On that day did the king Ahasuerus give the house of Haman the Jews' enemy unto Esther the queen. And Mordecai came before the king; for Esther had told what he [was] unto her.
Ver. 1. On that day] This was a festival and a good day, as Esther 8:17, albo lapillo notandus, for the many signal mercies that thereon came in together, viz. Esther's petition granted, Haman hanged, Mordecai advanced, the proscribed Jews relieved, &c. As crosses seldom come single (Catenata piorum crux), but trooping together commonly, and treading upon the heels of one another, like Job's messengers, James 1:2; so do blessings from God: there is oft a continued series, a concatenation; there comes a troop, as she said, when her son Gad came, Genesis 30:11. God is rich in mercy, Romans 10:12. Neither are we at any time constrained in him, but in our own heart.
Did the king Ahasuerus give] For into the king's hands was all Haman's estate forfeited. The Turks have a proverb, He that is greatest in office is but a statue of glass. Few of their viziers die in their beds, but are cut off at a short warning, and all they have is confiscated.
The house of Haman] i.e. His goods and chattels, all that glory of his riches, whereof he had so greatly boasted, Esther 5:11, and which he had been so many years heaping and hoarding. Nem0 confidat nimium secundis.
The Jews' enemy] It is ill being the Church's enemy: she hath a champion that will stick to her, Isaiah 37:23, so that her enemies shall all be found liars unto her, Deuteronomy 33:29. Let them read their destiny in that cup of trembling, burdensome stone, hearth of fire, mentioned Zechariah 12:2,3; Zechariah 12:6, and hear the Church's motto, Nemo me impune lacessit; no one provokes me with impunity, there cannot be a greater folly than to be her enemy, for she conquereth even when conquered; as Christ overcame as well by patience as by power, Victa tamen vinces, eversaque Troia resurges.
Unto Esther the queen] So making good that of Solomon, Proverbs 13:22. The wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just. See Job 27:16,17. Thus was that of the Canaanites for the Israelites, of Nabal for David, of the former tyrants and persecutors, for Constantine the Great, to whom the good God (saith Austin, De C. D. 1. v. c. 25) gave so much worldly wealth, quantas optare nullus auderet, as no man could ever have wished. That Haman was exceeding rich, appeareth by that large offer of his, Esther 3:9; who can tell but that he might have as much as Pope John XXII, in whose coffers were found by his heirs two hundred and fifty tons of gold, as Petrarch reporteth.
And Mordecai came before the king] As his continual attendant and special favourite, his cousin and counsellor; perhaps one of the seven mentioned Esther 1:14. He that hitherto sat as a servant before the king's gate is now grown so great a man all upon the sudden. It is the Lord that thus raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory, 1 Samuel 2:8. Promotion cometh neither from the east, west, nor south (where the warm sunshine is), but God is the judge, he putteth down one, and setteth up another, Psalms 75:6,7. He advanced Jovinian and Valentinian, men of low birth, to the empire. In the year of grace 518 Justinus was first a swine herd, then a herdsman, then a carpenter, then a soldier, and lastly an emperor. Cromwell, a smith's son of Putney or thereabouts (whose mother married after to a sheerman), what a great man grew he here to be in King Henry VIII's time? Virtue exalteth the meanest, when villany tumbleth down the noblest.
For Esther had told what he was unto her] viz. Her first cousin and foster father, her friend that was as her own soul, as Moses phraseth it, Deuteronomy 13:6, and preferreth him before brother, son, daughter, wife. His relation to Esther was as a stirrup to help him into the saddle of highest preferment.