Esther 3: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

King Ahasuerus promotes Haman above all his officials and orders everyone to bow to him, but Mordecai refuses, and when Haman learns Mordecai is a Jew he decides to destroy all the Jews in the empire. A lot is cast to pick the day, and it falls on the twelfth month, Adar. Haman describes the Jews to the king as a scattered people with different laws who do not obey him, and offers silver for permission to have them wiped out. The king gives Haman his signet ring, letters go out to every province ordering the killing of all Jews on one day, and while the king and Haman sit down to drink, the city of Shushan is thrown into confusion.

Claim by Claim

1. 3:1
   • After these events King Ahasuerus promoted Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite.
   • The king advanced Haman to high rank.
   • The king set Haman's seat above all the officials who were with him.
2. 3:2
   • All the king's servants who were in the king's gate knelt down and prostrated themselves to Haman.
   • They did so because the king had commanded that this be done for Haman.
   • Mordecai would not kneel to Haman.
   • Mordecai would not prostrate himself to Haman.
3. 3:3
   • The king's servants who were in the king's gate spoke to Mordecai.
   • They asked Mordecai why he was transgressing the king's command.
4. 3:4
   • They spoke to Mordecai day after day.
   • Mordecai did not listen to them.
   • They reported the matter to Haman.
   • They reported it to see whether Mordecai's words would stand.
   • Mordecai had told them that he was a Jew.
5. 3:5
   • Haman saw that Mordecai would not kneel to him.
   • Haman saw that Mordecai would not prostrate himself to him.
   • Haman was filled with rage.
6. 3:6
   • Haman considered it beneath him to lay a hand on Mordecai alone.
   • Haman had been told who Mordecai's people were.
   • Haman sought to destroy all the Jews in the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus.
   • The Jews were Mordecai's people.
7. 3:7
   • This took place in the first month, which is the month Nisan.
   • This took place in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus.
   • The Pur, that is, the lot, was cast before Haman.
   • The lot was cast from day to day and from month to month.
   • The casting arrived at the twelfth month, which is the month Adar.
8. 3:8
   • Haman spoke to King Ahasuerus.
   • Haman said there was a certain people scattered and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of the king's kingdom.
   • Haman said their laws were different from those of every other people.
   • Haman said they did not keep the king's laws.
   • Haman said it was not worthwhile for the king to leave them alone.
9. 3:9
   • Haman said that if it seemed good to the king, an order should be written to destroy them.
   • Haman said he would weigh out ten thousand talents of silver into the hands of those who carry out the work.
   • Haman said the silver was to be brought into the king's treasuries.
10. 3:10
    • The king removed his signet ring from his hand.
    • The king gave the ring to Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite.
    • Haman was the enemy of the Jews.
11. 3:11
    • The king said to Haman that the silver was given to him.
    • The king said the people were given to Haman as well.
    • The king told Haman to do with them as seemed good in his eyes.
12. 3:12
    • The king's scribes were summoned in the first month, on the thirteenth day of that month.
    • An order was written according to all that Haman commanded.
    • The order was addressed to the king's satraps.
    • The order was addressed to the governors over each province.
    • The order was addressed to the officials of each people.
    • The order was written to each province in its own script.
    • The order was written to each people in its own language.
    • The order was written in the name of King Ahasuerus.
    • The order was sealed with the king's signet ring.
13. 3:13
    • Letters were sent by runners to all the king's provinces.
    • The letters ordered that all the Jews be destroyed, killed, and made to perish.
    • The order covered young and old, children and women.
    • The killing was to happen on a single day.
    • That day was the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar.
    • The order permitted plundering their goods as spoil.
14. 3:14
    • A copy of the writing was to be issued as a decree in every province.
    • The decree was made public to all the peoples.
    • The purpose was that they be ready for that day.
15. 3:15
    • The runners went out, urged on by the king's word.
    • The decree was issued in the citadel of Susa.
    • The king and Haman sat down to drink.
    • The city of Susa was thrown into confusion.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

3:1

"Ahasuerus" is the Hebrew form of the Persian royal name Khshayarsha, which comes into English through Greek as Xerxes; the king is generally identified as Xerxes I, who ruled the Persian empire from 486 to 465 BC. "Agagite" identifies Haman's ancestry: Agag was the king of the Amalekites whom Saul spared and Samuel killed (1 Samuel 15), and the Amalekites were remembered as Israel's oldest enemies. Since Mordecai is introduced in chapter 2 as a descendant of Kish, Saul's father, the two men's family labels set an ancient feud behind the quarrel. The "seat above all the princes" is a literal matter of rank and precedence at court, where where you sat showed your standing.

3:2

The homage in question is the Persian court practice of prostration, kneeling and bowing to the ground before a superior. "The king's gate" was not just a doorway but the gatehouse complex of the palace, the place where royal business was transacted; men "in the king's gate" held official positions there, so Mordecai is a court official refusing an order in public view. The text never says why he refuses.

3:3

In Persia people bowed all the way to the ground before great men. The King James word "reverenced" means exactly that: a deep bow that honored someone.

3:4

"Whether Mordecai's matters would stand" means whether his conduct, and the reason he gave for it, would be allowed to pass. He had told them he was a Jew, and they report this along with the refusal, apparently to see whether that answer would be accepted as an excuse.

3:6

"Thought scorn to lay hands on" is 1611 English for considering something beneath him: killing one man alone seemed too small a response.

3:7

"Pur" is a foreign word the book itself glosses for its readers as "the lot", a marked object thrown to settle a question by chance, a common way in the ancient Near East of letting a decision fall outside human hands. The festival of Purim, described later in the book, takes its name from this word. Nisan is the first month of the Babylonian-Jewish calendar, falling in March–April; Adar is the twelfth, in February–March. The twelfth year of Xerxes is about 474 BC. Because the lot falls on the last month of the year, the date chosen leaves nearly eleven months before the killing is to take place.

3:8

The word translated "laws" is used in this book both for royal decrees and for a people's own customs and religious practice, so Haman's charge slides between the two: their customs are unlike everyone else's, therefore (he claims) they do not obey the king. He never names the people to the king.

3:9

A talent was a unit of weight, roughly 75 pounds (about 34 kilograms) of silver. Ten thousand talents is therefore something like 340 tons, a figure meant to sound staggering. The Greek historian Herodotus put the annual tribute of the whole Persian empire at about 14,500 talents, so Haman is offering a sum in the region of two-thirds of a year's imperial income.

3:10

A signet ring carried the king's personal seal; pressing it into wax or clay authenticated a document as the king's own act. Handing it over transfers the power to issue binding orders in the king's name, which is why this gesture matters more than any spoken permission.

3:11

The king's reply is genuinely ambiguous in the Hebrew and has been read two ways: either "keep your silver" (a refusal of the payment) or "the silver is granted to you" (permission to use it as he proposed). The rendering keeps the ambiguity of the original.

3:12

"Satraps" were the governors of the great provinces of the Persian empire, the highest regional officials, with lesser governors and local officials under them. The empire ran on written orders copied out by professional scribes into the many scripts and languages of its subject peoples; that multilingual bureaucracy is what is being described here.

3:13

"Posts" are couriers. The Persian empire maintained a relay system of mounted messengers along its royal roads, famous in the ancient world for its speed. "To take the spoil of them for a prey" means the victims' property is offered to the killers as plunder, an incentive written into the order.

3:14

The written order is to be published as law in each province in advance, so that the population knows the date and is prepared to act on it.

3:15

"Shushan the palace" is the fortified citadel of Susa, the raised royal compound, distinct from the ordinary city below it, which is named separately at the end of the verse. "Perplexed" in 1611 English means thrown into confusion or agitation, not merely puzzled. The contrast is deliberate: the two men who issued the order sit down to drink while the city around them reels.