Esther 9:1-10
Their Plan Was Overturned
1On the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar, the king’s command and edict were to be executed. On this day the enemies of the Jews had hoped to overpower them, but their plan was overturned and the Jews overpowered those who hated them.
2In each of the provinces of King Xerxes, the Jews assembled in their cities to attack those who sought to harm them. No man could withstand them, because the fear of them had fallen upon all peoples.
3And all the officials of the provinces, the satraps, the governors, and the king’s administrators helped the Jews, because the fear of Mordecai had fallen upon them.
4For Mordecai exercised great power in the palace, and his fame spread throughout the provinces as he became more and more powerful.
5The Jews put all their enemies to the sword, killing and destroying them, and they did as they pleased to those who hated them.
6In the citadel of Susa, the Jews killed and destroyed five hundred men,
7including Parshandatha, Dalphon, Aspatha,
8Poratha, Adalia, Aridatha,
9Parmashta, Arisai, Aridai, and Vaizatha.
10They killed these ten sons of Haman son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews, but they did not lay a hand on the plunder.
Berean Standard Bible
The day arrives. The thirteenth of Adar, the date the lot fell on, and both decrees are now in force.
On this day the enemies of the Jews had hoped to overpower them, but their plan was overturned and the Jews overpowered those who hated them.
The verse tells you what was expected and then what happened, in that order, and it does not tell you who did the overturning. This book never does. It has gone nine chapters without naming God and it is not going to start here. The reversal is put in front of us and the accounting for it is left to us.
Then the officials come in on the side of the Jews. Satraps, governors, administrators, all helping, and the book gives the reason without flattering anybody: the fear of Mordecai had fallen on them. These are the same officials who would have carried out the first decree. They are not converted. They can see which way the palace is leaning.
What follows is a day of killing, and there is no comfortable way to read it. Five hundred men in the citadel of Susa. Then the ten sons of Haman, and the book names every one of them, one after another, instead of giving a number and moving on. Whatever else that list is doing, it is refusing to let them be a statistic.
There is one phrase in these verses that is easy to pass over, and it is the important one.
but they did not lay a hand on the plunder
The decree allowed it. The letters in chapter eight said they could take the possessions of their enemies, in as many words. They did not. The book says so here and will say it twice more before the chapter is finished, which is how you can tell it matters.
Somebody could have gone home rich that day and legally so. Nobody did. The permission was in writing and they left it lying there, and the writer wants us to be sure we noticed.
How We Know
The book records a restraint that answers something much older, and does not explain the connection.
Esther 3:11 has the king telling Haman to keep his money, handing him a people to do with as he pleased. Esther 9:10 has the Jews killing the enemies who came against them and leaving the plunder untouched.
1 Samuel 15:19 has Samuel confronting Saul, a Benjaminite, for pouncing on the plunder of the Amalekites when he had been told not to. Mordecai has already been introduced as a Benjaminite and Haman as an Agagite.
The book supplies the labels and the refusal and never joins them up. The two names sit in the text with no word of explanation, and the restraint at 9:10 is reported as a plain fact about what the Jews did. A refusal answering Saul's failure that exactly is difficult to read as coincidence, though nothing here forces the reading.
Questions
1 What was expected to happen on the thirteenth of Adar, and what happened?
AnswerTheir enemies expected to overpower them and the opposite occurred. The book says the plan was overturned and does not say who overturned it, which is how this book handles everything.
2 Why do the officials help?
AnswerBecause the fear of Mordecai had fallen on them. The book is blunt about it. These are the same men who would have carried out the other decree, and they are following the power rather than a conviction.
3 The ten sons of Haman are named one at a time. Why do that instead of giving a number?
AnswerA number is easier to read past. Naming them makes them ten people. The book does not soften the day and it does not let us skim it either.
4 They were allowed to take the plunder and they did not. Think of a time you were given permission to do something and chose not to.
AnswerRefusing what you are allowed is harder than obeying a rule, because nobody would have blamed them. The permission was in the decree. They left it there, and the book repeats the fact until we see it.
What This Means for Us
This is a hard chapter. It is a day of killing, written down plainly, and the family reading it together is allowed to find it difficult.
What the book underlines is not the body count. They had a written right to enrich themselves and they refused it, and the writer comes back to that refusal again and again, as though it were the thing to remember about the day.
Most of our character shows up in the same place. Not in what we are forbidden, where the fence does the work, but in what we are entitled to and decline. So think about something you are perfectly within your rights to take, or say, or claim this week, and consider leaving it.
Prayer
Father, this is a hard day to read about, and we do not understand all of it. Thank you that these people took nothing when they were permitted to take everything. Teach us what to refuse when nobody would stop us. Amen.