Comment: When the Mordecai refused to bow to Haman who had been promoted by King Ahasuerus in the province of the Medes and Persians, he (Haman) plotted to kill him as well as all the Jews in the land. In his bid to execute his evil plan, Zeresh the wife of Haman and his friends advised him to prepare a frame with noose attached to hang Mordecai, as in the text for today. As God would have it, Mordecai and Esther found favour in the sight of the King.  Haman followed the advice of his wife and friends and ended up being the one to be hanged on that same gallows. But before his fall and destruction, his wife and friends, seeing that the table was turning against him, had advised him thus: “…If Mordecai be of the seed of the Jews, before whom thou hast begun to fall, thou shalt not prevail against him, but shalt surely fall before him.” (Esther 6:13) The fall had become inevitable anyway – and Haman was later hanged on the gallows which he prepared for Mordecai. – Esther 7:9,10; Job 4:8; Psalm 7:14-16.

The Bible warns: “These are the things that ye shall do … let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbour; and love no false oath:  for all these are things that I hate, saith the LORD.” – Zechariah 8:16,17.