So the king said, “Who is in the courtyard?” Now Haman had just entered the outer courtyard of the king’s palace in order to speak to the king about hanging Mordecai on the wooden gallows which he had prepared for him.
Parallel translations
- WEB The king said, “Who is in the court?” Now Haman had come into the outer court of the king’s house, to speak to the king about hanging Mordecai on the gallows that he had prepared for him.
- KJV And the king said, Who is in the court? Now Haman was come into the outward court of the king’s house, to speak unto the king to hang Mordecai on the gallows that he had prepared for him.
- BSB “Who is in the court?” the king asked. Now Haman had just entered the outer court of the palace to ask the king to hang Mordecai on the gallows he had prepared for him.
- NKJV So the king said, “Who is in the court?” Now Haman had just entered the outer court of the king’s palace to suggest that the king hang Mordecai on the gallows that he had prepared for him.
- NLT “Who is that in the outer court?” the king inquired. As it happened, Haman had just arrived in the outer court of the palace to ask the king to impale Mordecai on the pole he had prepared.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The king asks who is in the court, and Haman has just arrived to request Mordecai's hanging. Their purposes meet at the perfect moment for the reversal.
Overview
Haman enters at the precise instant the king wants advice on honoring Mordecai, intending the opposite. The collision of intentions is a masterstroke of providential timing. Haman's eagerness to destroy will now be turned into the means of exalting his enemy.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Esth 5:14Then Zeresh his wife and all his friends said to him, “Let a gallows be made fifty cubits high, and in the morning speak to the king about hanging Mordecai on it. Then go in merrily with the king to the banquet.” This pleased Haman, so he had the gallows made.
- Esth 4:11“All the king’s servants, and the people of the king’s provinces, know, that whoever, whether man or woman, comes to the king into the inner court without being called, there is one law for him, that he be put to death, except those to whom the king might hold out the golden scepter, that he may live. I have not been called to come in to the king these thirty days.”
- Esth 5:1Now on the third day, Esther put on her royal clothing, and stood in the inner court of the king’s house, next to the king’s house. The king sat on his royal throne in the royal house, next to the entrance of the house.
- Ps 2:4He who sits in the heavens will laugh. The Lord will have them in derision.
- Esth 7:9Then Harbonah, one of the eunuchs who were with the king said, “Behold, the gallows fifty cubits high, which Haman has made for Mordecai, who spoke good for the king, is standing at Haman’s house.” The king said, “Hang him on it!”
- Prov 3:27–28Don’t withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in the power of your hand to do it.
- Eccl 9:10Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Sheol, where you are going.
- Job 5:13He takes the wise in their own craftiness; the counsel of the cunning is carried headlong.
- Ps 33:19to deliver their soul from death, to keep them alive in famine.
- Esth 3:8–11Haman said to King Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom, and their laws are different than other people’s. They don’t keep the king’s laws. Therefore it is not for the king’s profit to allow them to remain.
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Though God is never named, his hidden hand preserves the people from whom the Messiah will come — a deliverance 'for such a time as this' that anticipates the open deliverance of Christ.
How Esther 6:4 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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