The Real Enemy Of God’s People
Who is the worst enemy of God’s people? Some American Christians may say “the Left”. Others may point to unjust leaders who tried to prevent churches from meeting during the early days of the pandemic and imprisoned pastors for opposing them. Some students could name their teachers or professors who have an intense determination to get them to deny their faith. In other parts of the world, where Christians face real persecution, they could be tempted to name oppressive communist governments, Muslim or Hindu radicals, or others who vehemently oppose Christianity. These could all be considered enemies. I prefer to think of them as “opponents” rather than enemies. It is not that we have enmity against them but by opposing Christ they are also opposing us. But are they “the enemy”? In the New Testament, “the enemy” is used referring to Satan (Matthew 13:39, Luke 10:19), but in the Old Testament it is much more generic. However, there is one person in the entire Old Testament specifically given the title of “the enemy”. By examining him, we learn who our worst enemy is. Conversely, by studying his arch nemesis, we learn how to overcome our worst enemy.
The Enemy of the Jews
In the Old Testament, the Jews were God’s people, so it naturally follows that someone given the title of “the enemy of the Jews” would be by extension the enemy of God’s people in general. This phrase is only used four times in Scripture, and all of them refer to the same man. That man was Haman the Agagite. Anyone familiar with the story of Esther will likely remember Haman as the man who plotted a genocide to exterminate all of the Jews throughout the Persian Empire. This certainly made him an enemy of the Jews, but the Jews faced similar threats of annihilation before, so why does Haman get the exclusive title of “the enemy of the Jews”? Perhaps his enmity went beyond his plot such that he can be considered the prototypical enemy of God’s people.
To understand this, we need to look at who Haman was and what prompted him to plot a genocide. We first meet him in Esther 3 when he is promoted to be second in command to King Ahasuerus. Climbing to this rank would have been no small feat in such a massive empire, so he must have been a man of considerable knowledge, skill, and connections. It would have also meant he was one of the men the king trusted most in the entire empire. He seemed to live up to his name, which literally meant “magnificent”. By any standard, he had it all, so what was the problem that led him to plot to annihilate an entire race of people?
The problem began when one man repeatedly refused to pay homage to him after his promotion. This man too was a man of influence, since he was regularly in the king’s gate. The fact that throughout the book he is regularly found there suggests he was a senior official, as many men of prominence throughout Scripture can be found sitting in the gate. Thus, his refusal to bow is reminiscent of how Daniel’s three friends refused to worship Nebuchadnezzar’s statue in Daniel 2. Regardless, he was of a high enough position and reputation that Haman didn’t dare openly oppose him. Still the refusal of this one man to pay homage to him disturbed him greatly—so greatly that when he found out the man was a Jew, he began plotting to exterminate all the Jews. This plot was not the result of a fit of rage but of prolonged and calculated scheming (Esther 3:7). He got the king to agree to the plot by falsely accusing the Jews of being enemies of the king and even bribing the king with a large sum of money. He was thus able to sway the king to authorize the murder of every Jewish man, woman, and child throughout the entire empire and the plundering of their property. It is therefore fitting that he alone is given the title of “the enemy of the Jews”.
The Little Man
But who was this nemesis of Haman whose refusal to bow was enough to prompt Haman to plot genocide? He was basically Haman’s exact opposite: Mordecai, which can be translated “little man”. Up until his promotion at the end of the book, we know little about his role other than the fact that he was regularly in the king’s gate as already discussed. Thus while Haman was the second most powerful man in the world, Mordecai was just another royal official quietly and honorably doing his job. He was also the older cousin of Esther, whom he raised after her parents’ death. When he overheard a plot to assassinate the king, he used his relationship with Esther to get word of the plot to the king. There is no indication that he sought credit for himself in this situation, but was merely doing his job diligently.
While we don’t know the measure of Mordecai’s faith in God since the book of Esther does not once mention God, we know that he did have faith that deliverance would come to the Jews (presumably from God). This is evident in his response to Esther’s fear to go before the king on behalf of the Jews without being summoned: “Do not think to yourself that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:13-14) It is also quite possible that his reason for refusing to bow or pay homage to Haman came from his devotion to God—the same motivation as Daniel and his three friends. Like them, his disobedience of sinful edicts was quiet and respectful. There is no indication that in refusing to pay homage that Mordecai acted disrespectfully toward Haman, he merely continued to faithfully carry out his duties. The reputation he developed as a result (and the unmentioned though obvious hand of God) eventually put Mordecai in Haman’s place as second in command. The last verse of the book can be considered a summary of Mordecai’s career: “For Mordecai the Jew was second in rank to King Ahasuerus, and he was great among the Jews and popular with the multitude of his brothers, for he sought the welfare of his people and spoke peace to all his people.” (Esther 10:3). From this, it is clear that Mordecai sought the welfare of the people in general and the Jews in particular rather than his own gain. This was the exact opposite of Haman, which is what caused Haman to despise Mordecai so much that he plotted not only to kill him but his entire race.
The Real Enemy of the Jews
But how could Mordecai’s refusal to pay homage to Haman spark such rage in Haman that he would plot to exterminate the Jews? To use modern terminology, Haman was “triggered”—and it was clearly Mordecai’s refusal to pay homage to him that triggered him. While there is no evidence of malice or disrespect from Mordecai to Haman, his failure to pay homage threatened Haman in a very real way. How? The answer becomes obvious as we continue to read the book of Esther. After attending the first of Esther’s feasts, which only he and the king attended, we see this:
And Haman went out that day joyful and glad of heart. But when Haman saw Mordecai in the king’s gate, that he neither rose nor trembled before him, he was filled with wrath against Mordecai. Nevertheless, Haman restrained himself and went home, and he sent and brought his friends and his wife Zeresh. And Haman recounted to them the splendor of his riches, the number of his sons, all the promotions with which the king had honored him, and how he had advanced him above the officials and the servants of the king. Then Haman said, “Even Queen Esther let no one but me come with the king to the feast she prepared. And tomorrow also I am invited by her together with the king. Yet all this is worth nothing to me, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate.”
-Esther 5:9-13, ESV
Clearly, Haman was completely self-absorbed. His mood was entirely dependent on what happened to him and how people treated him. When he was invited to an exclusive feast he was happy, but when Mordecai refused to acknowledge him (again) he was angry. He responded by stroking his ego, recounting his riches and accolades to anyone who would listen. In Haman’s mind, the entire world revolved around him and should be ordered to his liking and advancement. Thus when anything threatened his inflated view of himself, he became miserable. By repeatedly refusing to pay homage to Haman, Mordecai was refusing to reinforce Haman’s image of himself. This presented Haman with a choice: humble himself or eliminate the one who threatened his ego. He obviously chose the latter. But why was such an extreme measure necessary? Because the self is fragile, so people go to extreme lengths to protect the self from shattering. Therefore, we cannot place out trust in ourselves, for the self is far too fragile. Haman had clearly trusted in himself, so when self failed him, he was ruined.
Haman’s self-absorption becomes even clearer the following day. When the king couldn’t sleep and had his servants read to him of notable deeds, he learned that Mordecai had not been recognized for foiling an assassination attempt. Since Haman happened to be in the court preparing to ask for approval to hang Mordecai, the king asked how to honor someone who pleased him. Thinking of no one but himself, Haman concluded that the man to be honored had to be him (Esther 6:6), so he therefore launched into a detailed description of his idea of perfect recognition. I imagine a broad smile on his face as he explained what he had likely daydreamed about for years. Imagine his surprise when the king ordered him to perform this perfect idea of recognition on Mordecai, his nemesis! In Haman’s defense, the king had given him no context, so he had no way of knowing that the king had Mordecai in mind. Still, his constant focus on himself blinded him to the possibility of the king wanting to honor anyone else but him. As a result, he sought to exalt himself but was humiliated by being forced to exalt humble Mordecai (Luke 14:11). What he imagined as the perfect validation of his view of himself turned out to be a moment of such shame that he went home mourning (Esther 6:12). Haman’s self-absorption therefore led him to plot genocide and ultimately became his downfall. Thus, we can conclude that the real “enemy of the Jews” was not so much Haman himself, but what Haman represented: the one who puts himself or herself above anyone else.
The Real Enemy of Christians
Since Haman was the enemy of the Jews due to his self-absorption—and self-absorption is certainly not exclusive to ancient Persia—then it naturally follows that self-absorption is the enemy of Christians as well. The New Testament repeatedly reinforces this:
And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?”
-Mark 8:34-36, ESV
If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
-Luke 14:26, ESV
He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.
-Romans 2:6-8, ESV
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
-Philippians 2:3-4, ESV
Scripture is clear: we should not focus on ourselves, serve ourselves, or even love ourselves. Instead, we must seek above all things to serve and focus on God then serve and focus on others. Some may argue that we must love ourselves in order to love others, since Jesus said (quoting Leviticus 19:18) that we should love our neighbors as we love ourselves. That argument goes that if you do not love yourself, you cannot love your neighbor, so the better you love yourself the better you will love your neighbor. The problem with this logic is that it views this entire verse as a command. Instead, the command is to love your neighbors just as we already love ourselves. Self-love is not commanded here but assumed. We need no command to love ourselves, because we naturally love ourselves too much as it is. Instead, the command points us away from ourselves to focus on loving and serving others just as much as we love and serve ourselves naturally. In essence, when combined with the other greatest command to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind (leaving no more room to love ourselves), this command is telling us to essentially forget about ourselves.
This is the opposite of the modern understanding of self-esteem, which leads to self-absorption under the guise of preparing yourself to help others. If we truly understood the ugliness of our sin, we would grimace every time we look at ourselves. The Christian sees far more serious issues inside than out in the world. It is rumored that in answer to the question of what was wrong with the world, G.K. Chesterton simply responded with “I am”. Many hymn writers throughout the history of the Church have shared similar sentiment. Here are a few:
Alas! and did my Savior bleed,
and did my Sovereign die!
Would he devote that sacred head
for sinners such as I?“Alas, and Did My Savior Bleed”, Isaac Watts, 1707
Nothing have I, Lord, to pay,
Nor can thy grace procure;
Empty send me not away.
For I, thou know’st, am poor:
Dust and ashes is my name,
My all is sin and misery.Friend of sinners, spotless Lamb,
Thy blood was shed for me.“Thy Blood Was Shed for Me”, Charles Wesley, 1742
Amazing grace (how sweet the sound)
that saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
was blind, but now I see.“Amazing Grace”, John Newton, 1779
When we truly grasp the magnitude of our sin, we would be wise to respond likewise. The Christian life is not about looking inside ourselves but looking outside of ourselves to Christ. Our true selves cannot be found within us by our own efforts (Jeremiah 17:9-10) but can only be found through the revelation of the Holy Spirit in Scripture. Therefore, Christians must constantly look away from themselves and towards Christ. Scripturally, any focus on ourselves must be to identify and confess our sin, labor tirelessly in our cooperation with the Holy Spirit in sanctification, and cultivate a healthy body and mind to be of service to God and others. This leaves no room for selfish ambition or seeking to please ourselves.
Does this mean we should hate ourselves? In a sense, the answer is both yes and no. We should certainly hate our sinful flesh (Romans 7), for if we do not hate it we cannot obey God’s command to do battle against it. At the same time, in Christ we are no longer merely sinful people but are now people who have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit and are steadily being reshaped by Him into the image of Christ. Jesus Christ is the perfect object of love, so as we are conformed to His image, we should love seeing more of His reflection when we look in the mirror. Furthermore, since God showed so much love for us in that Christ died for us while we were dead in sin (John 3:16, Romans 5:8, Ephesians 2:4, etc.), it would be wrong of us to despise what God so dearly loves. Therefore, while we should despise our sinful flesh, that is no longer our identity. Our identity is found in Christ, meaning that we are united with Christ so inseparably that to hate ourselves in that new identity would be to hate Christ. Therefore, the only part of ourselves that we should hate is the remnant of our sinful flesh that we are commanded to mortify. But the key is that this love/hate relationship with self is the byproduct of a constant focus away from ourselves and onto Christ. Both self-aggrandizement and self-hate find their root, focus, and hope in self and not God. If we rely on self, we will be discouraged. But if we rely on God, we actually have no basis for despair.[1] So when we are tempted to fall into self-hate, we must say with the psalmist in the refrain of Psalm 42-43: “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God” (Psalms 42:5-6, also 42:11 and 43:5). This is certainly easier said than done—and can only be done in the power of the Holy Spirit.
In addition to constantly shifting our focus away from ourselves, we must not feed self-centeredness in others. This was the mistake that Haman’s wife and friends made at first. After Haman stroked his ego following Esther’s first feast, his wife and friends fed it by suggesting that Haman hang Mordechai (Esther 5:14). It was only after he was humiliated by having to honor Mordechai that his wife and friends gave him what he really needed: the truth. They attempted to realign Haman’s ego with reality (Esther 6:13), but it was too little too late. While Scripture doesn’t tell for sure what Haman was like normally, enough is revealed to suggest that his pride made him unbearable to live with such that the only way his wife and friends could stand him was to appease his ego, hence their accommodation of his self-aggrandizement. But in the long run, their appeasement did more harm than good—a lesson we would be wise to heed.
The Cure: Humility Like Mordecai
Since pride and self-absorption like Haman are the enemy that Christians must fight, we should seek to emulate Mordecai in humility. Mordecai built a reputation of consistently serving others without regard for recognition. In contrast to Haman who thought of no one except himself, Mordecai thought little of himself. It is quite likely that he had forgotten all about foiling the assassination attempt and would have therefore been just as surprised as Haman that he was being honored. Then, his response shows true humility. In contrast to Haman who went away sulking, Mordecai “returned to the king’s gate” (Esther 6:12). In other words, after being publicly exalted, Mordecai went right back to work and went about his day as if nothing had happened. This is in stark contrast to his very visible mourning at the edict that the Jews were to be exterminated (Esther 4:1-4). His focus was on others rather than himself, so when he faced a disturbance (either negative or positive) he was unmoved except when others were impacted. Whereas the increasing success and recognition ruined the self-centered Haman, it did not affect the humble Mordecai, who continued to serve others as he had before. Humility is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less, which Mordecai exemplifies. In that way, Mordecai prefigures Christ:
For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.
-1 Peter 2:21-23, ESV
So rather than focusing on ourselves, in humility we must look away from ourselves to Christ. If we focus on ourselves and lose sight of Christ, we will either become so lost in the love of ourselves that we will be blind to reality as Haman was, or we will be incessantly discouraged by our constant failures. So let us fix our eyes on Christ (Hebrews 12:2) and away from ourselves. Then we will be truly unshakeable because He is unshakeable.
Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.
-1 Peter 5:5-7, ESV
NOTES:
[1] William Bridge, A Lifting Up for the Downcast, Edinburgh, UK: Banner of Truth Trust: 2021 (orig. 1649)
