Esther 3 Bible study: A certain people

"After these things King Ahasuerus promoted Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, and advanced him, and set his seat above all the princes who were with him" (3:1) (tap Agagite). The chapter doesn't say why. Then: "All the king’s servants who were in the king’s gate bowed down and paid homage to Haman, for the king had so commanded concerning him. But Mordecai didn’t bow down or pay him homage" (3:2) (tap bow down, homage). The servants ask him, "Why do you disobey the king’s commandment?" (3:3) (tap disobey). The chapter gives no answer from him. "Now it came to pass, when they spoke daily to him, and he didn’t listen to them, that they told Haman, to see whether Mordecai’s reason would stand; for he had told them that he was a Jew" (3:4) (tap told, Jew). So it is the servants who tell Haman, and only then, "When Haman saw that Mordecai didn’t bow down nor pay him homage, Haman was full of wrath" (3:5).

Esther 3:8→leads toJohn 15:19

Haman says of the Jews, without naming them, "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" (3:8), and "Haman sought to destroy all the Jews who were throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus" (3:6). Jesus told his disciples, "If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, since I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you" (John 15:19). Jesus doesn't cite Esther, and no link between the Hebrew and Greek words is claimed, so setting the two side by side is a reading, resting on a shared subject: being hated for not being like those around you. Some hear in Jesus' words that being unlike those around you can draw hatred, and see that in Haman's charge against a people whose "laws are different from other people’s" (3:8). Others read each in its own setting: Jesus speaks to his disciples, those he "chose … out of the world" (John 15:19), of a hatred that comes on them because of him, while Esther 3 traces Haman's plan to his wrath at one man who didn't bow (3:5-6) and gives Haman's words without naming God; they draw no line between the two.

פּוּרpursay POOR

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "lot". Strong's: "a lot (as by means of a broken piece)". "they cast Pur, that is, the lot, before Haman from day to day, and from month to month" (3:7). The book explains its own word: the lot there is goral (tap lot). Pur comes eight times in the Hebrew Bible, all of them in Esther, and this is the first. The book comes back to it in almost the same words, when Haman "had cast “Pur”, that is the lot, to consume them and to destroy them" (9:24), and then names the days for it: "Therefore they called these days “Purim”, from the word “Pur.”" (9:26).