Esther 9:1-19

Last week, we saw how Esther and Mordecai unveiled not only Haman’s evil plot, but also their own nationality. We also saw how the fear of the Jews fell on the whole empire. This week we will look at why the fear of the Jews was so palpable.

Esther 9:1–19 ESV

1 Now in the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, on the thirteenth day of the same, when the king’s command and edict were about to be carried out, on the very day when the enemies of the Jews hoped to gain the mastery over them, the reverse occurred: the Jews gained mastery over those who hated them. 2 The Jews gathered in their cities throughout all the provinces of King Ahasuerus to lay hands on those who sought their harm. And no one could stand against them, for the fear of them had fallen on all peoples. 3 All the officials of the provinces and the satraps and the governors and the royal agents also helped the Jews, for the fear of Mordecai had fallen on them. 4 For Mordecai was great in the king’s house, and his fame spread throughout all the provinces, for the man Mordecai grew more and more powerful. 5 The Jews struck all their enemies with the sword, killing and destroying them, and did as they pleased to those who hated them. 6 In Susa the citadel itself the Jews killed and destroyed 500 men, 7 and also killed Parshandatha and Dalphon and Aspatha 8 and Poratha and Adalia and Aridatha 9 and Parmashta and Arisai and Aridai and Vaizatha, 10 the ten sons of Haman the son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews, but they laid no hand on the plunder. 11 That very day the number of those killed in Susa the citadel was reported to the king. 12 And the king said to Queen Esther, “In Susa the citadel the Jews have killed and destroyed 500 men and also the ten sons of Haman. What then have they done in the rest of the king’s provinces! Now what is your wish? It shall be granted you. And what further is your request? It shall be fulfilled.” 13 And Esther said, “If it please the king, let the Jews who are in Susa be allowed tomorrow also to do according to this day’s edict. And let the ten sons of Haman be hanged on the gallows.” 14 So the king commanded this to be done. A decree was issued in Susa, and the ten sons of Haman were hanged. 15 The Jews who were in Susa gathered also on the fourteenth day of the month of Adar and they killed 300 men in Susa, but they laid no hands on the plunder. 16 Now the rest of the Jews who were in the king’s provinces also gathered to defend their lives, and got relief from their enemies and killed 75,000 of those who hated them, but they laid no hands on the plunder. 17 This was on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar, and on the fourteenth day they rested and made that a day of feasting and gladness. 18 But the Jews who were in Susa gathered on the thirteenth day and on the fourteenth, and rested on the fifteenth day, making that a day of feasting and gladness. 19 Therefore the Jews of the villages, who live in the rural towns, hold the fourteenth day of the month of Adar as a day for gladness and feasting, as a holiday, and as a day on which they send gifts of food to one another.

So, to start, I just want to remind us that we are about 9 months after the events of chapter 8, and this part of the chapter takes place over two to three days. If we think in terms of our months, this takes place from December 13 - 15th. Now, I should point out that their calendar year and ours doesn’t actually line up the same way, in that modern Jews celebrate Purim in the spring, as the Hebrew calendar doesn’t exactly line up with ours. The month Adar straddles February and March.

So, we start with the setting. It’s the day of the battling edicts. Adar 13th. Wonder if it was a Friday? Anyway, that’s not helpful.

What is perhaps more helpful is that the writer of Esther does not bury the lead here:

Esther 9:1 ESV

1 Now in the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar, on the thirteenth day of the same, when the king’s command and edict were about to be carried out, on the very day when the enemies of the Jews hoped to gain the mastery over them, the reverse occurred: the Jews gained mastery over those who hated them.

Haman’s edict was about to happen. The enemies of the Jews had been preparing for this day: they were gonna rid themselves of this Jewish problem. Centuries before Adolf Hitler got mad because a Jewish professor decided his art wasn’t very good, the Persian enemies of God’s people were ready to enact the Final Solution to the Jewish Question.

Except that isn’t what happened. In fact, the Persians are there with their swords and maces and mallets and clubs and all their weapons, and the Jews just drop a big ol’ UNO reverse card on them. Look at verse one: “When the enemies of the Jews hoped to gain mastery over them, the reverse occured: the Jews gained mastery over those who hated them.”

I’m telling you, UNO Reverse!

Esther 9:2–4 ESV

2 The Jews gathered in their cities throughout all the provinces of King Ahasuerus to lay hands on those who sought their harm. And no one could stand against them, for the fear of them had fallen on all peoples. 3 All the officials of the provinces and the satraps and the governors and the royal agents also helped the Jews, for the fear of Mordecai had fallen on them. 4 For Mordecai was great in the king’s house, and his fame spread throughout all the provinces, for the man Mordecai grew more and more powerful.

Now, I have always found this bit interesting.

We know that everybody is aware of Haman’s edict. We can and probably should suppose that the rulers in each of the provinces would regulate access to weapons and things like that, because you don’t keep control of a vast empire with good feelings and things from afar. There is some local government that enforces taxes, commerce, etc. I would imagine that the Jews and other non-Persians would not be allowed free access to weapons unless by decree.

And here we have competing decrees at work. But Haman’s had a head start.

So, as I said, this has always fascinated me, because I look at this and think: “We are supposed to kill the Jews. Got it.” “Wait, now the Jews are supposed to defend themselves against us. Hmm…maybe we shouldn’t try to kill them after all?” Right? Like, now it is a fair fight. You can try to kill them, but they can defend themselves with extreme prejudice.

It always boggled my mind that anyone would try to kill the Jews after Mordecai’s decree. I don’t know why it would, because I grew up in North Georgia, where “Hey y’all, watch this!” was a part of life.

But this shows you the hatred for God’s people that has existed since sin came into the world.

This is, in a large part, exactly why we have this story - because Haman as an Agagite even exists, when God had told Saul to kill the Amalekites as a judgement for their attempt to destroy the Jews during the Exodus. Yet Saul attempted to spare king Agag. Now his great-great-great-great grandson seeks vengeance on his ancestral enemies. The enemies of God’s people will stop at nothing to perpetuate evil against Him.

And really, just watch the news to see that playing out right now. Hamas, the terrorist organization responsible for the atrocities against Israel, gets it’s name from the Hebrew word for violence. Now, they would say that the name is an acronym for “Islamic Resistance Movement,” but we understand that they chose the word first, then made up an acronym that fit.

And they seek to perpetuate violence on Israel and anyone with Jewish-friendly ideals.

We already mentioned Hitler and his Final Solution of Holocaust.

This animosity between God’s people and everyone else was prophesied when Abram and Sarai took matters into their own hands to “help God” work out His promise to Abram.

Genesis 16:10–12 ESV

10 The angel of the Lord also said to her, “I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude.” 11 And the angel of the Lord said to her, “Behold, you are pregnant and shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has listened to your affliction. 12 He shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen.”

When Hagar gave birth to Ishmael, God honored His promise to Abram, even though that was not how God intended the promise to be fulfilled. We see God’s miraculous solution again promised in Genesis 17-18, and fulfilled in Genesis 21. This all happened 13-14 years after Ishmael was born. Sarah and Abraham chose to act in their own timing. God, who is righteous, honored His promise of making Abraham’s seed too numerous to number, but because Abraham and Sarah did not wait, Abraham fathered “a wild donkey of a man” who would be “against everyone” and everyone would be “against him.” The Ishmaelites are the ancestors of the Middle Eastern peoples. Islam is linked back to Abraham through Ishmael.

We see the tension in Genesis 15-21 between Sarah, Abraham, and Isaac against Hagar and Ishmael, and we (I hope) can understand how that tension continues to deepen as the years spin on.

And now, you have Palestinians and other Islamic groups who have a deep-seated hatred for Jews murdering innocents in Israel because of the disobedience of Abraham and Sarah, because Adam and Eve ultimately disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden.

Do you see how this all led to the hatred that must have been bubbling under the surface in the Persian empire during King Ahasuerus’ reign? How Haman’s decree must have sent some of these folks salivating? And how they would not think to worry about the new decree that said the Jews could defend themselves, because “there are more of us than them, right?”

That blindness that hatred causes is usually fatal. It was here in Esther 9.

Esther 9:2–4 ESV

2 The Jews gathered in their cities throughout all the provinces of King Ahasuerus to lay hands on those who sought their harm. And no one could stand against them, for the fear of them had fallen on all peoples. 3 All the officials of the provinces and the satraps and the governors and the royal agents also helped the Jews, for the fear of Mordecai had fallen on them. 4 For Mordecai was great in the king’s house, and his fame spread throughout all the provinces, for the man Mordecai grew more and more powerful.

And maybe the Jews had a better understanding of communication or defense. I don’t know. Their coordinated efforts definitely seemed to be better. Alistair Begg notes that the verb “gathered” in verse 2 has a connotation of a unified front, almost like a military unit.

And it helped that the Persian officials were on their side. Look at verse 3: all the officials helped the Jews. Why would they do that?

Verse 4: Mordecai had grown powerful and there was fear.

So many civilizations are run by fear. I don’t get the impression that Mordecai was the despot that Haman was, but the fact that he had the ear of the king and the family connection to the queen meant that what he said went. And so, if you were to stand against Mordecai, you stood against Persia. And that isn’t a safe place to be.

Esther 9:5–10 ESV

5 The Jews struck all their enemies with the sword, killing and destroying them, and did as they pleased to those who hated them. 6 In Susa the citadel itself the Jews killed and destroyed 500 men, 7 and also killed Parshandatha and Dalphon and Aspatha 8 and Poratha and Adalia and Aridatha 9 and Parmashta and Arisai and Aridai and Vaizatha, 10 the ten sons of Haman the son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews, but they laid no hand on the plunder.

Notice this, that there were 510 who were listed as killed in Susa, the capitol city alone. there are 500 plus Haman’s 10 sons.

Also, notice that, in spite of the edict, the Jews did not take the plunder. The Jews left the financial reward to others. The edict specifically said that they could defend themselves and take the plunder (Esther 8:11), but they left it. And we see later that it wasn’t just the plunder from Haman’s sons. Verse 15 points out that those on the second day in Susa (we’ll talk about that in a sec) didn’t loot the spoils of war. And verse 16 reports from the countryside that the Jews laid no hands on the plunder. Iain Duguid refers to the Jewish defense of itself here as a “holy war,” and notes specifically:

Even though Mordecai’s edict had permitted the taking of plunder, which was merely normal practice in warfare, the Jews refrained from enriching themselves through this conflict because it was holy war, so the spoils were not theirs to take.

Iain M. Duguid, Esther and Ruth, ed. Richard D. Phillips and Philip Graham Ryken, Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2005), 115.

And notice that the king doesn’t seem particularly bothered by this. In fact, he almost seems impressed. Look at how he responds:

Esther 9:11–12 ESV

11 That very day the number of those killed in Susa the citadel was reported to the king. 12 And the king said to Queen Esther, “In Susa the citadel the Jews have killed and destroyed 500 men and also the ten sons of Haman. What then have they done in the rest of the king’s provinces! Now what is your wish? It shall be granted you. And what further is your request? It shall be fulfilled.”

This is kinda like saying, “Holy cow! You guys got 500 people in the city alone! In one day! I wonder how many more they got throughout the kingdom?”

Remember, the king can’t get a text with updates on the battle from the other provinces.

And notice, in response to this, he again (unbidden) asks Esther what she would like done.

Esther 9:13–15 ESV

13 And Esther said, “If it please the king, let the Jews who are in Susa be allowed tomorrow also to do according to this day’s edict. And let the ten sons of Haman be hanged on the gallows.” 14 So the king commanded this to be done. A decree was issued in Susa, and the ten sons of Haman were hanged. 15 The Jews who were in Susa gathered also on the fourteenth day of the month of Adar and they killed 300 men in Susa, but they laid no hands on the plunder.

And this is where some of us get a bit squeamish. Because we are already uncomfortable with the Jews killing their foes, but they were defending themselves. We can brush that off.

But when the king asks Esther what she wants, she says, “Can we do an encore? Round 2?”

And we have to be careful here, because I don’t think this is vindictive or bloodlust. I also don’t think Esther is trying to more firmly cement the Jews as the most powerful group in Persia. It seems that Esther does see this as a holy war, and that the enemies of God’s people needed to be eradicated.

And this practice of hanging Haman’s sons (who are already dead) on the gallows calls back Joshua 8 and Joshua 10, where:

Esther and Ruth A Reversal Described

the leaders of the defeated enemies were not only killed, but their bodies were also hung on trees as a sign of their being under God’s curse

And so we see another 300 are killed in Susa, again indicating how widespread the hatred of the Jews is. Yet the Jews do not touch the plunder.

That speaks to the Jewish understanding of this situation. When you look at the conquest of Canaan, for example, there were times when God told the Jews to take the spoil. There were times when God told them not to take the spoil (See Joshua 6 and 7).

But the fact that they choose not to take the spoils points toward the overarching understanding that they are not out to enrich themselves, but to defend themselves.

As Begg notes, they are not going out “willy-nilly,” butchering any Persians they see in the marketplace. They are banding together, defending themselves from the very real danger of evil. How real? Let’s keep reading:

Esther 9:16–19 ESV

16 Now the rest of the Jews who were in the king’s provinces also gathered to defend their lives, and got relief from their enemies and killed 75,000 of those who hated them, but they laid no hands on the plunder. 17 This was on the thirteenth day of the month of Adar, and on the fourteenth day they rested and made that a day of feasting and gladness. 18 But the Jews who were in Susa gathered on the thirteenth day and on the fourteenth, and rested on the fifteenth day, making that a day of feasting and gladness. 19 Therefore the Jews of the villages, who live in the rural towns, hold the fourteenth day of the month of Adar as a day for gladness and feasting, as a holiday, and as a day on which they send gifts of food to one another.

In the rest of the provinces, they killed 75,000 people. In self defense. Now, that seems like a whole lot of people, because it is a whole lot of people. Paycor Stadium only hold 65,000.

Now, I did the math so you didn’t have to, but if we want to get a picture of how this breaks down, on average:

We are told there are 127 provinces. If we count Susa as a province, knowing there were 800 killed there, and we take the language to mean that 75000 refers to the rest of the dead throughout the empire, that averages to roughly 595 people per province (75,000 / 126 = 595.24). Obviously there would be more resistance in some provinces than others, but that gives you an idea of how the carnage played out.

And again, we see that the Jews throughout the land didn’t touch the plunder.

This is about defending their lives, not scoring extra wealth.

And I get that we may be very uncomfortable with how almost 80,000 people are killed over the course of 2 days, self-defense or not.

Begg notes this:

The Book of Esther When you absent yourself from the choir (which you are), then your voice is missing, and someone fails to derive the encouragement that would be there if they could hear you singing God’s praise.

Our failure is often because we are just as unprepared to recognize the gravity and demonic nature of what it means to live in a sinful and rebellious world where men are utterly opposed to God and his goodness.

This wasn’t a “perceived” threat. This was a very real and present danger, to quote Tom Clancy. Those 75,000 dead are people who were actively seeking to wipe the Jews off of the planet.

And outside of Susa, the people rested the next day. They “got relief from their enemies.”

And we see why there are two days to the Purim celebration even now. Because in Susa, they needed an extra day to defend themselves, so they celebrate on the 15th day, while everyone else celebrates on the 14th. Incidentally, historically, cities with walls (like Jerusalem) would celebrate "Susan” Purim, while the rest of the Jewish population would celebrate regular Purim. According to what I read today, Jerusalem is the only place now that regularly celebrates the Susan, or later date.

Next week we will look at the celebration of Purim and we will wrap up the book of Esther.