Esther 6: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The king cannot sleep, has the royal records read to him, and learns that Mordecai was never rewarded for exposing a plot against his life. Haman arrives to ask permission to hang Mordecai, but is asked instead how the king should honor a man he wishes to honor. Thinking the honor is meant for himself, Haman describes an elaborate public parade, and the king orders him to carry it out for Mordecai. Haman goes home grieving, and his wife and advisers tell him he will fall before Mordecai; then the king's officers arrive to take him to Esther's banquet.

Claim by Claim

1. 6:1
   • On that night the king could not sleep.
   • The king gave orders to bring the book of records, the chronicles.
   • The records were read aloud before the king.
2. 6:2
   • It was found written that Mordecai had reported Bigthana and Teresh.
   • Bigthana and Teresh were two of the king's eunuchs.
   • Bigthana and Teresh were keepers of the threshold.
   • Bigthana and Teresh had sought to lay hands on King Ahasuerus.
3. 6:3
   • The king asked what honor and greatness had been done to Mordecai for this.
   • The king's attendants who served him answered.
   • The attendants said nothing had been done for Mordecai.
4. 6:4
   • The king asked who was in the court.
   • Haman had come into the outer court of the king's house.
   • Haman came to speak to the king about hanging Mordecai on the wooden structure Haman had prepared for him.
   • Haman had prepared that wooden structure for Mordecai.
5. 6:5
   • The king's attendants said to him that Haman was standing in the court.
   • The king said to let Haman come in.
6. 6:6
   • Haman came in.
   • The king asked Haman what should be done for the man whom the king delights to honor.
   • Haman said in his heart that there was no one the king would delight to honor more than himself.
7. 6:7
   • Haman said to the king, concerning the man whom the king delights to honor,
8. 6:8
   • Haman said royal clothing that the king has worn should be brought.
   • Haman said a horse that the king has ridden should be brought.
   • Haman said a royal crown had been set on the head; the text leaves ambiguous whether the head is the king's or the horse's.
9. 6:9
   • Haman said the clothing and the horse should be handed over to one of the king's most noble officials.
   • Haman said they should clothe the man whom the king delights to honor.
   • Haman said they should lead him on the horse through the city square.
   • Haman said they should proclaim before him that this is what is done for the man whom the king delights to honor.
10. 6:10
    • The king told Haman to hurry.
    • The king told Haman to take the clothing and the horse as Haman had said.
    • The king told Haman to do so to Mordecai the Jew.
    • Mordecai sits at the king's gate.
    • The king told Haman to let nothing fail of all that Haman had spoken.
11. 6:11
    • Haman took the clothing and the horse.
    • Haman clothed Mordecai.
    • Haman led Mordecai on the horse through the city square.
    • Haman proclaimed before Mordecai that this is what is done for the man whom the king delights to honor.
12. 6:12
    • Mordecai returned to the king's gate.
    • Haman hurried to his house.
    • Haman was mourning.
    • Haman had his head covered.
13. 6:13
    • Haman told Zeresh his wife and all his friends everything that had happened to him.
    • Haman's wise men and Zeresh his wife spoke to him.
    • They said that if Mordecai is of the seed of the Jews, Haman will not prevail against him.
    • They said Haman had begun to fall before Mordecai.
    • They said Haman would surely fall before Mordecai.
14. 6:14
    • While they were still speaking with Haman, the king's eunuchs arrived.
    • The eunuchs hurried to bring Haman to the banquet.
    • Esther had prepared the banquet.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

6:1

The Persian court kept an official daily record of the reign (decrees issued, petitions heard, services rendered) which could be read back to the king. Reading was normally done aloud by a servant; silent private reading was not the usual practice.

6:2

"Chamberlains" in the King James Version translates a word for court officials who were typically eunuchs, castrated men, trusted precisely because they posed no threat to the royal succession and could serve near the king's household and women. "Ahasuerus" is the Hebrew form of the Persian throne name known in Greek as Xerxes. The plot recorded here took place earlier in the story (Esther 2:21-23), and Mordecai received nothing for exposing it.

6:3

"Dignity" in the King James does not mean a personal quality; it means a rank or office handed out as a public reward. Persian kings were known for keeping lists of royal benefactors, men who had done the king a service, and paying them back generously. That Mordecai had received nothing for saving the king's life is a striking gap in the system, not a minor oversight.

6:4

The "gallows" translates a Hebrew word meaning simply a tree or a wooden pole. Persian practice was impalement, or hanging a body on a stake for public display, rather than hanging by the neck as the English word later came to mean. Earlier in the story its height is given as fifty cubits, roughly seventy-five feet, a structure meant to be seen across the city. Haman waits in the outer court because no one, however senior, approached this king unsummoned without risking death.

6:8

Haman is asking for the king's own robe and the king's own mount, objects that carried the king's person with them, so that whoever wore or rode them was displaying royal standing. The Hebrew of the last phrase leaves it unclear whose head the royal crown sits on: it may mean the honored man wears the royal headdress, or that the horse wears a royal crest on its head, an ornament Persian art shows on royal horses.

6:9

The "street of the city" was not a narrow lane but the open public square, the place where crowds gathered and announcements were made. Haman is describing a formal parade with a herald walking in front shouting the reason for the honor, so that the whole capital sees and hears it.

6:10

"The king's gate" is the gateway building of the palace complex, where royal officials sat to transact business and hear cases. Mordecai sitting there marks him as holding a post at court. The king calls him "the Jew" without any sign of connecting him to the decree against the Jews that he had already let Haman issue.

6:12

Covering the head was a recognized public sign of grief and humiliation in the ancient Near East, in the same family of gestures as tearing one's clothes or putting dust on one's head. It announced the wearer's state to anyone who saw him.

6:13

Haman is introduced earlier in the book as "the Agagite," a title traditionally linked to Agag, king of the Amalekites, a people at long-running war with Israel. The advisers' remark assumes that history. "Seed of the Jews" in the King James Version means descent or ancestry, not offspring. The "wise men" are professional counselors of the sort Persian nobles kept in their households, the same friends who, in the previous chapter, advised him to build the pole.

6:14

The same class of court officials as in verse 2. The banquet is the second of the two Esther arranged; at the first she asked only that the king and Haman come again the following day.