The Lot and the Decree
7 In the first month, which is the month Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus, they cast Pur, that is, the lot, before Haman from day to day, and from month to month, and chose the twelfth month, which is the month Adar. 8 Haman said to King Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom, and their laws are different from other people’s. They don’t keep the king’s laws. Therefore it is not for the king’s profit to allow them to remain. 9 If it pleases the king, let it be written that they be destroyed; and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver into the hands of those who are in charge of the king’s business, to bring it into the king’s treasuries.” 10 The king took his ring from his hand, and gave it to Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the Jews’ enemy. 11 The king said to Haman, “The silver is given to you, the people also, to do with them as it seems good to you.” 12 Then the king’s scribes were called in on the first month, on the thirteenth day of the month; and all that Haman commanded was written to the king’s local governors, and to the governors who were over every province, and to the princes of every people, to every province according to its writing, and to every people in their language. It was written in the name of King Ahasuerus, and it was sealed with the king’s ring. 13 Letters were sent by couriers into all the king’s provinces, to destroy, to kill, and to cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day, even on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, and to plunder their possessions. 14 A copy of the letter, that the decree should be given out in every province, was published to all the peoples, that they should be ready against that day. 15 The couriers went out in haste by the king’s commandment, and the decree was given out in the citadel of Susa. The king and Haman sat down to drink; but the city of Susa was perplexed.
A date for genocide is chosen by casting lots, and the chapter ends with two men drinking while a city cannot understand what it has just read.
The method for setting the date is chance: they cast Pur, that is, the lot. The book pauses to gloss the foreign word, which is how it will explain the festival's name at the end Esther 9:26. A superstitious procedure selects the twelfth month — and the casting happens in the first, so the lot yields eleven months of delay that Haman did not intend and the Jews will need.
Haman's speech to the king is a study in how such things are sold. He never names the people. They are a certain people, described by three facts: scattered, differently governed, and — the accusation that matters — they don't keep the king's laws. Then the argument from the treasury: it is not for the king's profit.
And he offers to pay. Ten thousand talents of silver, an enormous sum, into the king's treasuries Esther 3:9.
The king's reply in verse 11 is the most damning sentence about him in the book. He gives away the silver and the people also, to do with them as it seems good to you — and he has still not asked who they are.
The decree in verse 13 is quoted in full and spares nothing: to destroy, to kill, and to cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, and to take their goods. That last clause will matter at the end, when the Jews decline to do the same Esther 9:10.
Then verse 15, and the two halves of it are the whole moral of the chapter: the king and Haman sat down to drink; but the city of Susa was perplexed.
settled What this mark means