These graces of mind and heart commended her to the king’s favor and she was advanced to higher honor, and subsequently, when Queen Vashti was deposed, Esther was crowned in her stead. Thus she was raised at once to the highest place that the world could give a woman at that day--as the queen and favorite of the mightiest monarch of his time. This event was celebrated by a great feast which the king made to all his princes, called Esther’s feast, and which was attended with high honor, and by the presentation of gifts, “according to the state of the king.” About this time Haman, the chief minister or vizier of King Ahasuerus, was promoted, so that his seat was “above all the princes.” The Targum and Josephus interpret the description of Haman, the Agagite, as signifying that he was of Amalekitish descent, the sworn enemies of the Israelites in their march through the desert, and the sparing of whom cost Saul, the first king of Israel, his crown. This Haman was the king’s favorite, and all the under officers and servants were required to pay reverence unto him. But there was one man who would not bow. This was Mordecai, the porter at the royal palace. He would not salute Haman, the idolatrous descendent of the old enemies of his people. This greatly displeased Haman, but he scorned to lay hands on Mordecai, and knowing him to be a Jew, resolved to destroy him and his people. He took council and determined by lot on the day for the accomplishment of his purpose. To do this successfully he must deceive the king and entrap him to do a wicked act. So he said to Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of thy kingdom; and their laws are diverse from all people; neither keep they the king’s laws; therefore it is not for the king’s profit to suffer them. If it please the king, let it be written that they be destroyed; and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver to the hands of those that have the charge of the business, to bring it into the king’s treasuries.” And so this hateful Amalekite, by offering to pay into the king’s treasury more than $10,000,000, obtained the royal decree to put all the Israelites in the hundred and twenty-seven provinces of Ahasuerus, extending from India to Ethiopia, to death.