After King Xerxes's life was spared, a man named Haman was promoted to a place where his seat was above all the princes who were with him. The king commanded his servants to bow and pay homage to Haman. Everyone except for Mordecai followed the command. Even though the servants would speak to him about it, Mordecai couldn't be moved. As a Jewish man, Mordecai knew that he couldn't bow to anyone except God Himself. The first commandment tells us not to put any other gods before Him. While it's true that disobeying the king's command could result in death, Mordecai chose to obey God. Esther 3:1-4
Mordecai was so strong in his conviction, that Haman was eventually told of this. When he saw this for himself, Haman became very angry. It's funny how people can get offended over many things. It shouldn't have bothered Haman that one man didn't want to bow down to him. Haman had more than enough people bowing and paying homage to him. But that's what happens when pride enters someone's heart.
It was then Haman made a decision that would change everything. He didn't want to just destroy Mordecai...he decided to take his anger out on all the Jews throughout the whole kingdom. Esther 3:5-6
Something to remember is pride is the root cause of offense and many other toxic emotions. It takes away our common sense and rational thinking. Haman allowed pride to not only influence him to get offended that Mordecai wouldn't bow, but that anger turned to prejudice against the Jews. That's why a lot of people are prejudice today. Someone of a particular ethnic group does something bad, and automatically people think everyone from that group needs to pay for what that one person did. It's wrong to judge a group of people based on what one person does.
