Haman and his plot to kill all Jews
3
📚After these things 📖 King Ahasuerus promoted Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite 📖, and advanced him and gave him a higher seat than all the princes who were with him. 2 📚And all the king’s servants, who were at the king’s gate, bowed and paid honour to Haman, for so the king had commanded concerning him. But Mordecai did not bow or show him honour.3:2 Abraham and his descendants at other times showed respect to others in this way (Gen 23:7; 33:3; 44:14; 1 Sam 24:8; 2 Sam 14:4; 1 Kings 1:16), why not to Haman? If Mordecai knew Haman was an Amalekite, this would account for it. He would refuse to honor anyone of a people who were enemies of the Jews and with whom God Himself had continual warfare (Ex 17:16).⚜
3 📚Then the king’s servants, who were at the king’s gate, said to Mordecai, “Why are you breaking the king’s command?” 4 📚Now it so happened after they spoke to him daily and he would not listen to them that they told Haman, to see whether Mordecai’s reason 📖 would stand; for he had told them that he was a Jew 📖.
5 📚And when Haman saw that Mordecai did not bow or pay him honour, Haman was filled with rage.
3:5 Esther 5:9. This was wounded pride, the kind of foolish anger some people in power will have against those who refuse to give them the respect they think they deserve.⚜
6 📚And he scorned seizing Mordecai alone, for they had told him who the people of Mordecai were 📖; therefore Haman sought to destroy all the people of Mordecai, the Jews 📖 throughout the whole kingdom 📖 of Ahasuerus.
7 📚In the first month, that is, the month Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus, they cast Pur 📖, that is, the lot, before Haman from day to day, and from month to month, to the twelfth month, that is, the month Adar.
8 📚And Haman said to King Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people scattered and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of your kingdom, and their laws are different from those of all other people and they do not keep the king’s laws. Therefore it is not for the king’s benefit to tolerate them.
3:8 Apparently Haman does not tell Xerxes the name of the people he wants to destroy.⚜
9 📚If it pleases the king, let it be written that they be destroyed. And I will pay ten thousand talents 📖 of silver into the hands of those who will have charge of the business, to bring it into the king’s treasuries”.
10 📚And the king took his ring from his hand, and gave it to Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the Jews’ enemy.
3:10 The signet ring was an official seal, equivalent to a signature. Once Haman had the king’s signet ring he could authorize any course of action he pleased.⚜
11 📚And the king said to Haman, “The money and the people are given to you to do with them as it seems good to you 📖”.
12 📚Then the king’s scribes were called on the thirteenth day of the first month, and a decree was written according to all that Haman had commanded the king’s officers and the governors who were over every province and the rulers of every people of every province, according to its script, and to every people in their language. It was written in the name of King Ahasuerus and sealed with the king’s ring. 13 📚And the letters were sent by couriers to all the king’s provinces, to destroy, to kill and to annihilate all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, and to plunder their possessions.
3:13 Haman may have been thinking of the event set in motion by the words of 1 Sam 15:2-3. He would show his defiance of the God of Israel.⚜
14 📚A copy of the writing as a command to be given in every province was published to all people, that they should be ready on that day.
15 📚The couriers set out quickly because of the king’s command, and the decree was given in Shushan the palace. And the king and Haman sat down to drink, but the city Shushan was perplexed.