Haman, at the same time, saw in Mordecai the descendant of those who had triumphed over his nation and destroyed his ancestors.  The descendant of Agag, the captive of Saul, he might naturally vent his indignation upon the tribe that humbled his house and subjected his nation and destroyed his ancestors.  The contempt with which Mordecai regarded him roused all the ancient malignity of the Amalekite, and his hot blood called for vengeance.

Yet he thought it a foul shame to lay hands on Mordecai alone.  The ruin of one man would not heal his wounded pride.  He meditated a deeper and more deadly revenge.  He resolves to sweep the remnant of the Jews from the face of the earth!

The proposed plan displays at once all his cruelty and malignity, and all his crafty influence over Ahasuerus, while it proves the king too much immersed in pleasure, or too much subjected to his artful favourite, to regard the welfare of his subjects or the interests of his kingdom.

Superstitious and idolatrous, Haman cast lots day after day, for successive days, that a fortunate one might decide the day to be chosen for the work of death on which he was bent.  And this accomplished, he hastened to secure the edict from the king.  Surely the monarch must have been sunk in wine and debauchery who could thus unhesitatingly accede to the proposition to murder, in cold blood, thousands of unresisting subjects, when the worst allegation preferred by their enemy was “that their laws were diverse from all people.”  Yet here was the very principle of religious persecution; and as sanguinary edicts as these, enacted against God’s ancient people, have been too often issued in more modern days, and no Mordecai has sat at the gate of the palace, mutely to plead for mercy—­no Esther has staked her life upon the attempt to avert the doom!

By the offer of an enormous bribe, to be collected from the plunder of those doomed to death, Haman sought the acquiescence of the king in his scheme.  And though he refused the bribe, yet he bade Haman do with the people and their possessions as seemed best to him; giving him his signet ring, he seems to have divested himself of all care and responsibility, and Haman having issued the edict and commanded the couriers to distribute the royal mandate, they both returned to their pleasures.  “The king and his counsellor sat down to drink.”

No elaborate essay upon the character of Ahasuerus, no analysis of the arts of Haman, could so display the indolent, luxurious, self-indulgent, voluptuous monarch, or so illustrate the secret of the favourite’s power.  The companion of his pleasures, he was careful to minister to all the sensual indulgence that could lead him to forget his duty and the obligations of right and justice incumbent upon the ruler of a great people.

Of all the cruel and bloody mandates issued by despotic monarchs, and designed to answer either the purposes of private malice or unholy policy, few, if any, have exceeded this which was directed against the ancient people of Jehovah.  The Jews who had returned to their own land were included in this proscription, for Judea was at this time a tributary of the Persian empire.