EXPOSITION
AHASUERUS, BEING WAKEFUL DURING THE NIGHT, HAS THE BOOK OF THE CHRONICLES READ TO HIM, AND FINDS THAT MORDECAI HAS RECEIVED NO REWARD. HE MAKES HAMAN NAME A FITTING REWARD, AND THEN DEPUTES HIM TO CONFER IT ON MORDECAI (Esther 6:1-11). It is among the objects of the writer of Esther to show how the smallest circumstances of life, those most generally regarded as left to chance, work together for good to such as deserve well, and for evil to such as deserve evil. He now notes that the turning-point in Haman's and Mordecai's fortunes was the apparently trivial circumstance of Ahasuerus on a particular night being troubled with sleeplessness. This led to his having the book of the chronicles read to him (verse 1). Another seeming chance caused the reader to include in what he read the account of Bigthan's and Teresh's conspiracy (verse 2). This brought Mordecai's name before the king, and induced him to ask the question, "What honour and dignity hath been done to Mordecai for this?" The question could only be answered in one way—"There is nothing done for him" (verse 3). Such neglect being a gross breach of Persian law, and a great dishonour to the king who had allowed it, Ahasuerus naturally takes the matter up with earnestness. Something must be done at once to remedy the neglect, some agent must be found to set it right, and so the king asks, "Who is in the court?" Morning has probably arrived during the reading, and Haman, impatient to get the king's consent to Mordecai's execution, has come with the dawn to prefer his request. The king is told that Haman waits without, and sending for him, anticipates the business that his minister had intended to lay before him by the sudden question, asked the moment he has entered, "What shall be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour?" It was natural that Haman, after the favour shown him on the preceding day, should imagine himself the person aimed at, and should therefore fix upon the very highest honour that was within the range of his conceptions (verses 8, 9). He thus became the suggester of honours for Mordecai which might otherwise not have occurred to any one. Ahasuerus, full of the idea of his own neglect, and ready to make any reparation, consents to all that is proposed, and, unaware that there is any unpleasantness between Haman and Mordecai, bids his minister confer the honours which he has suggested (verse 10). The royal command cannot be disputed or evaded, and so Mordecai is escorted through the city by his enemy, who had expected about that very time to be superintending his impalement (verse 11).