40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Esther 5:9-6:14 (Episode 378)

Episode Date: September 19, 2023

Haman is feeling good after leaving Esther's feast but that changes as he lays eyes on Mordecai. Haman's friends and family come up with a plan to kill Mordecai. The king can't sleep and has the history of his kingdom read to him and discovers something he didn't know. And Haman's plans are beginning to fall apart as the king has decided to honor someone. Have a listen! Show Notes: Support 1517 1517 Podcasts The 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 on Youtube  What's New from 1517: ·       HWSS Regional Conference 2023 Advent Resources Faith and Reason Exchange @ 1517.org 2023 HWSS Conference Livestream Signup Join the 1517 Academy Faith in the Face of Tyranny More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 Podcast Network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast and check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. while you're over there make sure you go to the events page because by the time this releases you will in fact be able to register for the here we still stand regional event in bentonville arkansas this is the fourth year we're doing it it's going to be fun chad's going to be there i'm going to be there a whole bunch of other people are going to be there scott keith speaking john moffitt uh sarah crowder jacob smith it's going to be a lot of fun a lot of music a lot

of hanging out uh it's a good time so come hang out with us it's the first week in may it does sell out every year. It does sell out quickly. So if you want to come hang out with us, make sure you grab those tickets. There's a link in the show notes or go to the 1517 event page. All right, we are in Esther chapter 5, about halfway through it. Esther has formulated a plan. She didn't just walk into the king's throne room and make a request known. She walked in boldly to invite him to dinner. And that, as every person, every man knows, is the way. That's the way to do it. Uh, so, uh, this is probably where you get the, uh, the old saying that a way to the man's heart is through his stomach. Uh, maybe that's where this came from. I don't know, but, uh, she invites

him to dinner and not just him, but you know, his right-hand man, Haman, and this makes Haman feel real good. He's feeling like not only does the King recognize him, but the Queen recognizes him. Everyone loves him. It's great. And not only does she invite him to dinner and the King, you know, he's like, man, this is quite the banquet you've put on. Uh, I feel like you want something. And She's like, yeah, I'm going to tell you what I want after you come to dinner again tomorrow. Hey, Heyman, you come with. And Heyman is feeling really good about himself and feels like everyone in the world loves him except for this one guy. And that's what we're going to get into this week.

It is kind of comical that Heyman couldn't be feeling better as he leaves the banquet with an invitation to a second banquet and runs across the one person that he knows for sure hates his guts. yeah i think uh you know psychologists would have a lot of fun psychoanalyzing hayman because he is a he's a pretty strange character i mean imagine you've got basically everything you've got wealth the king loves you think the queen loves you you got people bowing down to your left and right but there's this one guy and because of that he ruins everything for you yeah what what what a strange what a strange mentality that is you know if i've got everything and there's one guy out there who doesn't like me i'm like well so what yeah yeah what does it matter heyman that

means everything because heyman is all about heyman and heyman wants everybody to love heyman and to bow down to him and if he can't have that well he's just going to wipe out everybody related to this person i'll tell you what chad we'd be in rough shape if uh one person not liking us was enough to really really make us murderous yeah that'd be a be a dangerous situation for us to be in yeah i mean unless people get the wrong impression everybody does love us yeah yeah of course yeah of course they do yeah so verse nine ester five verse verse nine hammy goes out he's he's grinning he's just full of joy glad of heart till he sees mordecai who neither rose nor trembled before him and he was filled with wrath against mordecai yeah this

is a great i mean this is an immediate contrast like so he went out that day joyful glad of heart i was just feeling so good but then he sees mordecai and he is he neither rose nor trembled so like he doesn't respect him nor is he afraid of him and uh yeah what is it where's all this joy and glad uh gladness of heart it goes out the window immediately and he is uh filled with wrath he's the mordecai the flying hayman chardonnay ruins his day so uh well he i mean he doesn't you know immediately go after mordecai he he holds back restrains himself because he's got you know he's got bigger fish to fry he's he's got bigger plans he's going to put in place so holds back goes home and uh he's going to bring his friends he brings his wife his name is

Zeresh, gets them all together, and you really get the personality of Haman. He has to get everybody together to talk about himself. He is so proud of who he is. He goes home and he recounts to them the splendor of his riches, the number of his sons, all the promotions with which the king had honored him and how he advanced him above the officials and the servants of the king. I mean, this guy, talk about being full of yourself. Yeah, this is the thing about Heyman. I don't want to, like, psychoanalyze too much here, but Heyman's a guy that should be extremely content.

I mean, you've won, dude. You've won at life, okay? But he has not. In fact, he comes off as an extremely insecure person. Not very secure. Anybody who has to talk about themselves that much is very insecure. Yeah, because not only that, you're leaving feeling good. And the fact that one guy doesn't respect or fear you is enough to say,

get all my friends together, and I'm going to say, hey, have you checked out my riches? Look at them. Look how many sons I have. Let me tell you about the promotions that I've received. And, of course, he's going to go on to talk about this banquet and this kind of stuff. This, like, screams that this is a man who, like, I don't know if he has, like, the most raging case of imposter syndrome ever. Like, he doesn't believe any, like, you don't, I don't get the sense that he believes any of this stuff.

He's like, I don't know. I have somehow, by hook or by crook, gotten to this place. But Mordecai is, why is Mordecai such a threat to ruin all this? if you had any self-confidence this would not be a thing yeah yeah yeah that is imposter syndrome is is his problem i mean along with a lot of other things but anybody who has to have constant accolades or they begin to doubt their worth or their importance is living a very insecure life so yeah i mean you can so you can have two varieties of kind of this egocentrism you know You can have the kind that is weak, which is what we're seeing in Mordecai.

You can have the kind that's strong, where you're so full of yourself that it doesn't matter how wrong you are in anything that you do. You're still going to just kind of plow ahead with that approach. And Haman's on the side of always doubting himself. And so he has to have constant reassurance that you are the best dude ever. You're so important. You're so wealthy. You're so famous. So anyway, he does this.

and then verse 12 says that he goes on to say you know even queen esther even the queen let nobody but me come with the king to the feast as she prepares and i'm going back tomorrow i'm going to go with her to the king we're going to party again now verse 13 this kind of sums up it all yet so he said all this you know this is who i am this is what i have king loves me queen i think she's i think i don't know i think the queen maybe she's smitten with me i mean she really loves me but he says but all this is worth nothing to me as long as i see mordecai the jews sitting at the king's gate i love that they throw the jew in there yeah right just not mordecai it's not just this guy but it's the people that he is of i don't know if you want to call i suppose you

would we would call this uh maybe the first recorded explicit case of anti-semitism yeah dude like you think it warrants that i mean there's been persecutions of the jews before but i this is this feels different it's not because we want their land you know i mean there's plenty of that that we've seen all from the beginning you know everybody is fighting over land and possessions and you know the natural resources and sometimes their religious wars but this is the first case that uh that we've seen where it is specific because you are a jew and you're part of the jewish people that we want to not just kill you but we want to kill everybody who is like you yeah i mean if you're reading like you know the old testament you bet i don't know people are

fighting with the jews all the time and it's not because they're jews though these people were fighting with the jews and with all kinds of other people all the time like everybody's fighting everybody all the time this is just about like your land and your power and displacing people and this this is how the world worked they weren't going around just saying like i can't be content with life as long as mordecai the jew lives you're like what yeah a little anti-semitic i mean it'd be the it'd be the equivalent of you doing this with any other thing which if if i just said to you know who i hate i hate mickey the irishman you'd be like i feel like you have a problem with irishmen as well like why did you have to why does that have to do with it right yeah yeah

so it's uh it's definitely rising to the surface here we're gonna see more of that uh well not we but if you read history you see more of that happening in the in the centuries that are after that too i mean because you've got uh you got some uh pogroms against the jews that are happening in the uh early uh early second century a.d and this continues throughout of course the rest of history but this this in esther is it's different it's a different kind of persecution not persecuted just because you're of israel or they want your land but specifically because you are you are a jew so uh having having heard this his family is like well we got an idea his wife uh zeresh and all the of friends say, you know, since you, since you hate Mordecai the Jew so much, why don't you do

this? Let's get some, let's go to the lumber yard and let's get the longest bit of lumber they have. And let's construct some gallows, 50 cubits high. Now just pause here for a minute, 50 cubits. so that's about depending on how you measure a cubit it wasn't like they were using tape measures back then but we're looking at gallows around 75 feet high

those are crazy high gallows basically you're wanting to make sure that the whole city of Susa can see Mordecai when he's up on the gallows this is probably by the way when I say gallows the word here is actually just a wooden beam

So don't necessarily think of a place where he's going to be hanged as we think about Gallows. This is just a wooden pole, very high in the air, where probably Mordecai's body would be suspended. So he's killed, but then his body is hoisted up there and displayed for everyone to see. So that's probably what is going on. I mean, the details are fuzzy, but chances are that's what's happening. but the i mean the of course the the goal is still the same to uh to kill him and to have mordecai hung up there for everyone to see and then you can go joyfully to the king with the king to the feast so take out your enemy then go to the feast and the way this wraps up is uh no surprise the

idea pleased haman and he had the gallows made so none of the neighbors got any sleep because they're out there with hammers and saws all night constructing these uh 75 foot gallows so they'll be ready in the morning yeah this just tells me that like hayman's wife and his friends like they're all psychos like so i mean or they're just afraid of him i don't know what's going on but he's like i'm real i'm real depressed i got all these great things i can't enjoy any of them because this one guy is still drawing breath and his wife and his friends like listen i know what to do here's what we do you know what make you feel better let's just build like a 75 foot gallow we'll just spend all night doing it then you'll be able to enjoy the feast tomorrow like what what a bunch of

nutters man yeah wouldn't the logical thing be to to kind of say you know let's talk about this morning guy i mean let's talk about this amen uh i mean we understand you don't like this guy we get that you know but uh there's a whole lot that you have here i mean what about your all this stuff you were just talking about so why not overlook the fact that this one guy doesn't like you and get on to enjoy the rest of your life that would be what i would want a family member to say to me if there's somebody that i strongly disliked or friends to say they remember my wife to say to me you know probably an even stronger language like what is wrong with you yeah well you got all this stuff you've made it so if somebody doesn't like you so i shrug it off

and move on that's the way life works but i mean hayman is constructed he is portrayed in such a way uh in in exaggerated terms because he's the embodiment of this way of doing life he's the embodiment of someone who is so wrapped up in himself he's so engrossed with his own ego that it doesn't matter what he has in life as long as there's one thing that's not right he cannot have any pleasure in all the other stuff that he has yeah yeah yeah and that way you could say that his his idol his god that which is going to ultimately give him what he thinks is going to be the attainment of joy is actually hatred it's eradication it's going after that which he perceives is keeping him from achieving this ultimate goal of being happy in life yeah and

i mean what is it that he hates mordecai for like he hates him because he's not worshiping him and and so like i you know i maybe that's what uh his wife and friends know is they're like i don't know man i know one thing you don't want to do you don't want to tell him he's wrong because this guy's this guy is off his rocker so like don't like you know what i you're right you're right hayman like that's that is incontrovertible like i just i just you know what we should let's build some gallows i feel i feel like this is a like some petulant child kind of stuff man like i don't know why it feels that way to me but this feels like a kid freaking out about nothing you're like you know what then they said something mean to you let's what let's

go get some ice cream and then you're gonna feel better and you'll be able to have a good day tomorrow huh let's do that this is ridiculous he does he comes across as a sort of a petulant child but unfortunately a petulant child who's an adult with a lot of power and a lot of money which are extremely dangerous people okay so that brings us to the end of chapter five and actually brings us to the turning point in the book because up to this point even though some good things have happened in the sense of Esther is now the queen she's a secretly a Jew and that's going to become of course extremely important it has become already important and it's going to come to its turning point pretty soon but as far as like Esther's involvement but the beginning

chapter six is a turning point because here we see everything that up to this point Haman has put into place begin to unravel and it unravels in one of these in one of these ways it's obviously of god but we're not told it's of god explicitly yeah you just sort of have this on that night the king could not sleep now this is like why why couldn't he sleep well there's like two options one uh which is much more likely than the other is that god was not allowing him to sleep uh two is that i don't know what is the astronaut wanted to sleep is she just like mixing his espresso into everything that she cooked that night like she just made sure this dude stays awake it's a lot like espresso yeah yeah this is uh and literally it's uh the hebrew idiom is uh sleep fled from him

which i love this idea there's like sleep and you're trying to get it and it runs away actually it's a pretty apt description for when you are suffering from insomnia like you're the the faster you run to catch sleep the faster it runs it flees from you're trying to catch it so the same expression that jacob used way back in genesis uh chapter 31 when he talks about uh when he's mad at uh at his boss uh laban and he talks about how sleep fled from his eyes all those nights when he's taking care of the sheep so anyway this night the the king couldn't sleep uh and that's because yeah uh chances are this was nothing more than not chances are this is nothing more than god making this happen because of course when he can't sleep he's going to put in place a series

of actions that are going to lead to the gradual rise of mordecai and the very rapid fall of haman so he can't sleep but what do you do when you can't sleep well probably most of us today either we toss and turn or lay there and get frustrated or we pull out our phone and we start scrolling well he had he didn't have an iphone and he didn't have social media so he gave orders to bring the book of memorable deeds the chronicles and they were read before the king now i i don't know if if this was because these were so boring ordinarily that he figured well you know what I'll just have him read these to me and I'll fall asleep.

It's like reading a phone book or watching C-SPAN or something, if C-SPAN is still a thing. Bring me my American history book and let me see if I can get some sleep here. We all have those books to put us right to sleep. So it's either that

or he actually enjoys it and thought, well, I don't have anything better to do. I enjoy hearing about all the great things that have happened in my kingdom. either way the book is brought to him and uh i guess he has readers uh so not gonna start handing the book here you know prop up your pillow and read your book in bed we're going to read it to

you and lo and behold it was found written how mordecai had told about bigthana and teresh two of the king's eunuchs who guarded the threshold and who had sought to lay hands on the king on xerxes so you remember that i was mentioned way back uh toward the beginning of our story this is when mordecai uh either because he was close by or because he had connections whatever else he finds out about this assassination plot on the part of these two eunuchs who had ready access to the king and uh he passes on the word and these guys are investigated and they're arrested investigated and they themselves are are put to death for this so i mean mordecai saved the king's life so the king says well yeah what honor or distinction has been bestowed on mordecai for

this what do we do to pay him back for this great thing that he did for uh for me and saving my life and uh the king's young men who attended him said we didn't do anything for him nothing there was there was no honor distinction paid now we know from historians like herodotus who wrote a lot about the persians but they actually liked to do this this was characteristic of the kings that if something was done for them that uh helped them or was to their honor or benefit whatever it might be they actually liked to bestow some kind of honor upon the person who did that so it wasn't like they just shrugged it off you want to encourage that kind of behavior absolutely yeah especially if it's involved in saving my life i want to make sure everybody knows that if you do something

that helps me especially saves my life you are definitely going to be honored yeah there's there's good reasons to uh let me know if you uncover a plot against me i'll make sure that you are rewarded for that yeah so for whatever reason and who knows uh maybe something was going on the kingdom at the time whatever it was this ordinary persian protocol for heaping honors upon those who did great things for the king was not done in this case so he finds this out and this is evidently early in the morning it's kind of what i'm guessing so he can't sleep he's been up for a while they've been reading these chronicles of the kings to him and and the whole scene is is portrayed as if this happens immediately so as soon as they say nothing

has been done for mordecai verse four says the king says who is in the court this is this is so dramatic this whole chapter you could i i love to i would love to see a play based upon this because you can see everything happening as it's as it's unfolded yeah i'm trying i don't i'm not sure if he's asking like hey is there someone i can uh who's out there so i can give an order like did he hear something like hey what was that sound someone in the court it seems that he's just like go find me someone and that someone is going to be the guy that just walked through the door that would make sense yeah i pictured it the opposite i pictured him somewhere where he's like you know he hears nothing was done he's like and then he sees somebody he's like who who's that

you know who just walked into the court but either way i mean either way it works yeah so who's here who's going to be able to uh to carry out this honor that i want to give uh or who just walked Either way, the Haman, we're told, had just entered the outer court of the king's palace to speak to the king about having Mordecai hanged on these gallows or this wooden beam that he had prepared for him. So I'm thinking Haman, you know, he's there early. He's up all night, you know, making sure the gallows are constructed. He's coming in all sweaty. He's coming in all sweaty. He's been building gallows all night.

And he wants to make sure he gets the king's permission right away. We've got to get this done very early in the morning so that I can kill this guy and go on, you know, to have joy in my life. So the king's young men told him, Haman, that's who's there. He's standing in the court right now. And the king said, well, bring him on in. So Haman comes in. And I love this chapter. This is so good.

Haman came in, because you can just see what's going on in Haman's head. I mean, you can, we're even told what's going on in Haman's head. So Haman comes in, the king says to him, so Haman, what should be done to the man whom the king delights to honor? Now we're told, not that we need to be told this, the Bible does tell us some things which are pretty patently obvious sometimes, but that's okay. so we're told that haman said to himself whom would the king delight to honor more than me well of course that's what he's thinking hey haman is convinced that no sooner does he walk in and the king sees him then the king is saying to himself oh haman really like that guy i think he should really be honored that's what haman of course this is like the only thing probably in

a universe that could have made uh hayman put his request to have mordecai hung from gallows on hold hold on well hold on let me let me i'll address this in a second like i just this is the only thing that could possibly uh reorient my mind yeah he's so fixated on getting his revenge that uh this is the only thing and because because as we find out i think this is this a pretty perceptive uh a good perception into into his personality because because let's say if i was there and the king says well you know uh what what should be done to honor uh this person now if i'm thinking the king is talking about me then i'm gonna i'm gonna say something like uh well maybe uh you know give him a bunch of land yeah or money or some powerful position you know

So make him the ambassador to, you know, Italy. I don't know. Whatever it might be. Something that's going to be of, like, material benefit to me, I suppose. That would be, you know, a pretty fair assumption. If I thought it was somebody else, I would ask for, like, more information. I'd be like, well, who is it? What has he done that has persuaded the king that he should be honored?

Let me know what kind of guy is this. I'll tell you what I think he would like. What I think is going to be good for him. Yeah, that makes sense. So if you thought it was something about somebody else, this would involve, like you were saying, giving him something that actually is useful, like money, land, a higher position.

Heyman doesn't need any of those things and doesn't probably really – that's not what he's after. like he's he wants like he's this is a guy who is like wants the adoration and this man wants uh fame and uh all this kind of stuff so there's no he doesn't that's why he doesn't bring up any of that stuff because that would be like i mean if someone asked me are you chad okay what would you rather have would you rather the president invite you to the white house and buy you the nicest suit you're gonna have a armani suit and then you're just gonna go like on tour with him for a little while he's gonna parade you around and uh this is gonna go on and everyone's gonna

just know about you and he's just gonna talk about how great you are or you can have a thousand acres i'd be like i'll take the thousand acres because the other stuff doesn't actually help me think about that by the way it has nothing to do with who is or isn't president either like it doesn't matter who the president is i'll be like well that seems like it's gonna run out like i mean that's nice but uh not that useful yeah but in hayman's case i mean it's all about prestige it's all about ego it's all about ego it's all about fame it's all about uh all those intangible things that he is really

addicted to. Those are his idols. So that's what he wants. And he's got money. And he's got presumably land and all that stuff. Yeah. He's like people who do have a lot of those things.

If they're not satisfied with that which ultimately satisfies God, then they're always going to be looking for something else. I mean, it doesn't matter if people are wealthy either. I mean, we could apply this across the board. If you're not content, if you're not satisfied with God himself, then you're always going to be looking for something else to satisfy you.

Life will be, the appetite for whatever is that thing will be insatiable. Yeah, whatever that might be. So in Haman's case, it's the insatiable appetite for being honored, having prestige, having fame the powers that be lavishing honor upon you all those things what matters to him so hayman said to the king for the man whom the king delights to honor let me propose this let royal robes be brought which the king has worn and the horse that the king has ridden and on whose head a royal crown is set evidently uh according to the commentaries that i read they have reliefs uh from the persians which show like the horse's hair has been put together to

form like a kind of a top knot between their ears so evidently it was like a thing the persians did for the king's horse so when it talks about the the royal crown being on the head of the horse not talking about a royal crown this is probably some sort of arrangement of the the mane on the the horse so that it looks this way but anyway so bring some royal robes you know the king's own royal go to his closet get some royal robes get his horse and uh the horse with this royal crown and let the robes and the horse be handed over to one of the king's most noble officials let them dress the man whom the king delights to honor and let them lead him on the horse through the square of the city

proclaiming before him thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor. Well, there you go. That's exactly what Haman wants. That would be the ultimate day for Haman. Yeah, man. You know why?

Because you're getting to pretend like you're king for a day. Like, treat him like the king, right? I'm dressing up as him. I'm on his horse. Like, hey, man, by the way, if anything happens to the king, this isn't a bad look right let me come on now look at me i'm basically the king and just in case somebody doesn't really get this if that had happened if by some strange

historical circumstance hayman replaced xerxes he still would not have been satisfied no that's the way this works i mean so this passionate pursuit of that which we think is going to satisfy us that thing not being god is basically the equivalent of drinking salt water it's just going to make you want more just going to make you thirstier so uh in this case we have hayman now proclaiming that this should be this should be done this is what my suggestion is now the king the king says i love it love it yeah and this is this is really the he doesn't really quite know it yet but for haman this is the first uh the first ringing of the the death now for him that the bell is going off here it's all going downhill from here because the king said to haman

oh hurry and take the robes and the horse just like you said and do so to mordecai the jew who sits at the king's gate leave out nothing that you have mentioned if there's a lot of scenes in the bible where i wish i had a video camera and i could watch what was happening but to have a camera on hayman's face at that very moment i think you would see a living person still go on living but actually die you would think from their very expression that they had just died on the inside as soon as those those words were uttered by the king yeah i mean yeah dude to end with make sure you dot those i's and cross those t's man i mean just i want it done just so oh gosh oh so and and the bible then it's uh it's typical way of just

you know at times just kind of stating the facts and and not psychologizing just goes on to say so Haman took the robes and the horse and he dressed Mordecai and led him through the square of the city proclaiming before him thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor I'm sure this was all done with great zeal

oh yeah and the thing is I mean everybody would have known by this point what Haman thought of Mordecai he's got the whole city up hammering and sawing all night to make these gallows Everybody knows that Mordecai is not going to tremble and bow and scrape before Haman and that Haman hates him and that Haman, because of this, had, you know, got the king to sign these decrees about the coming extermination of the Jews and all of this.

Everybody knows this. It's like the king is the only one who's not aware of this. so to see that taking place and to see this public humiliation of of hayman no doubt there was a lot of snickering going on as they watched hayman lead the horse through with mordecai on his back well this whole this whole thing is a problem because i mean there's a wild thing happening here i don't know like how much sleep the king didn't get but like i don't know one thing you could start with i would think uh to honor this man is i don't know not exterminate all his people like you just ordered to be done on a on a very specific day like there's a there's a very much a disconnect going on here yeah mordecai the jew well yeah have you forgotten

about the edict that you signed yeah it's weird persian pony express about about the jews like if he didn't if he didn't say mordecai the jew you'd be like maybe he doesn't know he didn't realize mordecai's a jew that's what i would assume but he does know that so but then again while that well there is some kind of weird disconnect going on there where you're like are you gonna do this are you gonna parade this guy through the streets and then kill him but i think that the idea here is that hayman knows no he's not like hayman knows like dude i'm not gonna be able to do like this isn't gonna happen right like this guy's not like my whole thing for exterminating all the jews was to get rid of this specific guy and even if every other

jew in this whole area dies there's no way he's going to kill this guy no no way the king's going to take him out now now that he realizes what he's done for him and if he did if if hayman was so deluded as to assume that he still could carry out his plan his his family tells him when he gets home there's no way this is going to happen because mordecai goes back to the king's gate hayman hurries to his house he's mourning he's got his head covered he tells his wife zeresh and all his friends everything that had just happened to him of course he was just bragging to them earlier about how great he was and then his wise men which i assume are like his his you know hired counselors uh whoever they might be but these wise men these counselors and his wife said to him

if mordecai before whom you have begun to fall as of the jewish people you will not overcome him but will surely fall before him so they they know that this is the beginning of the end for for hayman now it's going to get actually i feel i feel for the wife because uh this family it's not just hayman who's going to suffer as we see the story unfolding it's going to be their whole family because uh hayman's sons will be will be killed later on yeah that we all know of course what that's going to do to his wife as well they're going to lose everything yeah as a result of this Yeah, I mean, one of the things that's remarkable is, like, the speed in which this thing moves along once it starts moving along. Because you have this, I mean, the last verse of this chapter, you know, is...

So they say, oh, dude, by the way, this strategy that you have, this is over. In fact, the tables have completely turned. Like, you have, like, no advantages now. You're in big trouble. Like, you can't get those gallows down fast enough. Right? Like, you're playing defense now, right? for sure and while and i just like while they were yet talking with him the king's eunuchs arrived

and hurried to bring him into the feast at esther bank oh come on the feast you know everything is moving very quickly you almost get the impression too that that uh that hayman is so overcome by all of this and he's almost lost track of time like the king's eunuchs have to go and say hey are you coming to the feast or what because you're late so we have come to get you and make sure that you come to to the feast that esther has prepared yeah everything is coming unraveled before his eyes uh everything that he thought was to his advantage has now turned to his disadvantage and uh the very as we'll see in the the next chapter the very gallows upon which he hoped to hang his enemy become that which is going to be the place where he himself is is hung

i mean it's this so we're going to see this for sure in the next chapter but this whole story is just a is a great example i'm going to bring this up in the next episode too of how uh you see what the psalms constantly talked about coming true where evil turns back upon the head of those who devise it yeah god is bringing evil upon the head of the people very people who wanted to carry out carried out which is which is ultimately what happens in the gospel i mean in the crucifixion of jesus death personified thinks it's one i have now won not knowing actually that death is dying in the very death of jesus and hell thinks it's being conquered and hell is being conquered in the crucifixion of jesus so ultimately what god does is he brings evil back upon evil so that

the very thing that evil thought was its victory actually been ends up being its defeat and then our victory instead yeah all right well that is the end of chapter six we will uh we will get to how the rest of this plays out next week uh chad i'll see you then all right see them