Chapter II

Summary

“After these things,” we are told in Scripture, which is a term always signifying some lapse of time, the exaltation of Haman took place. Raised, through the favor of the king, above all the princes that were with him, the royal household vied with each other in doing him reverence, such being the command of the king; but “Mordecai bowed not, nor did him reverence.” He who neither seeks nor cares for ambitious advancement and earthly honors himself, acknowledges them not in others. Haman, also, was an Agagite or Amalekite, one of the idolatrous nations whose iniquities were such as to demand the signal punishment of the Eternal—an enemy from the first to His people: and, therefore, the very race of Haman would have been sufficient for Mordecai to refrain from noticing him. But even had he been of different lineage, the law of the Hebrews strictly prohibited all unseemly veneration to mere mortal man, as unbefitting those whose adoration was to be paid to God alone. We do not, therefore, at all agree with Milman's supposition, that it was merely because they were rivals in earthly ambition, that Mordecai refused to do reverence to Haman. We have already seen that Mordecai had had opportunities enough already to aggrandise himself, but had neglected them all; and, in fact, the word of God itself favours the inference, that his reason for refusing to do Haman homage, simply was, because “he (Mordecai) was a Jew.”