Hoisted On His Own Petard

It had been a day that Haman would rather forget.  Due to a foolish miscalculation on his part, he had been forced to spend the day honoring his mortal enemy, Mordecai.  How humiliating!  He had no choice but to honor the very one who had steadfastly refused to honor him.  Mercifully, the day was finally over and Haman hurried home, likely nursing his pride and his rage.  But there wasn’t much time to dwell on either because the king’s servants soon arrived to take him to a banquet prepared by Queen Esther.  Perhaps the food and wine would take his mind off of his humiliation.

Little did he know, things were about to get much worse.  On the second day of the banquet, Esther drops a bombshell.  She reveals to the king that she is a Jew and, as such, falls under the death sentence engineered by Haman himself to punish Mordecai.  Now Haman knows he is in serious trouble.  While the king goes out to the garden to process what he has just heard, Haman begins to beg for his life from the queen.  When the king returns, he finds Haman being overzealous in his efforts to plead with Esther.  Haman is immediately sentenced to death and, in a bit of irony, he is executed on an instrument of his own devising.  “So they hanged Haman on the gallows which he had prepared for Mordecai, and the king’s anger subsided” (Esther 7:10).
Perhaps you have heard the phrase: “Hoisted by my own petard.”  A petard was an explosive device used in medieval times.  If not handled properly, they could explode and hurt or kill the one who intended it to use it to hurt or kill others.  Those who experienced such were said to have been “hoisted by their own petard."
That’s the problem with taking our own revenge.  Often, it blows up in our faces.  Haman learned that lesson the hard way.  Let’s not make the same mistake (Romans 12:19).

God loves you!
Mike