And all the king's servants, that [were] in the king's gate, bowed, and reverenced Haman: for the king had so commanded concerning him. But Mordecai bowed not, nor did [him] reverence.
Ver. 2. And all the kiny's servants] His courtiers and others; not his menial servants only.
That were in the king's gate] Where the courtiers used to walk, that they might be on call; and where others attended that had business at the court.
Bowed, and reverenced Haman] Not with so much readiness and diligence as impudence and baseness; for should men bow to a molten calf, because made up of golden earrings? Many of these cringing courtiers could not but hate Haman in their hearts, and were as ready to wish him hanged, and to tell the king shortly after where he might have a fit gallows for him. So Sejanus's greatest friends, who had deified him before, when once he fell out of the emperor's favour, showed themselves most passionate against him, saying, that if Caesar had clemency, he ought to reserve it for men, not use it toward monsters.
For the king had so commanded concerning him] And if the king had commanded these servile souls to worship a dog or a cat, as the Egyptians did, a golden image, as Nebuchadnezzar's subjects did, to turn the glory of the incorruptible God into the similitude of a corruptible man, of four-footed boasts or creeping things, as Romans 1:23, they would have done it. Most people are of King Henry's religion, as the proverb is, resolving to do as the most do, though thereby they be undone for ever. This is to be worse than some heathens. See Trapp on " Act 4:19 " But why should Ahasuerus be so hasty to heap such honours upon so worthless and wicked a person, but that he had a mind to proclaim his own folly to all his kingdom?
But Mordecai bowed not, nor did him reverence] He did not, he durst not, though pressed and urged to it with greatest importunity. And why? not because Haman wore a picture openly in his bosom, as the Chaldee paraphrast and Aben Ezra give the reason; not merely (if at all, which some doubt of) because he was a cursed Amalekite; but because the Persian kings required, that themselves and their chief favourites (such as proud Haman was) should be reverenced with a kind of divine honour, more than was due to any man. This the Jews were flatly forbidden by their law to do. The Lacedemonians also were resolute against it, as Herodotus in his seventh book relateth. Pelopidas the Theban would not be drawn to worship the Persian monarch in this sort. No more would Conon the Athenian general. And when Timagoras did, the Athenians condemned him to die for it. It was not therefore pride or self-willedness that made Mordecai so stiff in the legs that he would not bend to Haman, but fear of sin, and conscience of duty. He knew that he had better offend all the world than God and his own conscience: Nihil praeter peccatum timeo I fear nothing before sin. (Basil).