deportation program a generation earlier (Esther 2:5–6). He held no position of power or social influence. All we know is that prior to the core events of the story, Mordecai was “bringing up” his first cousin, Hadassah (whose Persian name was Esther), as his own daughter, because she had been orphaned (Esther 2:7), which meant the girl was probably still in her teens when the unexpected happened to her.
As a part of Mordecai’s household, Esther too lived in obscurity. She happened to be exceptionally beautiful (Esther 2:7), but it wouldn’t have entered anyone’s mind that her beauty would result in powerful political influence with the king. And then something unusual occurred: the former queen refused to obey a command of the king and was therefore royally divorced (Esther 1). As a result, a kingdom-wide who will be the next queen beauty contest was staged. And Esther, with no powerful connections, from no noble family (1 Corinthians 1:26), won.
In fact, nobody in the court seems to care at all about her family connections. Mordecai appears to have no privileged court access. So being a loving, conscientious, concerned adoptive father, he regularly stationed himself near the palace gate so he could keep tabs on Esther’s well-being as best he could (Esther 2:11, 21; 3:3). And this resulted in unexpected, providential consequences, one wonderful and one terrible and then wonderful.
The wonderful consequence was that one day Mordecai discovered an assassination plot against the king, exposed it, and saved the king’s life (Esther 2:19–22). But the king apparently forgot about it quickly — though the deed was recorded in “the [king’s] book of memorable deeds” (Esther 6:1). Despite his faithfulness, Mordecai remained just another obscure servant milling about the palace gate. The gates where Haman regularly went in and out.
Evil Makes Its Move
So we know Haman enjoyed when everyone bowed before the most excellent Vizier as he arrived and exited. The problem was, not everyone bowed. Mordecai, due to his Jewish religious convictions, refused to honor Haman in a way he believed only God should be honored. Haman was informed and took homicidal offense over this (Esther 3:2–4).
