Esther 7:1 - Meaning and Application

The king, pleased with the feast, and Haman upset, meet at Esther’s table. The king again urges Esther, for the third time, to tell him what she wants. He says again that it will be granted, and he clearly wants to know her request (Esther 7:2). If he had forgotten that she had something to ask, and had not asked again, she might have had no easy way to bring it up herself. But he remembered, and now he was tied to his promise, repeated three times.

At last, Esther surprises the king with a petition, not for riches, honor, or promotion for a friend, which is what he may have expected. She asks instead for her own life and the lives of her people, to save them from death and destruction (Esther 7:3, Esther 7:4). Even a stranger or a criminal is usually allowed to ask for his life. But it is deeply moving that a wife and friend must make such a request. “Let my life be given to me for my request, and my people for my plea.”

Two things make lives especially precious and worth saving, if they are innocent, even at great cost. First is rank. If a crowned head is in danger, action is needed at once. Esther’s life was such a life. She is saying, in effect, “If you care anything for the wife of your own bosom, now is the time to show it, because that life is at risk.” Second is number. If many lives, very many lives, are in danger, and none of them deserve it, no time should be wasted and no effort spared to stop the harm. “It is not just a friend or two,” she says, “but my people, a whole nation dear to me, that I am asking you to save.”

To move the king more deeply, she adds two points. First, she says that she and her people had been bought and sold. They had not sold themselves by any crime against the government. They had been sold to satisfy the pride and revenge of one man. Second, she says it is not only their freedom, but their lives, that are being sold. If they had been sold into slavery, she says, she might not have complained. In time they might have regained their freedom, and the king would not even have made a good bargain, since the loss of so many useful workers would have hurt the kingdom more than their price would have helped it. Persecuting good people is as unwise as it is sinful, and it harms princes and states as well as the people themselves.

But that was not the case here. “We are sold,” she says, “to be destroyed, killed, and wiped out.” Then it is time to speak. She points back to the wording of the decree (Esther 3:13), which aimed at nothing less than their destruction. If the king still had any tenderness in him, this should reach it and soften him.

The king is stunned by what Esther says and asks, “Who is he, and where is he, who has dared to do this?” He is shocked that anyone would plan the murder of the queen and all her friends. “Who is this man, this monster? Who has filled his heart to do such a thing?” He is amazed, first, that anyone could be so evil as even to think of such a thing. Satan surely filled that heart. He is amazed, second, that anyone could be so bold as to carry out such wickedness.

We should remember two things. First, it is hard to imagine how much terrible evil really exists in the world. Who is it that dares to challenge God’s existence and rule, mock his word, profane his name, persecute his people, and still defy his judgment? Such people do exist, and thinking about them should make us shudder (Psalm 119:53). Second, we are sometimes startled by evil we ourselves are guilty of. Ahasuerus is amazed at the very wickedness he helped permit, because he had agreed to the bloody decree against the Jews. Esther could truly have said to him, “You are the man.”

Esther then points to Haman and names him plainly before the king: “The adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman” (Esther 7:6). He is the one who planned their murder. Worse still, he has shamefully led the king into being a partaker in the crime, though the king did not understand what he was agreeing to.

Haman quickly sees how much danger he is in. He is afraid before the king and queen, and he has good reason to fear. The queen is accusing him, the king is judging him, and his own conscience is testifying against him. The surprising way Providence had worked against him that very morning could only add to his fear. Now he gets little joy from being invited to the wine feast. He finds himself trapped when he had thought himself safe and full. He has fallen into a net by his own feet.