Good Is Good - Esther 3
Okay, gang. Another post with more questions than answers. Today, we read in chapter 3 how Mordeci refuses to bow down to Haman, who was recently promoted to prime minister, the second highest office. Day after day Mordy refuses to bow and show him respect.
The question I have is why did Mordy refuse to bow down? Is this not what the king had commanded? Did Mordy refuse to bow to the king as well? Now, it's easy to see that Haman is a self-serving, evil man. Just to know he wanted to exact his revenge on Mordy by slaughtering every Jew, not just Mordy show the real character of Haman. So, it's easy for me to believe that Mordy refused to bow to Haman because he didn't respect him.
In trying to apply this to my life today, are we to honor our laws except towards those we don't particularly like? No, I don't think so. If Mordy had gone ahead and bowed down to Haman as the king requested, the entire book of Esther would be very uneventful and very short. We probably would not be reading it today because it wouldn't even be a book.
So, can we all agree that in spite of how Mordy disobeyed, which nearly caused the entire nation of Jewish people to be slaughtered, God stepped in and saved the day through a daring act from Queen Esther?
Can we safely agree that no matter how we may have screwed up in the past, God can step in with an unlikely surprise and rescue us? Yes!
God is good.
peace,
e
From the JFB Commentary
2. all the king's servants, that were in the king's gate, bowed, and reverenced Haman--Large mansions in the East are entered by a spacious vestibule, or gateway, along the sides of which visitors sit, and are received by the master of the house; for none, except the nearest relatives or special friends, are admitted farther. There the officers of the ancient king of Persia waited till they were called, and did obeisance to the all-powerful minister of the day.
But Mordecai bowed not, nor did him reverence--The obsequious homage of prostration not entirely foreign to the manners of the East, had not been claimed by former viziers; but this minion required that all subordinate officers of the court should bow before him with their faces to the earth. But to Mordecai, it seemed that such an attitude of profound reverence was due only to God. Haman being an Amalekite, one of a doomed and accursed race, was, doubtless, another element in the refusal; and on learning that the recusant was a Jew, whose nonconformity was grounded on religious scruples, the magnitude of the affront appeared so much the greater, as the example of Mordecai would be imitated by all his compatriots. Had the homage been a simple token of civil respect, Mordecai would not have refused it; but the Persian kings demanded a sort of adoration, which, it is well known, even the Greeks reckoned it degradation to express. As Xerxes, in the height of his favoritism, had commanded the same honors to be given to the minister as to himself, this was the ground of Mordecai's refusal.
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