The victory of the Jews
9
📚Now in the twelfth month, that is, the month Adar 📖, on the thirteenth day, when the king’s command and decree were about to be carried out, on the day that the enemies of the Jews hoped to have power over them, the reverse happened; the Jews gained the ascendancy 📖 over those who hated them. 2 📚The Jews gathered together in their cities throughout all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, to seize those who sought to harm them. And no man could withstand them, for the fear of them fell on all people.3 📚And all the rulers of the provinces and the officials and the deputies, and officers of the king, helped the Jews, because the fear of Mordecai fell on them. 4 📚For Mordecai was great in the king’s house, and his fame spread throughout all the provinces, for this man Mordecai became greater and greater 📖.
5 📚Thus the Jews struck down all their enemies with the stroke of the sword, with slaughter and destruction, and did what they wished to those who hated them. 6 📚And in Shushan the palace the Jews killed and destroyed five hundred men. 7 And they killed Parshandatha and Dalphon and Aspatha 8 and Poratha and Adalia and Aridatha 9 and Parmashta and Arisai and Aridai and Vajezatha, 10 📚the ten sons of Haman the son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews, but did not lay their hands on the plunder 📖.
9:7-10 This was the final blow at all in which Haman boasted(Esther 5:11).⚜
11 On that day the number of those who were killed in Shushan the citadel was brought before the king. 12 📚And the king said to Esther the queen, “The Jews have killed and destroyed five hundred men in the citadel of Shushan, and the ten sons of Haman. What have they done in the rest of the king’s provinces? Now what is your petition? It will be granted you. Or what further request do you have? It will be done”.
13 📚Then said Esther, “If it pleases the king, let it be granted to the Jews who are in Shushan to act tomorrow also in accordance with today’s decree, and let Haman’s ten sons be hanged 📖 on the gallows”.
14 And the king commanded this to be done, and the decree was given at Shushan; and they hanged Haman’s ten sons. 15 📚For the Jews who were in Shushan gathered together also on the fourteenth day of the month Adar, and killed three hundred men at Shushan, but they did not lay their hands on the plunder.
16 📚But the other Jews who were in the king’s provinces gathered together, and stood up for their lives and to get relief from their enemies, and killed seventy-five thousand of their enemies, but they did not lay their hands on the plunder. 17 📚This occurred on the thirteenth day of the month Adar, and on the fourteenth day of the month they rested and made it a day of feasting and gladness.
18 📚But the Jews who were at Shushan had assembled on the thirteenth and on the fourteenth day of the month, and on the fifteenth day of the month they rested, and made it a day of feasting and gladness.
19 📚Therefore the Jews in the villages, who lived in the unwalled towns, made the fourteenth day of the month Adar a day of gladness and feasting and a holiday, and of sending portions to one another.
9:18-19 Verses 26-28.⚜
20 📚And Mordecai wrote these things, and sent letters to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, both near and far, 21 to establish among them that annually they should keep the fourteenth day and the fifteenth day of the month Adar, 22 📚as the days in which the Jews got relief from their enemies, and the month when sorrow was turned to joy for them, and mourning to a holiday, that they should make them days of feasting and joy, and of sending portions to one another and gifts to the poor 📖.
23 And the Jews continued to do as they had begun, and as Mordecai had written to them, 24 📚because Haman the son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had devised a scheme against the Jews to destroy them, and had cast Pur, that is, the lot, to consume them and to destroy them;
9:24 Esther 3:6-7. Haman had cast lots to determine an auspicious day for his attack on the Jews, but to no avail. Actually there is no such thing as “auspicious” days. The whole idea is a superstition which should have no place in the lives of God’s people. Every day we trust and obey the true God is good, every day we fail to do so is bad.⚜
25 📚but when Esther came before the king, he commanded by letters that his wicked scheme, which he devised against the Jews, should return on his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows. 26 📚So they called these days Purim from the name of Pur. Therefore, because of all the words of this letter, and what they had seen concerning this matter and what had happened to them, 27 📚the Jews established and imposed it on themselves and on their descendants, and on all those who joined them, that without fail they would keep these two days according to their writing, and according to their appointed time every year, 28 📚and that these days should be remembered and kept in every generation, every family, every province, and every city, and that these days of Purim should not cease among the Jews, nor the memory of them perish from their descendants.
9:26-28 In these modern times the Jews around the world still observe this festival of Purim. Those in Jerusalem celebrate it on the 15th of the month, but everyone else on the 14th (vs 18,19). The festival is in remembrance of this great deliverance from Haman which was one of the greatest deliverances of the Jews in history.⚜
29 📚Then Esther the queen, the daughter of Abihail, and Mordecai the Jew, wrote with all authority to confirm this second letter of Purim. 30 📚And he sent the letters to all the Jews, to the hundred and twenty-seven provinces of the kingdom of Ahasuerus, with words of peace and truth, 31 📚to confirm these days of Purim in their appointed times, just as Mordecai the Jew and Esther the queen had established for them, and as they had decreed for themselves and for their descendants, concerning their fasting 📖 and lamentation. 32 📚And the decree of Esther confirmed these matters of Purim, and it was written in the book.