Esther 7 Devotional

Caught in His Own Trap

“Queen Esther replied, “If I have found favor in your sight, O king, and if it pleases the king, grant me my life as my petition, and the lives of my people as my request.”Esther 7:3 (BSB)

At the second banquet, Esther finally makes her request. She asks the king for her own life and the lives of her people, because they have been sold to be destroyed (7:3-4). When the king demands to know who would do such a thing, she points to Haman as the enemy (7:6). The king storms into the garden, and when he returns to find Haman fallen on the queen's couch, his fate is sealed. A servant mentions the gallows Haman built for Mordecai, and Haman is hanged on it (7:7-10).

The reversal is exact. The man who plotted death for a whole people dies on the gallows he built for one of them. The psalmist says the one who digs a pit for others falls into it, and his violence comes back on his own head (Psalm 7:15-16). God's justice is not always this swift, but it is always this sure. Because he will set things right, you can leave the outcome with him rather than taking it into your own hands.

To think about: What wrong done to you do you need to place in God's hands instead of trying to settle it yourself?