Jeremiah 17:10; Proverbs 11:5; Esther 7:9,10: Proverbs 26:27
I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.
The wicked shall fall by his own wickedness.
Harbonah, one of the chamberlains, said before the king, Behold also, the gallows fifty cubits high, which Haman had made for Mordecai, who had spoken good for the king, standeth in the house of Haman. Then the king said, Hang him thereon. So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai.
Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him.
JOHN GILL (1697-1771): These are proverbial expressions, teaching men to be wise and cautious, lest by their conduct they bring mischief upon themselves; as it often is, the one that digs a pit for another, falls into it himself―or, any man that devises mischief against another, frequently so it is that the same befalls them; as Haman, who prepared a gallows for Mordecai, was hanged on it himself.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Haman was justly hanged on the very gallows he had unjustly prepared for Mordecai. If he had not set up that gallows, perhaps the king would not have thought of ordering him to be hanged. In the morning Haman was designing himself for the robes, and Mordecai for the gallows; but the tables are turned: Mordecai has the crown, Haman the cross.
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): Was it not an act of what men term, poetic justice?
MATTHEW HENRY: The Lord is known by such judgments. “The righteous is delivered out of trouble, and the wicked cometh in his stead,” Proverbs 11:8.
G. CAMPBELL MORGAN (1863-1945): The nets of evil plotting and malicious enterprise swing far out in the tides of human life, but never far enough to enmesh God. He remains beyond them all, and gathering them in the hands of His power, He makes them include the men who weave them to destroy others…It was a fierce and terrible judgment, and yet characterized by poetic justice.
ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): And what a display is made of the Lord’s providential superintendence.
THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): “I cannot pass over the wonderful harmony of Providence,” says Josephus, “without a remark upon the Almighty power and admirable justice of the wisdom of God, not only in bringing Haman to his deserved punishment, but in entrapping him in the very snare which he had laid for another, and turning a malicious invention upon the head of the inventor.” Well says the heathen poet, “No law is more just, than that the workers of wickedness should perish by the means of their own subtilty.”
ROBERT HAWKER: Pause and contemplate the sure end of the ungodly.
JOHN TRAPP (1601-1699): Sin and punishment are inseparable companions…Every man shall be sure to reap as he sows, to drink as he brews, to receive according to that he hath done in the flesh, whether good or evil, 2 Corinthians 5:10―as sure as the night followeth the day, a day of account will come, and God will render unto each man reward or punishment according to his works.
CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): We are not to suppose that our good works are put in one scale, and our evil works in another; and that, according to the scale which preponderates, our fate shall be. Nor are we to imagine that, when we have done a certain number of good works, the merits of Christ shall be cast, as it were, into the scale, in order to procure acceptance for them. The way of salvation is widely different from either of these. We all, without exception, are sinners, deserving of God’s wrath and indignation. But He has given His only-begotten Son to die for us; and will accept to mercy all who come to Him in His Son’s name. Those who have believed in Christ will in that day be approved as having embraced the proffered salvation: and those who have rejected the Saviour, will be rejected of their God. But still there will be a great difference as to the measure of misery or of happiness which these different parties will inherit. Amongst the righteous, “one star will differ from another star in glory;” and amongst the wicked, some will be “beaten with many stripes, and others with few,” according as circumstances have occurred to extenuate or aggravate their guilt.
MATTHEW HENRY: Sooner or later, in this world or in that to come, He will cause every man to find according to his ways. This is the standing rule of distributive justice, to give to every man according to his work. “Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with them: for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. Woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with them: for the reward of his hands shall be given him,” Isaiah 3:10,11. If services persevered in now go unrewarded, and sins persisted in now go unpunished, yet there is a day coming when God will fully render to every man according to his works, with interest for the delay.
ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): God ever will do justice.
MATTHEW HENRY: Though He does not always do this visibly in this world, yet He will do it in the day of recompence.
CHARLES SIMEON: He records every thing in the book of His remembrance—The thoughts as well as the words of men are recorded in this book, Malachi 3:16; and out of these books shall they be judged, Revelation 20:12,13. Indeed, they are all “sealed up, as it were, in a bag,” in order to be then brought forth as grounds of God’s decision, and as evidences of His equity. Nothing will escape His observation.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): When the ungodly are secure, let us know that God’s judgment is indeed hidden, but yet certain, and will shortly overtake them; for when they say, “Peace and security, then sudden destruction will come upon them,” 1 Thessalonians 5:3…If the judgments of God be so dreadful in this life, how dreadful will He be when He shall come at last to judge the world!
CHARLES SIMEON: Behold, then, What an awful prospect is here opened to the ungodly! There is not a day or an hour in which an ungodly man is not providing misery for himself, and “treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath.”
CHARLES BRIDGES (1794-1869): Evil shall fall on the heads of its own authors.
A. W. PINK: Note how an exact retribution―“poetic justice” worldlings would call it―overtook Jezebel: “In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth,” who was murdered at the orders of that wicked queen, there was her corpse consumed by dogs, 2 Kings 9:36.
