When history seems to hang by a thread, remember: “He hangs the earth on nothing” (Job 26:7).
Haman had the heart of a monster, the ear of the king, and a plot hatched in hell. Yet he still seemed to have everything going his way. You can’t help but notice his likeness to the coming Man of Sin, the Beast. Sitting at the king’s elbow soon after his appointment “above all the princes” (Est 3:1), he ventured to raise the subject with his boss. “There is a certain people scattered and dispersed…in all the provinces of your kingdom; their laws are different from all other people’s, and they do not keep the king’s laws. Therefore it is not fitting for the king to let them remain” (v 8). That IS serious! They have no name? And they’re “scattered and dispersed” all over the place? And “different,” you say? How dangerous! They don’t keep my laws? Well, that’s a stretch. But I don’t think they should “remain” (a euphemism for “exist”), says Haman. But he has a plan. “If it pleases the king, let a decree be written that they be destroyed, and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver into the hands of those who do the work, to bring it into the king’s treasuries” (v 9). We’ll just vanish them, a simple business transaction. With less thought than a chess move, the king handed over his signet—the equivalent of writing a blank check—and replied, “Do with them as seems good to you” (v 11). In less than two weeks, a document was drafted “according to all that Haman commanded” (v 12), signed, sealed, and delivered. Imagine God’s view as He watched the mules, horses, and camels scatter across the empire “hastened by the king’s command” (v 15). The decree was unchangeable. The date was set. The news was posted everywhere. How could anyone stop it now? But what’s that—someone laughing? Yes, “He who sits in the heavens shall laugh” (Ps 2:4).