VERSES 1-7
After some time, King Achashverosh appointed a new prime minister: Haman, son of Hamedata, the Agagite. Agag was from the nation of Amalek, infamous for attacking the Jews without provocation when they left Egypt. Haman was granted the highest powers in the kingdom.
From what we see in the rest of Megillat Esther and what we know from Herodotus’ historical account, once Achashverosh returned defeated from his failed military expedition to Greece, he no longer wanted to engage in politics. He now wished only to enjoy the pleasures of ruling and focus on grand construction projects like those he built in Persepolis. To achieve this, he needed someone to handle his empire’s political and administrative affairs. Haman was that man: he was strong-willed and authoritarian, which helped the king consolidate his rule and, most importantly, prevent any conspiracies against him.
To invest Haman with the highest authority, the king ordered that everyone revere him in a religious way. All the citizens of the empire, the ministers, and the members of the royal court were not only required to bow before Haman—hishtachavayah in Hebrew, an act of respect widely accepted at the time—but also to kneel before him.
“Kneeling and then bowing” (kri’ah ve-hishtachavayah כריעה והשתחוויה) was not merely a sign of respect but an act of worship and religious devotion, a gesture in the Hebrew Bible reserved only for God. The Sages add that Haman carried an idol with him, from which he derived his supposed divinity, similar to pagan priests. Once we understand this, we realize that kneeling and bowing before Haman constituted an act of idolatry. This is why Mordechai, a member of the royal court (sha’ar hamelech), refused to show reverence to Haman.
A lesser-known rabbinic opinion states that King Achashverosh, aware of this issue, personally exempted Mordechai from kneeling before Haman out of respect for his religious principles ( כי כן צוה לו המלך).
Other opinions, however, criticize Mordechai for not being more cautious and suggest that he could have resigned from the royal court to avoid facing the dilemma of bowing or not bowing before Haman.
In my opinion, Mordechai was following the example of Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, who, 120 years earlier in Daniel’s time, had done something similar during the ceremony of the inauguration of an idol in Babylon (Daniel, chapter 3). When everyone else bowed, they were willing to risk their lives to publicly set an example for other Jews that they must not bow before an idol.
In any case, Mordechai assumed that, at worst, Haman would order his execution. Still, he never imagined that Haman would seek revenge by plotting the genocide of the entire Jewish people.
Mordechai did not deliberately approach Haman provocatively to demonstrate his refusal to bow, as otherwise, Haman would have seen him directly. Instead, Mordechai did so discreetly. And just as had happened with Daniel’s friends, his enemies reported him to Haman.
Upon learning of this affront, Haman was furious. Instead of reporting it to King Achashverosh, he handled the matter personally. His first thought was that killing Mordechai or even his family was not enough. To satisfy his thirst for vengeance, he had to take extreme measures against the people who hold Mordechai’s values. Haman then decided to eliminate “all the Jews in the Persian Empire,” which at that time meant “all the Jews in the world,” including the colony of 50,000 Jews living in Jerusalem, a province of the Persian Empire. This was the “final solution,” conceived by none other than a descendant of Amaleq.
The first thing Haman did was choose a date astrologically favorable for this massacre. The Persians frequently consulted astrologers and oracles to determine the most auspicious days for their plans. According to some historians, their astrological oracle consisted of a board with the names of the months and another board with the numbers of the days. Haman cast a small stone or a special gem—called pur (“lucky stone”) in ancient Persian—onto a board with the names of the months, and it landed on the month of Adar. Then he cast another stone, which landed on the number 13. Thus, two stones (purim, the plural of pur) determined the date, the 13th of Adar, and the fate of the Jewish people. It was the 12th year of King Achashverosh’s reign. All Haman needed was to convince Achashverosh to sign the decree to execute the “final solution.”
VERSES 8-9
From the text of the Megillah—what it states and, more importantly, what it omits—we can deduce that Haman’s strategy to convince King Achashverosh consisted of four key points.
First, he minimized the event and avoided discussing it openly in a formal meeting. That is why Haman did not request an official audience with the king to present his plan, as Esther did when she wanted to speak with him. I think that Haman seized a casual and informal moment—perhaps after a long and exhausting meeting when the king was already standing, tired, or in a rush to attend his next event—to secure a quick and careless “yes” from him.
Second, Haman never explicitly mentioned that he wanted to eliminate the Jews. He proposed sanctions against “a certain people,” describing them as scattered throughout the empire, disobedient of the king’s laws, and followers of their own weird rules. According to Malbim and many other commentators, King Achashverosh did not realize that Haman’s decree referred to the Jews.
Third, Haman avoided stating outright that he wanted to “kill” these people, as that might have alerted the king. Instead, he used an ambiguous term: le-abedam, meaning “to destitute them.” This could imply extermination, but in the Tanakh, it usually means depriving form freedom (enslaving them) or affecting them economically by confiscating their property or exiling them (as in the Shema Yisrael, where va-avadtem meherah means “exile”).
The fourth point was about the money. The king did not need to think twice. Not only did Haman refrain from requesting funds from the Crown for his project, but he also offered to raise money: 10,000 silver talents, which would be confiscated in the operation and added to the royal treasury.
VERSES 10-15
To Haman’s surprise—and delight—King Achashverosh did not ask to read the decree and did not pose any questions. With complete indifference and gross negligence, the king removed his signet ring, handed it to Haman, and said, “Do as you please with this people and keep the money for you.”
Haman’s plan had worked even better than he had expected.
With the king’s ring in his hands, Haman summoned the royal scribes and dictated what they were to write. Rabbi Moshe Almosnino highlights a crucial point: Haman drafted the decree with two separate texts. The first, Ketav Hadat, only stated that all the citizens of the empire should prepare for an important event on the 13th of Adar (Save the Date להיות עתידים ליום הזה) without giving any details.
The second document, Patshegen haKetav, contained the fine print explaining Haman’s true intentions: “On the 13th of Adar, the Jews of the Persian Empire will be destroyed and murdered, and their possessions will be confiscated. The young, the elderly, children, and women of the Jewish people will be killed on the 13th day of the month of Adar.”
The decree was signed on the 13th of Nisan and urgently sent to the 127 provinces of the empire via the royal postal couriers. It was also translated into all the empire’s languages.
In Shushan, to prevent the king from learning of Haman’s entire decree, only the first document, Ketav Hadat, was circulated, which did not mention genocide.
This chapter concludes by telling us that Haman and King Achashverosh sat down to enjoy a banquet, while the citizens of Shushan—both Jews and non-Jews—were left confused and perplexed upon hearing the mysterious proclamation to “save the date“ for the 13th of Adar.
