Esther 3
Hello!
Welcome back to our series of Esther! If you are new here, I recommend you going back and reading Esther 1 and Esther 2. We are now in Esther 3! If you haven’t read it yet, you can read it here (Esther 3).
Theme: We should have trust and hope in God’s hidden hand to bring good and defeat evil, even when His acts are not immediately apparent.
Key Point: Remember that God is not mentioned in the Book of Esther, but we do see God’s hand working through out the story.
Recap: When King Xerxes sent out for all the young beautiful virgins, Hadassah was one of them. Mordecai who is Hadassah’s cousin, took Hadassah in when she was young. He told her to change her name to Esther due to Hadassah being a Jewish name. Mordecai walked by the palace daily to check in all Esther. When the night came, King Xerxes picked Esther has his new Queen. After Esther became Queen, she was able to get Mordecai a job at the front gate of the palace.
Esther 3 starts off with King Xerxes promoting Haman over all the other nobles, making him the most powerful official of the empire. Haman is the son of Hammedatha who is an Agagite. To give you some background of the Agagites, back in 1 Samuel 15 you have King Saul. King Saul was commended by the Lord to kill all the Aagites. King Saul took King Agag as captive and spared some of the animals. When this happened, Samuel (the prophet) went to King Saul and made King Saul step down has King. Then Samuel stepped in and killed King Agag. During the time that King Saul was commanded to kill all the Agagites, some of them escaped (1 Samuel 27). In the first verse of Esther 3, it states that Haman is an Agagite. This just shows how far reaching the impacts of disobedience can be.
Since Haman was promoted, all the officials at the King’s gate knelt down to show honor to Haman. In Esther 2, we know that Queen Esther gave Mordecai a job at the king’s gate. So, Mordecai is there at the gate when Haman comes and he refuses to kneel down. Day after day, Mordecai still refuses and was asked by many officials why he is disobeying the king’s command. In that same verse, it states the Mordecai had told the Officials that he was a Jew and that is why he was not kneeling down. I find this interesting because this is the very thing that he instructed Esther not to do. I also find it interesting that Haman did not notice Mordecai not kneeling down. It took his officials telling him. From the Enduring Word Commentary, they stated “Haman was an extremely proud and insecure man; he could only consider himself a success if everyone else thought he was a success.”
Haman became enraged because he found out that someone wasn’t kneeling down to him and it so happened to be a Jewish man. Going back to chapter 1, King Xerxes was also filled with rage because someone disobeyed him for something so silly. Going back to the history of Haman, knowing that a Jewish man was the reason that his ancestors were killed. You can see the hatred already there for Haman for Mordecai since now he has now came out stating he is a Jew. Haman thought it wasn’t good enough to just deal with Mordecai, he wanted to go after the entire Jewish body. You can see the evil in Haman during this part. We already know that he is an ungodly man.
In verse 7, it sates its the twelfth year of King Xerxes. This is now 5 years after Esther became Queen. Then verse 7 goes on to say during the first month (Nisan). The Nisan was the the celebration of the Passover. So while the Jews were celebrating, Haman was plotting the mass destruction. In the Enduring Word Commentary, I was reading about verse 7 about “the pur was cast in the presence of Haman”. Pur is the Persian word for lot which is like a dice. So Haman would throw dice around to determine when he was going to execute his plan for the mass destruction of the Jews. The Pur determined that it would be done on the 12th month. So we have 11 months until Haman’s plan is executed.
Haman went to King Xerxes with his plan but decided to be very vague and being deceptive about the details. Haman tells the king that there is a group of people who are amongst your provinces who have their own law and it doesn’t really match the king’s law. Haman then tells King Xerxes that it is not in his best interest to tolerate this. He did not share how many people and who these people were. So, Haman tells the king a summary of his plan and tries to bribe him into agreeing with him. King Xerxes didn’t really seek more information he trusted Haman and gave him his Signet ring. You can see throughout the 3 chapters so far that King Xerxes is easily influenced by the people around him.
The Signet ring is a ring that seals official documents. So, Haman now has this ring and has the power. Haman now created the decree and seals it with the Signet ring. He gives it to the couriers to send out into the nations to get the information out there. Since he only has 11 months to get this plan in place, he had to rush to get the information out. Ending Chapter 3, it states “The king and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of Susa was confused.” I think that is really interesting that the king felt like he did well even though he does not know the full extent of the plan. Haman is also feeling like he did well knowing fully what he has planned. The city of Susa rightfully so, is confused. The Jews have been living amongst them and have been good genuine people.
I am so excited that we are going through the Book of Esther. I am excited to find out what happens next! Stay toned for next week to read Chapter 4! If you have any comments or questions, feel free to reach out so we can go through it together! Be praying for what you can learn from the Book of Esther. I hope you all have a wonderful week!
Created for a purpose.