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 for each day and for each month, to the twelfth [month], that is, the month Adar.
Haman wanted a whole nation dead, not just the one man who would not bow to him. He needed a date first — and the lots thrown before him landed on the last month of the year, eleven months away.
The verse dates the scene in the first month of the Jewish year. That month carried two names, and it marked Israel's rescue out of slavery.
The rescue out of slavery makes a new beginning. The past is left behind and blotted out. This is a picture of the new birth of a person. The month which marks this new beginning is Abib, the "green ear" month, because the grain was then in the ear. After the captivity it was called Nisan (Nehemiah 2:1; Esther 3:7). It is our April.
Throwing lots was not a game here. Day by day and month by month, it was Haman's way of asking a power outside himself to name the best month for murder.
And now Haman waits on his unseen master, the devil. He wanted to find out the month which would be best suited for the execution of his wicked plot. Fortune-telling, contacting spirits and asking the dead flourished among the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Persians and every other pagan nation. So did reading the future from the flight of birds or from the liver of a killed animal. So did forecasters and astrologers. Behind it all is the Devil and his fallen angels. And these things are still practised... right among people who call themselves Christians.
Of the twelve months the lot could have chosen, it chose the last one. One writer asks why.
Vashti had rebelled in the third year of Ahasuerus' reign. Esther became the king's wife in the seventh year. The lot is cast at the beginning of the twelfth year of his reign, and it points to the twelfth month for the massacre of the Jews. Why not the third or the fourth month, to take away any chance of escape from the oppressed people? Is it not once again hidden Providence which directs everything as always? What can the "oppressor of the Jews" do in the face of the secret counsels of Providence? He must obey the lot he has consulted, and right there his rapid course to death and judgment begins.
The lot only fixed a date. What Haman wanted went far past one man.
He must have the blood of all the Jews. The life of the one man who refused to bow to him will not satisfy his heart. He must have the lives of the whole nation... The Amalekite and his company cast the lot, the Pur, only to fix the day for carrying out this act of extermination. But, as we know, the lot may be "cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD" (Proverbs 16:33). And so it was here. Eleven long months are given: from the day the lot was cast to the day the lot fixed for the slaughter of the nation. They are given so that God would ripen His purposes towards both His people and their adversaries.
No one could change or cancel a Persian decree. The only answer was a second decree, and that needed time — which the lot had just handed over.
So the enemy turned to casting lots for a day that suited his murderous plan. In the end, divine providence saw to it that the day was put off for a long time. Since no change or cancelling of the decree was possible, that delay left room for a fresh decree, letting the Jews stand in self-defence and destroy their enemies. At first no outcome looked more unlikely. In the end Satan defeated himself, as he always does.
The word left behind in this verse became the name of a yearly celebration.
A feast, meaning 'lot or lots.' Haman cast lots to find a favourable day for the destruction of the Jews. When that danger was turned aside, a yearly feast marked their deliverance. Esther 3:7; Esther 9:24-32. It fell on the 14th and 15th of Adar... The Jews still keep the feast. They read the Book of Esther, they curse Haman and his wife, and they bless Mordecai and Harbonah.
- Pur. The word means "lot." Haman threw lots to pick a favourable day, and that pagan word ends up naming Israel's feast of rescue.
- Fate. Haman went to the lot the way others go to a spirit. Writers see the devil behind such practices, and they warn that these things go on today.
- Delay. The lot named the twelfth month, not the third. That left eleven months for God to ripen His purposes toward both His people and their enemies.
- Reversal. No one could revoke a Persian decree. Only that long gap left room for a second one, so the enemy's own ritual set the trap he fell into.
- Feast. Haman meant to set the date of a massacre. He set the date of a celebration instead — the lot fell where the LORD decided.
And Haman said to king Ahasuerus, There is a people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of thy kingdom; and their laws are diverse from [those of] every people, and they keep not the king's laws; and it is not for the king's profit to suffer them.
Haman has the king's ear, and he uses it to ask the king to destroy a whole people — without ever saying who they are. He makes three claims: they are scattered everywhere, their laws differ from everyone else's, and the crown gains nothing by keeping them.
The reason Haman gave the king was not the reason Haman had. Notice what the story tells us openly, and what it keeps in the dark.
There was the secret. God does not appear. There is no intimation in the history that God had spoken about Haman! Yet here was the secret reason; but the only public reason that appears is that Mordecai was a Jew.
Haman chose his words with care. He builds the charge in stages, and he leaves out the name of the people. (The commentator below calls Ahasuerus by his other name, Xerxes.)
He tells the king about a certain people who live in his kingdom. He avoids mentioning their name. If he had named them, the plot would not have succeeded. Xerxes must have known the famous history of the Jews well. He also knew that ever since Cyrus, the policy of the Persian Empire had been to protect the Jews. Haman's accusation is twofold. First: their laws are different from those of every people. Second: they do not keep the king's laws. And then the verdict: it is not for the king's profit to tolerate them. They were a separate people, following their God-given law. It was this religious side that stirred up Satan's hatred. Through Haman he now urges the murder of the whole race.
Part of Haman's charge was true. The Jews were scattered through the provinces, and they did live by a different law. But one writer looks past the charge to why such a people draw hatred at all, and to how the plot ended.
At the start, everything pointed the other way; in the end Satan defeated himself, as he always does. Haman's plea to the king was plausible. God's people are always an offence to the rest of mankind, simply because they are His. The proud and boastful feel it most. This stays true even when their own unfaithfulness costs them His open favour, and that is exactly what had happened.
Haman pointed at the Jews as a people scattered among the provinces. Scripture uses that same description of Israel, and it reaches into the New Testament.
The term is applied to the nation of Israel, now scattered throughout the world (Esther 3:8). The letters of James and 1 Peter were written especially to believers among them.
Haman's complaint has a shape: these people live by different customs, so they are a danger to the state. One writer ties it to the charge later brought against Paul and Silas at Philippi.
He tells the king that a people is scattered through his realm, and that it is not to his profit to let them live, because their customs are different from all other people. That was the secret of the world's hatred then, and it still is (see Acts 16:20-21).
Acts records the wording: "These men are Jews, and they are disturbing our city. They advocate customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to accept or practice" (Acts 16:20-21, ESV).
The book of Esther never names God, and Haman never names the Jews. But behind the minister stood something more than personal spite.
The enemy always watched for any circumstance that might serve his ends. He used men as his instruments to defeat God's purpose of salvation. Ahasuerus was the tool of Haman. Haman was the tool of Satan. And God allowed it all, so that He might triumph in delivering His people. What a scene to consider! Man shows blindness and spite. The enemy shows malice and craft. God shows fixed purpose and grace. All this comes out to us in the book of Esther.
- Name hidden. Haman never says "the Jews." He left the name out on purpose. The king knew their history, and Persia had protected them since Cyrus.
- Motive hidden. The king heard one reason: this people keeps its own laws. Haman's real reason stayed secret, and the record never states it.
- Half true. Part of the charge was accurate. They were scattered, and their law was different. But God's people offend the world because they are His. That stays true even when their own unfaithfulness has cost them His open favour.
- Charge repeated. "Their customs are different" was the secret of the world's hatred then, and it still is. The same charge met Paul and Silas at Philippi.
- God hidden. Ahasuerus was Haman's tool. Haman was Satan's. God allowed it all, so that He might triumph in delivering His people. His name never appears in the book; His hand does.
If it please the king, let it be written that they may be destroyed, and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver into the hands of those that have charge of the affairs, to bring [it] into the king's treasuries.
Haman has just asked the king to wipe out a whole people, and now he names his price in silver. Why would a man who already had the king's ear offer to pay at all?
Haman knew what a king would ask first. Killing a whole people costs the treasury money. His silver answered that, and did more besides.
Haman, like his dark master, Satan, was cunning enough to anticipate an objection from the king's side. Would the kingdom not lose money if a whole people were wiped out? To remove this financial concern he offers to pay 10,000 talents of silver (about 20 million dollars) for the slaughter of the Jews he wants. With it he tempted the greed of the king. At the same time he flattered the king's pride. He implied that it must be a small thing for him to lose a whole people worth only 10,000 talents. And Haman probably calculated this too: the bigger the sum he offered, the more flattering it would feel to the king to wave it away.
Why would such a plea work at all? The offence was not what these people had done. It was whose they were.
Haman's plea to the king was plausible. God's people, just because they are His, are always an offence to the rest of mankind, and especially to the proud and boastful. This stays true even when their own unfaithfulness costs them His open favour, as was in fact the case… So Haman proposes their destruction, offering a round sum for the treasury in return.
A man willing to pay out of his own pocket has a private motive. The king missed that evidence, though he had taken advice over a much smaller matter.
Surely the king ought to have realised that Haman had a personal axe to grind. Haman would pay this great amount himself to have this people destroyed. But the king had great confidence in this scheming Amalekite. Haman cared far more for his own reputation than for the Persian kingdom… Strangely, the king had consulted his princes about what to do with Queen Vashti (ch. 1:13-15). In this far more serious case he acted like a dictator!
Grant calls Haman an Amalekite. That name goes back to an old feud.
He was called "the Agagite," which linked him with the Amalekites, a people who had attacked Israel out of pure malice. God had pronounced unending war against them. That is why Mordecai refused to honour Haman. The refusal so wounded Haman's pride and stirred his anger that he plotted to destroy not only Mordecai but every Jew in the king's lands.
The king never took the money. He waved it away and handed over the people instead.
Haman proposes to enrich the king through this destruction… Ahasuerus refuses the silver. He hands the people over to Haman, "to do with them as seems good to him." What indifference, what a hardened heart we find in this king! The name of Israel has no meaning for him. One of his favourites, a wicked man, matters more to him than the life of a whole nation — and a ruler ought to care for his people!
Haman had bought his decree. He had not counted on the God who was watching.
His offer of the immense sum of 10,000 talents of silver ought to have shown the king that he had some sinister end in view… But God was watching over all. On that very night He caused the king to remember what Mordecai had done for him… So God watched over His people in their captivity and made the scheme of their enemy fall on his own head.
Haman is not the first man of his kind.
The Agagite now stands out as the representative of the great enemy, the proud rebel who stands against God, His people and His purposes. There has been such a man in every age… Pharaoh, in Egypt; Amalek, in the wilderness; Haman, here in the day of the dispersion; and Herod, in the New Testament. Self-exaltation, godless pride, and defiance of the fear of God, along with deep-rooted hatred of His people, are some or all of the marks on each of them.
- Bought. Haman offers 10,000 talents to buy a written decree — money aimed at the king's greed and his pride at once.
- Plausible. A separate people always offends the proud. The payment made the murder look like profit.
- Exposed. A man paying his own silver for state policy has a private grudge. It went back to an old feud, and the king should have seen it.
- Waived. The king refused the silver and handed over the people instead. He valued neither.
- Overruled. The scheme fell on the buyer's own head. God was watching all along.
And the king took his ring from his hand, and gave it to Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the Jews' enemy.
The king's signet ring changes hands here, and with it the power to turn one man's hatred into law. Scripture pauses to give the man who receives it a title: the enemy of the Jews. Behind that title lies a feud far older than the Persian court.
A ring in that court was not jewellery. It was a working tool of government, and the king hands it to Haman.
Then the king gave him his ring. It was a ring to seal a document. Every ring had a seal. Handing over the king's ring with its seal handed over royal authority and power to the man who received it. So Haman now held royal authority. The haughtiness of the king appears now. Not only does he turn over his signet ring, but he also makes Haman a present of the enormous sum he had offered to the king. In cold blood Xerxes gives over this unknown people into the hands of this wicked enemy.
The verse names Haman's family, and that name carries a history. Agag was the royal line of Amalek, a nation under a standing sentence from God.
Haman was the son of Hammedatha the Agagite. Josephus explains his foreign name by calling him an Amalekite by race, and Jewish tradition says the same. So Haman was an Amalekite. This explains why Mordecai refused to bow down before Haman. He belonged to the race the Lord had sworn to fight for ever, and which He told Saul to destroy completely. Ex. 17:16; Deut. 25:19; 1 Sam. 15:3.
One writer sees a long campaign behind Amalek. It runs from the desert years to Haman, and on to Bethlehem, with the same hidden aim throughout.
Without Moses' prayer on the mountain and without Joshua, he would have destroyed the people. David defeated him at last, yet even then he did not treat the fight as finished. Now the people are captive. Their unfaithfulness has brought them to the lowest point of humiliation. So Satan stirs up Haman the Agagite to wipe out the weak remnant of this people. And let us not forget his hidden purpose: to take Israel away from Christ, the king God had planned and promised. Could there be a more deceitful plan, a more satanic one, than that? This book teaches us that Satan is frustrated in his efforts, yet he does not consider himself beaten. He attacks Israel's very Leader, Christ. At His birth he tries to kill Him through a new Agag, in the massacre at Bethlehem.
The king hands over the ring without one question about the people he is condemning. He also misses what his adviser stood to gain.
The king ought to have realised that Haman had a personal axe to grind. Haman was ready to pay this huge sum out of his own pocket to have this people destroyed. But the king placed great confidence in this scheming Amalekite. Haman cared far more for his own reputation than for the Persian kingdom. The king therefore agreed, and gave Haman liberty to do just as he desired (vv. 10-11). It seems strange that the king consulted his princes about what to do with Queen Vashti (ch. 1:13-15). Yet in this far more serious case he acted like a dictator!
Why did this hatred settle on this people? One writer names the reason underneath it, and the way such plots end.
Haman's plea to the king sounded plausible. God's people, just because they are His, are always an offence to the rest of mankind, and most of all to the proud and boastful. This stays true even when their own unfaithfulness has cost them His open favour, as it had here… At first, that ending looked the least likely of all; in the end Satan, as always, defeated himself.
The title given to Haman here follows him through the rest of the book. But the decree he seals with this ring does not get the last word.
Haman accuses the Jewish people before the king, and this verse names him "the enemy of the Jews" (v. 10; cf. 8:1; 9:10, 24). All of it matters for what we learn about Satan and his agents (cf. Rev. 12:4, 10). A royal decree then makes his plan law: every Jew must die (v. 12-15)… How good to know that the king later passes a second decree which overturns the first. That second decree turns a sentence of death into life and peace.
- The ring — the signet stamped documents and made them law. Giving it away gave away royal authority, and Haman now acts with the king's own power.
- The hand that takes it — Haman is an Agagite, from Amalek's royal line. God had sworn lasting war on that nation, and the old feud is why Mordecai would not bow.
- The hand that gives it — a king who asked nothing and checked nothing, and made a gift of the silver too. He took advice about his queen, but not about the life of a whole nation.
- The hatred underneath — God's people offend the proud just because they are His. That stays true even when their unfaithfulness has cost them His open favour.
- The reversal — the king later issues a second decree that overturns the first. The sentence of death becomes life and peace.
And the king said to Haman, The silver is given to thee, the people also, to do with them as seems good to thee.
The king's answer costs him nothing: he gives away his ring, waves off the money, and hands a whole people to a man who hates them. Everything that follows in the book flows from this careless moment.
The ring was not a personal keepsake. It stamped the empire's decisions as genuine, so handing it over handed over the power itself.
Then the king gave him his ring. It was a ring for sealing a document. Every ring had a seal. Handing over the royal ring with the royal seal meant handing over royal authority and power to the person who received it. Haman was therefore invested with royal authority. The haughtiness of the king now appears. Not only does he hand over his signet ring, but he also makes Haman a present of the enormous sum he had offered to the king. In cold blood Xerxes gives this unknown people over into the hands of this wicked enemy.
Refusing Haman's money may look like restraint. It shows something else: the people meant so little to him that he did not even want paying for them.
Ahasuerus refuses the silver and hands the people over to Haman, "to do with them as it seems good to [him]." What indifference, what a hardened heart we find in this king! The name of Israel has no significance for him. "Do with them as it seems good to you," he says — in other words, do evil and face no punishment!
One writer notes that the offer itself should have made the king suspicious.
Surely the king ought to have realised that Haman had a personal axe to grind. He was ready to pay this huge amount himself to have this people destroyed. But the king clearly had great confidence in this scheming Amalekite, who cared far more for his own reputation than for the Persian kingdom. So the king agreed, and gave Haman freedom to do just as he wanted. It seems strange that the king would consult with the princes about what to do with Vashti, but that here, in a far more serious case, he would act like a dictator!
Commentators see more here than one man's grudge. One writer points to the power behind Haman, and to a hatred that had no cause at all.
Satan stirred up the Amalekite to a hatred that wanted God's fallen people wiped out. But He who loved them despite everything would give that hatred the punishment it deserved. It began without cause, against the very people He had openly favoured.
Haman now acts, but never in his own name. That makes his private revenge look like the king's own policy — and one writer sees the same pattern returning at the end.
Haman writes "in the name of king Ahasuerus," and appears to act as his humble servant in matters the king himself has decided and decreed. Similar circumstances will come round again at the time of the end. The Antichrist will make himself the servant of the Roman Beast (Rev. 13:14-16) to carry out his own plans. Haman's satanic scheme begins with the pride and ambition of this man. He would rather crush everything under his feet than see it all subject to Christ.
Nothing in this chapter looks hopeful. Yet the plot carried its own defeat inside it.
Divine providence delayed the outcome long enough to allow a fresh decree. The first one could not be changed or cancelled. The new decree let the Jews defend themselves and destroy their enemies. But at first no outcome looked less likely; in the end Satan, as always, defeated himself. Haman's argument to the king was plausible. God's people are always an offence to the rest of mankind, just because they are His. The proud and boastful hate them most. This stays true even when their own unfaithfulness costs them His open favour, which is what had happened here.
The whole nation is now under a legal death sentence. One writer draws out what the two decrees picture together.
Haman accuses the Jewish people before the king, and the book exposes him as "the Jews' enemy"... A royal decree then makes his plan law: all Jews must die. This pictures a divine death sentence on the Jewish nation. How good to know that — as we will see — the king later passes a second decree which overturns the first. The sentence of death turns into life and peace.
- Ring — the seal was royal authority itself. Giving it away turned Haman's private hatred into law.
- Indifference — the king refused the money because a whole people cost him nothing to give away.
- Enmity — behind Haman stands Satan, stirring a hatred with no cause against the people God had openly favoured.
- Borrowed name — Haman never acts as himself. He signs in the king's name, a pattern one writer expects to see again at the end.
- Reversal — the scheme defeated itself. A second decree turned the sentence of death into life and peace.