Then took Haman the apparel and the horse, and arrayed Mordecai, and brought him on horseback through the street of the city, and proclaimed before him, Thus shall it be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour.
Ver. 11. Then took Haman the apparel, &c.] Full sore against stomach be sure, but how could he help it? Thus God compelleth the devil and his limbs sometimes, though against their wills, to serve him as his servants. Canes lingunt ulcers Lazari. Dogs licked the sores of Lazarus, Saul pronounceth David more righteous than he. Judas and Pilate gave testimony to Christ's innocency. These are the servants of the High God, which show unto us the way of salvation, said the Pythoness concerning Paul and his companions, Acts 16:17 .
And arrayed Mordecai] Whose heart he could rather have torn out, and eaten it with salt. But courtiers are usually notable dissemblers, cunning politicians, &c. How busy is Haman now about Mordecai to array him, to mount him, and to attend upon him, whom yet he hated, and inwardly cursed to the pit of hell! Cavete ab osculo Iscariotico, ab officio Hamanitico. Beware of the eys of Judas and the office of hamen. Beware of men, Mat 10:17 Josephus telleth us, that when Haman came to do those things to Mordecai, he (thinking that he had mocked him) answered with indignation, Thou most wicked man, dost thou thus insult over the miserable? But when he had told him, that indeed it was the king's pleasure, he suffered him to do it. But what shall we say to reconcile those cross passions in Ahasuerus? Before he signed that decree of killing all the Jews, he could not but know that a Jew had saved his life; and now, after that he had enacted the slaughter of all the Jews as rebels, he giveth order to honour a Jew as his preserver. It were strange (saith a right reverend writer hereupon, Dr Hall) if great persons, in the multitude of their distractions, should not let fall some incongruities.
And brought him on horseback] Whom before he could not endure to see sitting at the court's gate. A great trouble it was to Haman to lead Mordecai's horse, which another man would not have thought so: the moving of a straw troubleth proud flesh, &c.
Through the streets of the city] Where all men were now in an amazement at that sudden glory of Mordecai, and study how to reconcile this day with the thirteenth of Adar.
And proclaimed before him] Not without an honourable mention made of his loyalty and fidelity to the king, the cause of that great honour. This Haman was forced to proclaim, and that on foot, as a servant; when Mordecai, as a prince in his state, was on horseback. It is probable that Haman thought within himself that he should shortly have his penny worths of that vile varlet, whom now he thus far honoured, and that haply ere night yet, at the feast, he might prevail with the king to do by Mordecai as once Xerxes did by his steersman, when he came back with shame and loss from his wars with Greece. Xerxes was forced, saith the history, to flee back in a poor fisher's boat; which, being over loaded, had sunk all, if the Persians by casting away themselves had not saved the life of their king; the loss of which noble spirits so vexed him, that having given the steersman a golden coronet for preserving his own life, he commanded him to execution as a co-author of the death of his servants.