What shall be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour?
Pride associated with folly
1. In Haman honouring Mordecai we have a remarkable verification of the fable of the dog and the shadow. He gaped after the shadow and lost the substance. Folly generally rides after pride. Haman grew more and more insolent and arrogant as he advanced in wealth and power, until he reached the highest point allowed to him by providence. He did not consider that he who does not climb gets no fall, and that he that climbs too high is sure, at last, to come down with s terrible crash. His temerity is remarkable. Thinking, however, that he was ordered to cut out his own honour, it is natural he should have made the measure large.
2. How completely wretched are the envious and the proud. Pride is the canker-worm of the soul. It always renders us unhappy. It is ever so with those who have not a new heart. The most wealthy and highly honoured are not content. There is something still wanting. There is something they still complain about. They make themselves miserable when they ought to be happy. Oh, how little a thing is earthly grandeur! How little a thing may embitter all human honour and affluence! There can be no happiness on earth till there is self-denial and trust. There is no happiness till we begin to crucify selfishness, and to trust in God as the portion of our souls.
3. We see here how great a misfortune it is to have friends and counsellors who are ignorant, wicked, or evil-disposed. There is a great deal of truth in the proverb, “Save me from my friends, and I will take care of my enemies.” It is sad when a man’s bosom counsellor is not true and faithful. And there is always danger to be apprehended when the advice of a professed friend is pleasing to our own angry or revengeful feelings. If Haman’s wife had been a meek, quiet, prudent, intelligent, God-fearing woman, her advice, at first, had been altogether of a different sort, and her bearing toward her husband, when he hastened home from court, almost heartbroken with disappointment and rage, would have been altogether different from what it was. Instead of adding fuel to his malignant passions, she should have endeavoured to moderate and restrain them. And instead of bruising a heart already broken, by adding taunt and reproach to grief, she should have sought to calm him and make him feel that, with her, in his own home, he was still with friends, respected and beloved, however much he had suffered at court. The husband’s fortune is more fully in the hands of his wife than anywhere else. It is hers to make his home happy, and to gird him with strength by sympathy and counsel. When his spirits are almost overwhelmed, she alone, of all human beings, is the one to minister to him. Her nursing is as sovereign to his sick soul as it is for his ailing body. It is her gentle tones only that can steal over his morbid senses with more power than David’s harp. And when his courage is almost gone, her patience and fortitude will rekindle his heart again to dare and do, and meet anew the toils and troubles of life. What a misfortune it was that Haman had not a sweet Christian home to retire to after the terrible disappointments and bitter experiences of that day! Yes, a sweet, quiet home. But you tell me I forget that he was a man of large estates, great honours, and the owner of a princely palace. True, but a palace is not always a home. What is a home? It is something for which many of earth’s babbling tongues have no term. A home is not a mere residence for the body, but a place where the heart rests and the affections nestle and dwell and multiply. Just in the proportion that a good woman is a blessing, in the same proportion is a bad woman a curse. Woman’s mission is a high and grand one. She is connected with everything that belongs to our race that is noble, refining, and hopeful. Great is the calamity, then, for a community to be under the influence of such opinions or sentiments as are degrading to its women. One bad woman can do more harm in society than a dozen bad men. (W. A. Scott, D. D.)
The Nemesis of providence
Had he been planning for Mordecai all the time he had been thinking of himself? Yea, verily, that was the Nemesis of providence; and yet, bad as it was, that was only one-half of the matter, for before long he would find that he had also been planning for himself when he had been thinking of Mordecai. The honour which he had designed for himself went to Mordecai, and the destruction which he had devised for Mordecai fell upon him self. The royal apparel was worn by the Jew, and the Agagite was hanged upon the gallows. His head had not been turned by the brief honour, nor his heart up lifted by the short-lived glory, for he was well ballasted, and his people were not yet delivered. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)
Great changes
What a marvellous change! what an unlooked-for revolution! The side of the wheel that was lately the lowest is now the highest. That which was a short time ago shrouded in dark ness is now radiant with light! “This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes.” (J. Hughes.)
The vain man
We see here the working and the punishment of vanity and pride. “Whom can the king think worthy of special honour but myself?” thought Haman. The vain man is always occupied about himself. He thinks about himself; he speaks about himself; he is all in all to himself. The idea never crossed Haman’s mind that there could possibly be any one besides himself whom the king could desire to distinguish by any particular mark of favour. But then how crushing was the order: “Go and do as thou hast said to Mordecai the Jew.” (A. B. Davidson, D. D.)
The Church honoured by her enemies
In this manner does God sometimes make the enemies of His Church and servants to honour them. He not only makes the sinners’ hands to forge the snares in which they themselves are caught, but He compels them to weave the crown and impose it on the head of the righteous. (T. McCrie, D. D.)
Insatiable vanity
Haman’s answer reveals the insatiableness of vanity. No sooner was honour mentioned than his heart cried, “Let me have it I Make me a king, though it be only for an hour; if without the power, yet with all the pomp and trappings.” Will this man never have enough? Never; the food is so light and the appetite so strong that there must be a constant supply. Give him this, and to-morrow he will seek something more. The craving is a disease, an atrophy, a cancer. To enjoy honour and to be satisfied with it, a man must be healthy--that is, humble. Mark the strong delusion: “Now Haman thought in his heart.” A man cannot have a worse guide than the thought of his heart, unless God has broken and newmade it. Twice within this single minute Haman was cheated by the thought of his heart. He thought others must esteem him as highly as he esteemed himself; but it is never the case that when a man has a lofty opinion of himself other men have an opinion equally flattering. And he thought that all was going well with him, that this sudden honour would only postpone his revenge for an hour, that by the time he returned from the queen’s banquet he would be the happiest man in Persia; but he was just on the brink of perdition. The water is always smooth above a cataract. (A. M. Symington, B. A.)
Self-flattery leading to self-humiliation,
I. An artless question addressed to conceit.
II. The reasoning of concert.
III. The answer of conceit.
IV. The fearful blow to conceit.
V. The humiliating condition of conceit. (W. Burrows, B. A.)