Charles Ellicott Commentary Esther 6:1

"On that night could not the king sleep; and he commanded to bring the book of records of the chronicles, and they were read before the king." — Esther 6:1 (ASV)

Could not the king sleep. —Literally, the king's sleep fled away. Here, in the most striking way in the whole book, the workings of God’s providence on behalf of His people are shown. “God Himself is here, though His name is absent.” The king’s sleepless night falls after the day when Haman had resolved to ask on the following day for Mordecai’s execution, a foretaste of the richer vengeance he hoped to wreak on the whole nation of the Jews. It is by a mere chance, one would say, looking at the matter simply from its human aspect, that the king should call for the book of the royal chronicles, and not for music.

It was by a mere chance too, it might seem, that the reader should happen to find the record of Mordecai’s services; and yet when all these apparent accidents combine to form the coincidence they make, how completely is providence visible, the power that will use people as the instruments of its work, whether they know it or do not know it, whether they are willing or unwilling, whether the glory of God is to be manifested in and by and through them, or manifested on them only.

They were read before the king. —Canon Rawlinson remarks that there is reason to think that the Persian kings were in most cases unable to read.