What events and attributed statements does Esther Chapter 6 record?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

The sleepless king hears the chronicles and asks about Mardochai’s reward; the edition qualifies the servants’ answer of none. Aman assumes he is the intended honoree and proposes royal apparel, horse, crown and public proclamation. The king orders those honors for Mardochai; Aman carries them out, returns mourning and hears a warning before the eunuchs bring him to the banquet.

Chapter breakdown

That night, King Assuerus was unable to sleep, so he ordered the royal chronicles and official records of past times brought and read before him. During the reading, the courtiers reached the account recording how Mardochai had uncovered the assassination plot of Bagathan and Thares, the two royal eunuchs who sought to kill the king. Assuerus asked what honor or reward Mardochai had received for his loyalty, to which his ministers answered that he had received no reward at all. In an explanatory note, Challoner observes that although Mardochai had previously received small gifts, the courtiers regarded them as so insignificant that they amounted to nothing.

At that moment, the king asked who was waiting in the courtyard. Aman had just arrived in the inner court, intending to ask the king's permission to hang Mardochai on the fifty-cubit gallows prepared at his house. When the servants announced Aman's presence, the king ordered him brought in and immediately asked: "What ought to be done to the man whom the king is desirous to honour?" Thinking in his heart that the king could not desire to honor anyone other than himself, Aman proposed an elaborate ceremony: let the man be dressed in the king's own royal robe, placed upon the king's personal steed with the royal crown upon his head, in the proposal’s wording, and led through the street of the city by one of the empire's highest nobles, who would proclaim aloud before him that this was how the king honors the man of his choice.

King Assuerus commanded him to hurry, take the royal robe and horse, and carry out every single honor he had described for Mardochai the Jew sitting at the palace gate, warning him not to omit a single detail. Aman took the royal garments and horse, dress his bitter enemy in public, lead him through the streets of Susa on horseback, and proclaim before the crowds that this was the honor due to the man whom the king desired to honor.

Following the procession, Mardochai returned to his post at the palace gate, while Aman rushed home in deep mourning with his head covered. When Aman recounted everything that had happened to his wife Zares and his counselors, his wise advisers and his wife warned him solemnly: if Mardochai was of Jewish ancestry and Aman had begun to fall before him, he would never be able to overcome him, but was destined to fall completely. Even as they were speaking, the king's eunuchs arrived at the door and hurried Aman away to attend the banquet Queen Esther had prepared.

The story inside

Initial conditions: The sleepless king hears the chronicles and asks about Mardochai’s reward; the edition qualifies the servants’ answer of none. Development: Aman assumes he is the intended honoree and proposes royal apparel, horse, crown and public proclamation. Recorded ending: The king orders those honors for Mardochai; Aman carries them out, returns mourning and hears a warning before the eunuchs bring him to the banquet.

Lessons worth keeping

1
The sleepless king hears the chronicles and asks about Mardochai’s reward; the edition qualifies the servants’ answer of none.
2
Aman assumes he is the intended honoree and proposes royal apparel, horse, crown and public proclamation.
3
The king orders those honors for Mardochai; Aman carries them out, returns mourning and hears a warning before the eunuchs bring him to the banquet.

Test your recall

Which concrete sequence does this chapter record, and what remains unstated?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 53456–53458
That night the king passed without sleep, and he commanded the histories and chronicles of former times to be brought him. And when they were reading them before him,
Lines 53464–53466
And when the king heard this, he said: What honour and reward hath Mardochai received for this fidelity? His servants and ministers said to him: He hath received no reward at all.
Lines 53480–53482
And when he was come in, he said to him: What ought to be done to the man whom the king is desirous to honour? But Aman thinking in his heart, and supposing that the king would honour no other but himself,
Lines 53494–53497
And the king said to him: Make haste and take the robe and the horse, and do as thou hast spoken to Mardochai the Jew, who sitteth before the gates of the palace. Beware thou pass over any of those things which thou hast spoken.