We're up to page 11 in the Bet Halevi on Bitachon, Artscroll Edition. The Bet Halevi now tells us that somebody who is begging his tormentor for mercy is comparable to a person that's being beaten, begging the rod that's hitting him for mercy.
Even when a human being is controlling another human being, where, seemingly, one might say, ‘Well, this man is in charge of my life,’ he says “Don’t make that mistake. Realize that everything is from Hashem. Although he's doing it, he is only a stick in the hands of Hashem.” This is one of the principles that the Hovot Halevavot enumerates in Shaar Bitachon, telling us that we need to know, before we rely on Hashem, that no human being can harm a person. If a person does not believe that, then where does all the relying on Hashem come in, if they think somebody else is more powerful than Hashem's decree?
This principle is also brought down by Rav Saadia Gaon, the Sefer Chinuch and many others. Although there might be some confusing data on the concept that someone that has Bechira can interfere with Hashem gezera, that's obviously not to be understood on the simple level. The Bet Halevi clearly states this, and says the concept is actually a pasuk in Yeshaya, where Hashem says,
אפי הוי אשור שבט
The Assyrian army (Ashur) is the rod of My anger.
And in that same pasuk it says,
היתפאר הגרזן על החצב בו
Does the ax pride itself over the one chopping with it? If someone's chopping with an ax, can the ax look back at the chopper as if to say, “Hey, look what I'm doing?” The ax knows that he's controlled by the chopper.
That's what was going on here. The Jewish people were being beaten by the Assyrian army and Hashem wanted to make the point clear that they should not focus on the armies of Ashur.
The Bet Halevi continues and says that a person that is using tactics and begging towards the one that's chasing him, is like somebody talking and begging to the stick. He quotes another pasuk in Yeshaya that says, ארם מקדם ופלשתים מאחור ויאכלו את ישראל בכל פה
Aram from the east, and the Philistines from the west, and they're attacking and consuming the Jewish people.
והעם לא שב עד המכהו ואת ה׳ צבאות לא דרשו
But the people did not return/do teshuva to the One that hits them, and they did not seek out Hashem.
והבקשה להשבט לא יועיל
And the request, directed to the stick doesn’t help.
You have to go back to the One that's holding the stick. There's a beautiful Gaon of Vilna that explains this in reference to the story of Esther. At the second party, Esther was ready to beg for her people. Achashverosh asked her who was the one that wanted to destroy her people, and she said, Haman, this evil man, Haman.”
But the Gemara tells us that right before she said that, an angel came, took her hand as she was pointing to Achashverosh, and moved her hand towards Haman. This seems incomprehensible. Esther was trying to save the Jewish people. This was her only chance. Why would she want to start up with Achashverosh and paint him as the bad guy?
The Gaon of Vilna says something fascinating. Whenever the word Hamelech is mentioned in the Megila, it refers to God, God is the King. When Esther goes in to speak to the King, she wasn’t thinking about Achashverosh, she was now in prayer mode. She was praying to Hashem. The she heard a voice say, Who is the one that wants to destroy your people, as if it was a heavenly voice. She was so enthralled in her prayer, she wasn’t even focusing on Achashverosh, and so she was going to answer that heavenly voice that it was Achashverosh, because she knew that he was as equally responsible as Haman.
But that would've been disastrous. So an angel came down, pushed her hand, and woke her up from her prayer, so she could see that she was actually standing in front of Achashverosh, and now she says it's Haman. That’s an unbelievable concept- if a person is talking to a traffic officer to avoid a ticket, and he say, “Please don't give me a ticket,”
he should think, “I'm talking to Hashem now. I'm not talking to the traffic cop.” That's how real this concept is. And that's how the great people of old would deal with somebody that was taking them over, realizing that they can't do anything to them. The One to really focus on is Hashem.
Have a wonderful day.