Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Esther asks for her life and that of the Jews, and accuses Haman, whom the king immediately orders to be hanged on the gallows which he had erected for Mordecai.
Vulgate Text: Esther 7:1-10
1. So the king and Haman entered to drink with the queen. 2. And the king said to her also on the second day, after he had grown warm with wine: What is your request, Esther, that it may be given to you? And what do you wish to be done? Even if you should ask for half of my kingdom, you shall obtain it. 3. To whom she answered: If I have found grace in your eyes, O king, and if it please you, grant me my life, for which I ask, and my people, for whom I beseech. 4. For we are delivered up, I and my people, to be crushed, slaughtered, and destroyed. And would that we were sold as slaves and handmaids! It would be a tolerable evil, and I would groan and be silent; but now our enemy is one whose cruelty rebounds upon the king. 5. And King Ahasuerus answered and said: Who is this, and of what power, that he dares to do these things? 6. And Esther said: Our worst foe and enemy is this Haman. Hearing which, he was immediately stunned, unable to bear the gaze of the king and queen. 7. And the king in his anger rose up, and from the place of the banquet went into the garden planted with trees. Haman also rose to beg Queen Esther for his life; for he understood that evil was prepared for him by the king. 8. And when the king returned from the garden planted with groves and entered the banquet hall, he found Haman had fallen upon the couch where Esther was lying, and he said: Does he also wish to assault the queen in my presence, in my own house? The word had not yet left the king's mouth, and immediately they covered his face. 9. And Harbona, one of the eunuchs who stood in the king's service, said: Behold, the gallows which he had prepared for Mordecai, who spoke on behalf of the king, stands in Haman's house, having a height of fifty cubits. The king said to him: Hang him on it. 10. So Haman was hanged on the gallows which he had prepared for Mordecai: and the king's anger subsided.
Verse 2: After He Had Grown Warm with Wine
2. AFTER HE HAD GROWN WARM WITH WINE. For Darius was a great drinker of wine. Whence this epitaph was inscribed on his tomb: 'I could drink much wine, and bear it well,' as Athenaeus testifies in book X. Cyrus the Younger also boasted the same about him, as Plutarch records in his Life of Artaxerxes. 'King Cambyses,' as Seneca writes in book III of On Anger, chapter 14, 'being too much given to wine, Prexaspes, one of his dearest friends, admonished him to drink more sparingly, saying that drunkenness was shameful in a King whom the eyes and ears of all follow. To this he replied: And you shall know that I never lose command of myself; I will prove it now, that my eyes and hands are in order even after wine. He then drank more freely than usual, and from larger cups; and already heavy and inebriated, he ordered the son of his critic to step beyond the threshold and stand with his left hand raised above his head. Then he drew his bow and pierced the very heart of the youth (for he had said that was what he was aiming at), and cutting open the chest, showed the arrow lodged in the very heart: and looking at the father, asked whether his hand was steady enough. But the father replied that Apollo himself could not have shot more accurately. May the gods ruin him, in spirit and even more in his condition.' Thus far Seneca.
Verse 3: Give Me My Life
3. GRANT ME MY LIFE, that is, my life. This was a sharp weapon with which Esther struck Ahasuerus, and Haman even more, as if to say: This Haman obtained by fraud from you the power to kill all the Jews; therefore I too, who am a Jewess, am to be killed by him, and so you will be deprived of me as queen, and of my bed, which you so greatly sought and seek. Therefore this Haman is not so much violent and injurious toward me as toward you, O Ahasuerus my king and husband, and he is equally deceitful and fraudulent.
Verse 4: Would That We Were Sold as Slaves
4. AND WOULD THAT WE WERE SOLD AS SLAVES AND HANDMAIDS, so that with our lives spared, at least we might serve and attend the King and the Persians!
BUT NOW OUR ENEMY IS ONE (who wishes to strip me and all the Jews of life), WHOSE CRUELTY REBOUNDS UPON THE KING, both because through his edict for the slaughter of the Jews, who enrich his treasury with enormous tributes, and who render very many services to the king, and from whom he can conscript many and strong soldiers for his own protection and that of the kingdom; indeed whom, as wise men, he can place over his provinces, as Daniel was placed in charge with his three companions. In that injury, and to very many other nations, which you, Ahasuerus, receive from the Jews, and can receive greater, Haman deprives you. He also brings upon you grave and lasting infamy among all nations, in that you utterly exterminate our nation, which is innocent, indeed well-deserving of you. Therefore the cruelty of Haman, seeking the extermination of the Jews, rebounds most of all upon you.
Verse 6: Our Worst Foe and Enemy Is This Haman
6. AND ESTHER SAID: OUR WORST FOE AND ENEMY IS THIS HAMAN. Note here the magnanimity of Esther, who accuses Haman not in his absence and secretly, as timid and base little women do, but openly in his presence before Ahasuerus, so that the king might know the accusation was sincere and true, which Haman could not deny: whence, struck as if by a thunderbolt by this unexpected accusation, Haman was stunned and struck dumb. Let princes learn from Esther not to fear the power and insolence of the great, but to suppress and trample it. This is the mark of kings. Truly Seneca in his Hercules Furens: 'The first art of ruling is to be able to endure hatred.' And in the Oedipus: 'He who fears hatred too much does not know how to rule.' And in the Thebaid: 'The Creator of the world set these things together, God — hatred and kingship.'
Verse 8: Haman Had Fallen Upon the Couch
8. HE FOUND HAMAN HAD FALLEN UPON THE COUCH (not a bed for sleeping, but a dining couch, on which they reclined at table) WHERE ESTHER WAS LYING, as a suppliant falling at her knees to beg her to spare his life. Whence St. Athanasius in the Synopsis: 'Haman,' he says, 'when he saw the king afflicted with sorrow and moved to anger on account of the unworthy crime against the Jews, in the king's absence, supplicated the queen, falling at her knees. When the king entered and saw Haman touching the queen's knees, he suspected that he was doing this for a shameful purpose, and ordered him to the gallows,' etc. Severus Sulpicius relates the same: 'Then,' he says, 'the king returned and saw Haman embracing the Queen's knees.' For in ancient times suppliants held the knees of the one to whom they were supplicating, as the seat of mercy, and this for four reasons which I reviewed at length in Exodus 4:15.
AND HE SAID (the King): DOES HE ALSO WISH TO ASSAULT THE QUEEN IN MY PRESENCE? The king said this partly out of anger, partly out of jealousy, with which he was passionately devoted to Esther; for jealousy is suspicious of evil and rivals, even where in reality nothing of the sort exists, as in Haman here there was nothing of the kind. He therefore suspects that Haman wanted to assault Esther, that is, to do violence not so much to her life as to her chastity, being allured by her extraordinary beauty, just as Ahasuerus himself felt allured by the same.
AND IMMEDIATELY THEY COVERED HIS FACE. They did this to the one with whom the king was offended, as one unworthy to see the royal face, and lest the king, seeing the face hateful to him, be moved to greater anger and indignation. Again, they covered Haman's face as one condemned to death and already sentenced. So says Lyra; for the condemned were led to death with veiled eyes, lest seeing their homeland, fellow citizens, friends, children, and wives they should die not once but seven times over. So even now the eyes of those condemned to capital punishment are veiled, lest they see the sword brandished at their neck, and so be terrified, and by falling dodge the blow of the sword and frustrate it. Hence that dread sentence of the ancient Roman Judges against the condemned, found in Livy and Cicero: 'Go, lictor, bind his hands, cover his head, scourge him, hang him on the accursed tree (the cross).'
Verse 9: Harbona Said: Behold, the Gallows
9. AND HARBONA SAID: BEHOLD, THE GALLOWS WHICH HE HAD PREPARED FOR MORDECAI, WHO SPOKE ON BEHALF OF THE KING, namely for the king's safety, by revealing to him the plot of the conspirators. Harbona was the eunuch who, sent by the king to summon Haman to come with him to Esther's banquet, entering Haman's house, saw the gallows in it, and from the household servants, says Josephus, understood that Haman had erected it for Mordecai; whence he now reports the same to the king, seeing the king offended with Haman, and himself being hostile to Haman on account of his arrogance, as it seems, and wishing him to be removed and hanged.
Verse 10: Haman Was Hanged
10. SO HAMAN WAS HANGED, not in his own house, but at the gate of the city of Susa, as is said in chapter 16, verse 18. For the gallows was transported from Haman's house for his greater ignominy, so that to all entering and leaving the city he who shortly before had been worshipped by all as a god would now be a spectacle and a laughingstock, already hanging. Gretser, in book I of De cruce, chapter 19, suspects that Haman was affixed to the cross with nails; others say by a noose cast about his neck, as is now done; nothing in this matter is certain. What is certain is that this cross was fifty cubits high, so that he who had aimed at the highest position should be hanged at the highest point, and be visible to all. See here first how great was the efficacy of the fasts and prayers of Esther, Mordecai, and the Jews; second, how true is that saying of the Blessed Virgin: 'He has cast down the mighty from their seat, and has exalted the humble;' third, how unstable and vain are all worldly things; for behold, suddenly Haman who was the highest becomes the lowest, and Mordecai who was the lowest becomes the highest, for indeed the wicked and proud 'are raised on high, that they may fall with a heavier crash.' Fourth and properly, how the evil that one unjustly contrives against another rebounds upon the contriver, and by God's just judgment falls back upon his own head. For the cross prepared for Mordecai was given to its preparer Haman. So Phalaris threw Perillus first into the bronze bull — Perillus who had suggested to him that he torture the condemned by placing fire under a bronze bull, so that he might delight his ears with their bellowing — of whom Ovid says in book I of the Art of Love: 'And Phalaris roasted the limbs of violent Perillus in the bull: the unhappy inventor inaugurated his own work.' He adds the example of Busiris, who when Thrasius suggested that he should sacrifice his guests to Jupiter to obtain rain, sacrificed Thrasius himself: 'You shall be Jupiter's first victim,' he said, 'and as a guest you shall give Egypt water.' Whence he concludes with this exclamation: 'For no law is more just than that the authors of death should perish by their own device.'
Finally, see here how great is the world's deceit. Whence St. Bernard rightly exclaims in letter 107: 'O wicked world, which is accustomed to bless only your own friends in such a way that you make them enemies of God. Haman found favor with King Ahasuerus; this favor brought him the cross. Achitophel found favor with Absalom; this brought him the noose.' And St. Augustine, in letter 144 to Anastasius: 'This world,' he says, 'is more dangerous when flattering than when troublesome, and more to be feared when it invites love than when it warns and compels contempt.' Thus we see those who are great with princes gradually fall, as fell Sejanus, Achitophel, Haman, Joab, and very many others. Whoever is wise, therefore, should timely withdraw from the court before the fall.