Esther 3
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CHAPTER 3
Haman’s Plot to Destroy the Jews (3:1–15)
1–4 Some years after Esther became queen, King Xerxes promoted a man named Haman to the post of chief official for the entire kingdom. So high was this post that the king himself commanded that all his other officials should kneel down before Haman (verse 2). However, Esther’s cousin, the Jew Mordecai, refused to kneel down before him.9
5–7 Haman was enraged by Mordecai’s refusal to honor him; therefore he determined to punish Mordecai. But after learning that Mordecai was a Jew, Haman decided to destroy all of his people as well (verse 6).
Haman planned to destroy all the Jews throughout Xerxes’ kingdom on a single day, and he and his advisors selected that day by casting the lot.10 The day chosen was eleven months away; this would give Haman plenty of time to make preparations for the killing of the Jews. It would also give time for the Lord to carry out His plan to save them. Once again we see the Lord’s hand in every circumstance; it is He alone who controls the lot (Proverbs 16:33), and it was He alone who would determine the fate of the Jews.
8–11 After the day of massacre was set, Haman went and revealed his plan to King Xerxes. Without mentioning the Jews by name, Haman told Xerxes that there were certain people in his kingdom who had their own customs (true) and who did not obey the king (false). Haman urged the king to issue a decree to destroy them. To persuade the king to agree, Haman offered to provide almost four hundred tons of silver out of his own private fortune to pay the men who would carry out the killings (verse 9); thus Xerxes would have to pay nothing out of the royal treasury. Haman presumably figured he would regain the money from the plunder he anticipated seizing from the Jews.
The king expressed no interest in using Haman’s money (verse 11). Instead, he gave Haman his signet ring (verse 10), by means of which Haman could claim the king’s authority for all his actions.11 By giving Haman authority to go ahead with his plan to annihilate the Jews, Xerxes was unknowingly placing his own queen under the sentence of death.
12–15 Haman then set about putting his plan into effect. He made copies of the edict ordering the Jews’ destruction and sent them throughout the kingdom, sealing them with the king’s own ring. Then Haman and the king sat down and had a drink together. But the citizens of Susa, among whom were many Jews, were bewildered (verse 15).