Esther 3:5-13

5 When Haman saw that Mordecai would not kneel down or pay him honor, he was enraged.

6 Yet having learned who Mordecai’s people were, he scorned the idea of killing only Mordecai. Instead Haman looked for a way to destroy all Mordecai’s people, the Jews, throughout the whole kingdom of Xerxes.

7 In the twelfth year of King Xerxes, in the first month, the month of Nisan, the pur (that is, the lot) was cast in the presence of Haman to select a day and month. And the lot fell on^[a] the twelfth month, the month of Adar.

8 Then Haman said to King Xerxes, “There is a certain people dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom who keep themselves separate. Their customs are different from those of all other people, and they do not obey the king’s laws; it is not in the king’s best interest to tolerate them.

9 If it pleases the king, let a decree be issued to destroy them, and I will give ten thousand talents^[b] of silver to the king’s administrators for the royal treasury.”

10 So the king took his signet ring from his finger and gave it to Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of the Jews.

11 “Keep the money,” the king said to Haman, “and do with the people as you please.”

12 Then on the thirteenth day of the first month the royal secretaries were summoned. They wrote out in the script of each province and in the language of each people all Haman’s orders to the king’s satraps, the governors of the various provinces and the nobles of the various peoples. These were written in the name of King Xerxes himself and sealed with his own ring.

13 Dispatches were sent by couriers to all the king’s provinces with the order to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews—young and old, women and children—on a single day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar, and to plunder their goods.

Esther 3:5-13 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO ESTHER 3

This chapter gives an account of the promotion of Haman, and of the mortification of him by Mordecai, who refused to bow to him, upon which he vowed revenge on him, and on all his people the Jews, Es 3:1-6, for which purpose, through a false representation of them, he obtained letters of the king, and sent to the deputies of all the provinces to destroy them all on a certain day fixed, Es 3:7-15.

Cross References

• 1. S Esther 2:21; Esther 5:9
• 2. Proverbs 16:25
• 3. Psalms 74:8; Psalms 83:4
• 4. Esther 9:24
• 5. Esther 9:24,26
• 6. S Leviticus 16:8; S 1 Samuel 10:21
• 7. ver 13; Ezra 6:15; Esther 9:19
• 8. Acts 16:20-21
• 9. Jeremiah 29:7; Daniel 6:13
• 10. Ezra 4:15
• 11. Esther 7:4
• 12. S Genesis 41:42; Esther 7:6; Esther 8:2
• 13. S Nehemiah 13:24
• 14. S Genesis 38:18; 1 Kings 21:8; Esther 8:8-10
• 15. S 1 Samuel 15:3; S Ezra 4:6; Esther 8:10-14
• 16. S ver 7
• 17. Esther 8:11; Esther 9:10

Footnotes

• [a] Septuagint; Hebrew does not have "And the lot fell on."
• [b] That is, about 375 tons or about 340 metric tons