The Lot is Cast

Esther 3:1-15

Welcome! Today we continue in the book of Esther, chapter 3. Let me start by giving a quick synopsis of where we have been. Beginning in Esther chapter 1, we learn about the powerful king Xerxes, who rules over a vast empire that includes portions of Europe, Asia, Africa, and much of the Middle East, including the land of Israel. The nation of Israel has long ago fallen, a fulfillment of the warnings God gave at the time of Moses, that if the people abandoned their God, He would ultimately abandon them. The Jews have been scattered and live as a people who have been under foreign rule and amongst foreign cultures for generations.   

Xerxes gives a grand feast, a celebration of his empire and his achievements, and in a drunken moment, summons his wife to “show her off.” She refuses, a shocking and highly dishonoring act, and the king retaliates by banishing her and setting in place a process to find a beautiful new wife.

A Jew named Mordecai had raised up a cousin named Esther, because her parents had passed away. He had raised her as if she was his own daughter. Esther was one of the many young and beautiful women taken up in the search for a new wife for the king. The king was more attracted to Esther than any of the other women, and so, surprisingly, this Jewish young woman became queen of a very non-Jewish empire. But no one knew about Esther’s lineage. Mordecai had told Esther to keep her family background a secret, and she did so.  

One day, Mordecai was sitting at the city gate, and he overheard a plot by two men to assassinate the king. Mordecai told Esther, who then told the king, giving credit to Mordecai. The plot was investigated and found to be true. The men were killed, and the entire account, including Mordecai’s critical role in saving the king, was written down in a book recording the events of the king’s reign.

This brings us to chapter 3. As we have been doing throughout the series, we will look both at the NIV translation and at the Honor Shame Paraphrase, a paraphrase that highlights some of the honor-shame dynamics of the story that we in our culture are prone to miss or underappreciate.

After these events, King Xerxes honored Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, elevating him and giving him a seat of honor higher than that of all the other nobles. All the royal officials at the king’s gate knelt down and paid honor to Haman, for the king had commanded this concerning him. – Esther 3:1-2a NIV

Later King Ahasuerus exalted an Edomite named Haman to be the prime minister. Haman’s rank was higher than all the other king’s officials. The king commanded all his workers to publicly honor and bow down to Haman—almost as if he was the king. – Esther 3:1-2a HSP

I like how the HSP highlights idea that this command of the king was unusual and implies that it is somewhat inappropriate. In our culture, we find it inappropriate to bow down to anyone, so we may think we identify with how the people felt then. But I don’t think this is correct. We don’t want to bow down to anyone because we consider all people equal. But the people of that time thought it was entirely appropriate to bow to the king. The problem was that the king was giving his honor away, honor that was only appropriate for him. I am reminded of a scene near the end of the Lord of the Rings trilogy movies where the hobbits bow down to King Aragorn. The king motions for them to stop and says something to the effect that they need bow down to no one, and then he, the king, bows down to them. We love this scene because it appeals to our western values of the equality of all men and to the inappropriateness of any kind of “unearned” honor. But I suspect that people in honor-shame cultures who watch this scene will have a different take on it, that they will see it as “typical western foolishness,” knowing that no real king would do this. I’ll come back to this scene at the end of this message.

But Mordecai would not kneel down or pay him honor. Then the royal officials at the king’s gate asked Mordecai, “Why do you disobey the king’s command?” Day after day they spoke to him but he refused to comply. – Esther 3:2b-4a NIV

However, Mordecai refused to publicly honor or bow down to Haman. Mordecai’s colleagues warned him, “You can’t defy the king’s commands! Remember what happened to Queen Vashti?” They warned Mordecai many times, but he persisted in not bowing down. – Esther 3:2b-4a HSP

This account begs a question: Why won’t Mordecai bow down to Haman? In the next section the HSP postulates an answer. I will say that this is not explicitly in the text, and to be fair, I think the HSP is therefore actually somewhere between a paraphrase and a commentary. But that is OK – in this instance, I think the HSP is correct about its hypotheses. Let’s see what these hypotheses are:

As a Jew, Mordecai refused to honor Haman for two reasons. One, he would not give any human the honors that belong to God alone. And two, he despised Haman the Edomite because of the centuries-long tribal feud between their nations; Haman’s people had even killed Mordecai’s royal ancestor, Saul. –Esther 3:4a’ HSP

In the mind of the Jews, to bow down to someone was to worship them, to give them the supreme honor, and for a Jew, only God was worthy of such honor; in fact, to honor anyone else in this way was to commit idolatry, an act expressly forbidden by God. I think of how Shadrach, Meshach, and Abdenego in the book of Daniel refused to bow down to the statue that Nebuchadnezzar had made of himself. They were willing to be thrown into a blazing furnace rather than do so, and in fact, they were. (I can’t drop this story without reminding you that God rescued them; they were not harmed.) But I think something similar is going on with Mordecai here. I think Mordecai had similar feelings; as an apparently devout Jew, he likely knew the Scriptures and commands of God, and he likely associated this act with idolatry in a similar way.

But this is not so clear. In Daniel 3, the people were told specifically to worship the idol of the king; here, there is no mention of such a requirement, and I think it is a bit of a stretch to assume it is similar. It seems more likely to me that the king hasn’t instructed them to worship Haman, but only to treat him with the highest honor, the honor that they would give the king. I think the HSP has a good insight into a second possible motivation for Mordecai: Haman was in fact an Edomite, or more specifically, an Agagite. As I explained in the introductory message to this series, there was a longstanding hatred between these people and the people of Israel. In fact, they had brutally attacked the Israelites (including their infirm, their women, and children) without warning as they were leaving the desert before going into the Promised Land. God, in response, instructed them that at a future time, they were to completely wipe out these people. The time for this act came during the kingdom of Saul, but Saul failed to carry it out, and the people continued to attack the Israelites through the times of the kings and beyond. Given how the Esther text highlights the details both of Haman’s and Mordecai’s lineages, I think this was at least part of the reason for Mordecai’s refusal to bow to Haman. It may well have been the entire reason.

Therefore they told Haman about it to see whether Mordecai’s behavior would be tolerated, for he had told them he was a Jew. – Esther 3:4b NIV

Mordecai’s colleagues eventually told Haman… – Esther 3:4b HSP

People love to stir up trouble, don’t they? That the people did this is so “today.” People love to instigate things. They love to create conflict, to watch the fireworks that result. I suspect the officials were also, to some degree, jealous of Mordecai. After all, they had to bow down to Haman, even though they (likely) didn’t want to do so either, for reasons I have already explained. Seeing Mordecai refuse to bow, and seeing him get away with it, made them jealously angry.

As a Christian, you may find the same thing happen to you, if you, at work, at school, or elsewhere, refuse to do something similarly inappropriate. People will think, “He thinks he (or she) is better than us. Well, we’ll show him (or her)!” This, I think, is exactly the mindset of these officials who tattled on Mordecai. I am reminded of I John 3:13:

Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. – I John 3:13

John prefaces this with the story of Cain and Abel, saying that Cain murdered Abel because his own actions were evil, and his brother’s actions were righteous. Thus, the world has always operated in this way. Let’s continue with Esther:

When Haman saw that Mordecai would not kneel down or pay him honor, he was enraged. Yet having learned who Mordecai’s people were, he scorned the idea of killing only Mordecai. Instead Haman looked for a way to destroy all Mordecai’s people, the Jews, throughout the whole kingdom of Xerxes. – Esther 3:5-6 NIV

[Mordecai’s colleagues eventually told Haman] who saw for himself that Mordecai refused to publicly honor or bow down to him. This challenged Haman’s honor. He was infuriated by Mordecai’s blatant disrespect. Haman wanted to avenge the insult but felt that killing a lowly person like Mordecai was below his dignity. So he schemed to destroy all of Mordecai’s people, every Jew in Persia. – Esther 3:5-6 HSP

This account shows us that Haman is a really bad guy. Who plans a whole genocide because you were personally offended by one person or a few people? I can think of one other person. (I’ll give you a hint who it is: By coincidence, today is Holocaust Remembrance Day.) The account also more than hints that there is indeed still “bad blood” between the Jews and the Agagites after all this time.

In the twelfth year of King Xerxes, in the first month, the month of Nisan, the pur (that is, the lot) was cast in the presence of Haman to select a day and month. And the lot fell on the twelfth month, the month of Adar.  – Esther 3:7 NIV

Haman cast lots to discern a propitious date for the annihilations of Jews. The selected date was the 13th day of Adar, which was eleven months away. (This incident happened five years after Esther had become the queen.) – Esther 3:7 HSP

Pur, the lot, is where the name of the holiday Purim (which celebrates the account of Esther) comes from. Purim is the plural of pur. The HSP adds understanding, illustrating facts that can be gleaned from the rest of the book.

As for the lot itself, an account outside the Bible from this time describes a great new year festival at this time, devoted to the god Marduk. One of things done at this time was a casting of lots to determine when to do various things important to the person who had them cast (by a priest). This appears to be what Haman did, and so he believed that Marduk was behind his scheme. Thus, the ultimate failure of this scheme, like we see so many times elsewhere in the Old Testament, is God showing his great power far over other so-called gods.

Then Haman said to King Xerxes, “There is a certain people dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom who keep themselves separate. Their customs are different from those of all other people, and they do not obey the king’s laws; it is not in the king’s best interest to tolerate them. – Esther 3:8 NIV

Haman then sought the king’s support for his plan, “There is a certain ethnic group scattered throughout your kingdom. They do not accept Persian culture or follow your laws. Instead, they keep separated and exclusively follow their own laws. Their treasonous behavior threatens your rule as king and must not be tolerated. – Esther 3:8 HSP

Haman words this very carefully – the NIV is more accurate as to the words he uses, but the HSP I think captures the meaning well; that is, it captures what is unspoken. We do this kind of thing in all languages. In English, the classic B-movie way to do it is to follow up with the phrase “if you catch my drift.” So what is Haman doing? First, he avoids naming the group. Why? Well, since he was able to determine the ethnic identity of Mordecai, the king could also ask others to figure it out. Presumably the longstanding hatred between the Jews and Haman’s people was also well known, so the king might have dismissed Haman’s plan due to Haman’s obvious bias. Second, he appeals to the king’s already established sore spot for those who don’t obey his commands. “Not again!” the king likely thinks. “Not this time!” And third, without telling the king what to do, he slyly leads the king towards demanding a response. “We all know what toleration gets you… if you catch my drift.”

“If it pleases the king, let a decree be issued to destroy them, and I will give ten thousand talents of silver to the king’s administrators for the royal treasury.”– Esther 3:9 NIV

This may sound strange to us. What’s the money about? I think the HSP offers a very plausible explanation:

“As you please, issue a royal decree to destroy these people. If you the king do not have enough money to finance their execution, I can personally deposit 300 tons of silver into your royal treasury.” Haman was determined to destroy God’s people, so he used the financial offer to shame the king into agreement. – Esther 3:9 HSP

How does this shame the king? It doesn’t really shame him, but it baits him. It appeals to his pride. The king could respond by saying, “Thanks for the offer, but I don’t need the money; I also don’t think this is an appropriate response.” But the king has already shown that he is easily manipulated (in Chapters 1 and 2). Thus, the response:

So the king took his signet ring from his finger and gave it to Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of the Jews. “Keep the money,” the king said to Haman, “and do with the people as you please.”– Esther 3:10-11 NIV

I love how the HST puts it:

The king agreed with the plan and gave his signet ring to Haman, an Edomite who hated the Jewish people. “You can do as you please,” said the king. “But keep your money; I don’t need your help. I’m the king!” – Esther 3:10-11 HSP

The king fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. I should also mention that some commentaries point out that the word for “destruction” that Haman uses when talking to the king is vague and doesn’t necessarily mean physical killing. The king may have thought Haman meant like exile or loss of freedom. In any case, he doesn’t much care about the details; this king is the opposite of a micromanager.

Then on the thirteenth day of the first month the royal secretaries were summoned. They wrote out in the script of each province and in the language of each people all Haman’s orders to the king’s satraps, the governors of the various provinces and the nobles of the various peoples. These were written in the name of King Xerxes himself and sealed with his own ring. Dispatches were sent by couriers to all the king’s provinces with the order to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews—young and old, women and children—on a single day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar, and to plunder their goods. A copy of the text of the edict was to be issued as law in every province and made known to the people of every nationality so they would be ready for that day. –Esther 3:12-14 NIV

Haman summoned the king’s lawyers to draft a royal edict. Copies were sealed with the king’s own ring and sent to officials in all the provinces of Persia. The edict gave orders to destroy, kill, and plunder every single Jew, even old ladies and newborn babies, on the 13th day of Adar. This was decreed throughout the entire empire. – Esther 3:12-14 HSP

It may seem odd to announce in advance what you are going to do and when you are going to do it (in contrast to Order 66 in Star Wars). But this was necessary if it was to be carried out.

The couriers went out, spurred on by the king’s command, and the edict was issued in the citadel of Susa. The king and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of Susa was bewildered. – Esther 3:15 NIV

Haman drank with the king to celebrate his sweet revenge. Haman assumed his decree would vindicate Mordecai’s insult and reassert his honor in the community. However, the decree sent Susa into chaos and turmoil. – Esther 3:15 HSP

I hate to leave you hanging until next week; what will happen to the Jewish people? What will happen to Mordecai? Will Esther’s connection to the Jewish people be found out? Is there any hope for the people? These will have to wait until next week (or you could just read the rest of the book).