In Esther, chapter three, verse six, Haman, the prime minister of Persia, is the first political figure in the Bible to devise a sinister plan for exterminating all of the chosen people of God within his political sphere. Haman’s wrath was so excessive that to punish the man who excited it seemed to him as nothing. The whole nation to which his enemy belonged must perish. Mordecai refused to reverence Haman. The religion of a Jew forbade him to give honors to any mortal man who savored idolatry, especially to so wicked a man as Haman. By nature, all are idolaters; the self is our favorite idol, and we are pleased to be treated as if everything were at our disposal. Though religion by no means destroys good manners but teaches us to render honor to whom honor is due, yet by a citizen of Zion, not only in his heart but in his eyes, such a vile person as Haman was, is contemned, as Psalms fifteen, verse four. The true believer cannot obey edicts or conform to fashions, which break the law of God. He must obey God rather than man and leave the consequences to him. Haman was full of wrath and his device by inspiration of that wicked spirit, who has been a murderer from the beginning, whose hatred of Christ and his church governed all his children.
If Haman had said to Ahasuerus: “There is one of your menials who persistently disobeys a royal edict and at the same time insults me,” Ahasuerus would, as a matter of course, have told him to put the menial to death. But the temper of Haman seeking revenge of such that this seemed to him insufficient. Mordecai had insulted him as a Jew, and he should pay the penalty.