Therefore they called these days Purim, after the term Pur. Therefore, because of all that was written in this letter, and of what they had faced in this matter, and of what had happened to them,
The verse looks back and explains a name. The Jews called their two days of feasting Purim, after "Pur" — the lot Haman cast when he picked a date to wipe out the Jews. It also ties the yearly feast to three things: a letter, what the people had faced, and what had happened to them.
A Name Taken From the Enemy's Lot
The name comes straight from "Pur," the lot Haman cast. It fixes the feast to the very moment his plot began.
Morrish Bible DictionaryA feast, meaning 'lot or lots.' Haman cast lots to find a favourable day for the destruction of the Jews. When that danger passed, the Jews kept a yearly feast to remember their deliverance. Esther 3:7; Esther 9:24-32. It fell on the 14th and 15th of Adar.
So the Jews named their rescue after the lot that was meant to destroy them.
The Lot That Bought Them Time
Naming the feast after Pur only makes sense if the lot itself was not random. Commentators point to the delay the lot produced. That gap is where the whole rescue happened.
Morrish Bible DictionaryGod overruled among His people how the lot should fall... He could also direct it among the nations to work out His own purposes, as He did in the case of Haman. The result delayed his plan for so long that Esther had time to act. New decrees could go out all over the kingdom, so that the Jews might be saved from destruction. Esther 3:7; Esther 9:24.
What Haman read as a lucky day, the Jews traced to the Lord.
Leslie M. GrantVery likely the Jews were familiar with Solomon's proverb, "The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord" (Proverbs 16:33). Haman had expected demonic power to back him up. But no doubt the Jews recognised that the Lord had intervened with His own clear decision. Yet, even though the Jews surely did recognise the Lord's hand here, God did not allow His name to be even mentioned publicly.
A Feast for a God Who Is Never Named
The book of Esther never mentions God, and the founding of Purim does not break the silence either. Writers see that silence as deliberate.
William KellyIn the book of Esther we have no more than the witness of secret providence in the face of the most extreme dangers. It looks on to that grand public outcome. Meanwhile it produces a striking and lasting ordinance of Him who delivers though unseen.
Kept Because of a Letter They Obeyed
The verse grounds the feast in what "was written in this letter" — Mordecai's instruction to the Jews.
H. L. RossierIt is Mordecai who, like the future Messiah, orders joy and rest. The Jews submit themselves to the written word of a man who had been unknown and ignored by all, including themselves. God had now exalted him in the sight of everyone.
The verse gives two more reasons: what they had faced, and what had happened to them. Word and experience agree.
A Memorial Meant Never to Fade
Purim is the only feast this book records, and it reaches far beyond its own day.
H. L. RossierThe memory of these days lives on from age to age. This book mentions only one feast, the feast of Purim: a new feast which will last for ever in memory of the deliverance of God's earthly people. Esther and Mordecai are in perfect harmony with the people; what Esther and Mordecai establish, the people establish for themselves... This account ends by leading us to the dawn of the glorious time that follows deliverance, and it leads us prophetically to the threshold of the millennial reign of Christ.
Readers sometimes ask whether this feast turns up again later in the Bible.
Morrish Bible DictionaryThe New Testament never mentions this feast by name. Some suppose John 5:1 refers to it, but there is no hint of that, and such a feast did not call the Lord to go to Jerusalem.
How a Holy Feast Can Be Spoiled
A memorial can survive for centuries and still lose its point. Later Jewish tradition shows how.
William KellyThe Talmud lays down that at the feast of Purim a man should drink until he cannot tell the difference between "Blessed be Mordecai" and "Cursed be Haman." "Stop regarding man in whose nostrils is breath, for of what account is he?" Judaism, and Christendom where Christ is ignored, both sink into the driest ditch of paganism. Both dare to approve a wild carnival where there had once been a holy feast.
Summary
- Pur — the feast carries the name of the enemy's lot, so each year the rescue recalls the plot that failed.
- Overruled — God directed how the lot fell. The delay it created gave Esther and the new decrees time to work.
- Unnamed — God is never mentioned, in the book or in the feast; Purim stands as a lasting ordinance of the One who delivers unseen.
- Written — the Jews kept the days because of a letter, what they had faced, and what had happened to them; word and experience together.
- Guarded — a feast can outlive its meaning. Drinking until Mordecai and Haman sound alike turns a holy day into a carnival.