The Feast of PURIM and the Lot of the Jew.
The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing
thereof is of the LORD.
Prov 16:33
And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it
was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between
those pieces. In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram
Gen 15:17-18 Before ever
the seed of Abraham came into existence, the process leading to their ultimate
bonding with the Lord was portrayed in terms of smoking furnace experiences.
Such has been the history of this ancient people of God to this day. The Jew
has been likened to the bush that burned but was not consumed. The story is all
but told. The final chapter is now before us.
Although it lies outside the seven months of the religious
Feasts of the Lord established in the Law, Purim is a feast highly regarded by
the Jews, commemorating deliverance from genocide of the Jewish race though the
faith and courage of Mordecai and Esther. ( Es
9:16-32) Purim derives its name from the
"lot" (pur) which Haman cast in order to decide when he should carry
into effect the decree issued by the king for the extermination of the Jews. ( Es 9:24) It was
celebrated on the fourteenth day of Adar (March) by those in villages and
unwalled towns and on the fifteenth day by those in fortified cities. ( Es 9:18,19) The Book of
Esther is read in the synagogue on this day. It became a time for rejoicing and
distribution of food and presents. Dramatic representations of the events in
the account have accompanied this feast. None so dramatic as the scenes which
began it, nor the scenes which fulfil it in our times.
The story of Esther is an interesting chapter of Bible
history. It concerns, not the land of Israel, but rather the Jews of the
dispersion, revealing the Lord’s watch-care even for these.
The Jewish millennium from Moses to Jeremiah had ended with
disaster. After repeated warnings and disciplines the full judgment of the Lord
fell upon a wayward people. Their covenant was broken, their temple destroyed
and the people scattered as captives in the Babylonian empire. There they were
to remain until the coming of Cyrus. However, after the first painful years,
many Jews became accustomed to their foreign surrounds and some even began to
prosper in Babylon.
A new generation was rising. When the empire fell before
the incoming Persian king, Cyrus, opportunity was announced for return to their
own land, but many were now reluctant to leave their home comforts in Babylon
to face the unknown privations that would be involved in rebuilding their
former land now lying desolate.
So it was, in the times of Esther, some 60 years after the
decree of Cyrus, that many Jews remained scattered around what was then the
Persian empire. Some held respectable positions in the Persian world, and
Mordecai was one of these.
Mordecai’s uncle died in Persia leaving his motherless
daughter, Hadassah, (Esther) to the care of Mordecai. Employed in the royal
palace at Susa, he attracted, through the timely discovery of a plot to assassinate
the king, the favourable notice of the monarch, Xerxes, and eventually became
the grand vizier of the Persian empire.
Haman was the villain in the scene. He plotted to destroy
all the Jews. Haman was a descendant of the Amalekites, the archenemies of the
Jews (compare Es 3:1 with De 25:17-19 Ex
17:8-16; and 1Sa 15). In De 25:17-19 the Lord warned His people to have nothing to do with
Amalek forever. They were to recall their peril at that old enemy’s hands.
In the language of types, the battle with the Amelekites as
the Israelites came out of Egypt had represented the fight against doubt, that
sad lack of trust in their God which so soon beset the people He had so
mightily delivered. (The ascendency in the battle depended upon the up-reaching
arms of Moses.) Nor was the battle over then, as king Saul was later to learn
to his cost. ( 1Sa 15:8-23. See Heb 3:17-to 4:2.)
Haman had wormed his way into the king’s confidence. He
expected all to honour him, but Mordecai knew Haman’s origin. Mordecai
remembered the warning words of his God and refused to bow down to him. This so
enraged Haman that he determined to wipe out the entire race of Jews throughout
the Persian domain. ( Es 3:6-11)
"Without faith, it is impossible to please Him."
The typical background is of relevance in the story of
Esther where so many ears turned deaf to the cry that the time to favour Zion
had come. But the matter does not stop there, for our own generation has
witnessed a parallel to those troublous days. Again, it is the old enemy,
Amalek, disbelief in the promises and power of God, that held back so many Jews
on foreign soil when the time to return to their land became due. The dark
cloud then was Haman and his own ambitions, which resented the position Jews
were gaining in the land. In our days it was Hitler, with similar motivation.
Furthermore, there is now seen to be a striking time parallel between the days
of Haman’s rise to power with such evil intent, and the rise of Hitler from
1934 onwards. (1)
Here lies a remarkable confirmation that we are indeed
living in the days of Christ’s return, of Whom Cyrus was clearly a type. ( Isa 44:28 to 25:1.
"anointed" =" Messiah".)
The story of Esther’s part is familiar to all who have read
the account in the book bearing her name and this contains more than one lesson
for ourselves as well as for the natural seed of Abraham. Mordecai himself
there explains how Esther became queen of Persia, and to what divinely
overruled purpose. The palace knew the Jewish background of Mordecai ( Es 3:4) but not of
Esther. ( Es 2:10)
Haman consulted his advisors to determine when fortune
would favour his plan to slaughter the Jews (
Es 9:26-31; 3:7). They cast lots (Hebrew
"pur") to determine the day should of execution. For successive days
the lot was cast, without result, until, nearly a year in the count passed by.
At last the lot fell. In Haman’s mind the lot of the Jew was destruction, but
the Lord has yet to have His say as to the lot of His people.
Haman slandered the Jews before the king, and offered to
get for the monarch over $25,000,000 in silver if he gave authority to slay the
Jews. Haman lied about the evil attributed to the Jews, of course. He was
sponsored by Satan who was both a liar and a murderer from the beginning. Foolishly,
Xerxes gave Haman his ring and the authority to carry out his plan, not
realizing that the life of his own queen was at stake. Haman wasted no time,
for that very month he had the decrees written and sent out (vv. 7, 12),
ordering the Persians to destroy, kill, and plunder all the Jews in the vast
reaches of the kingdom on the appointed day.
"The LORD hath brought you forth out of the iron
furnace.." De 4:20
Thus it was that the courage and faith of Mordecai and
Esther were put to the test. This trust was rewarded in full. Once the royal
decree had gone forth to exterminate the Jewish race it could not by Persian
law be revoked. However, the king could make a counter decree that the Jews be
enabled to resist this attack and to consume their enemies. But to achieve this
intervention would be at great risk to Esther’s life.
Mordecai went into a visible state of mourning at the king’s
gate! He was not ashamed to be identified with the people of God, although he
had wisely counselled Esther not to reveal her race. Esther was deeply
concerned on hearing of his sorrowful state, and sent to him pleading that he
stop, but he revealed to her his cause for lament. Esther had not seen the king
for a month ( Es 4:11) and was probably quite unaware of all that was going on.
Mordecai sent her a copy of the king’s decree to bring fully home to her the
peril they were in.
In Es 4:11 the
high risks of the situation are faced so far as any attempt at intervention
from Esther was concerned. Yet now it must have been dawning upon her why she
had been brought to the position she now held as queen of Persia. Mordecai
reminded her that her own life was already in jeopardy and that without action
her position could not save her. Yet he had faith in God’s covenant arrangement
with Abraham and acknowledged His power to deliver even in the darkest hour. He
said, "If you hold your peace, God will send deliverance some other
way!"
Esther sets example to all in dire distress by seeking the
Lord in prayer. The name of God is never mentioned openly in the account. This
story tells of the faith that unseen God achieved.
Esther knew that to enter into the king’s presence
uninvited could mean her death. She resolved that she would be, nevertheless, a
"living sacrifice"if this was in accordance with God’s perfect will.
"If I perish, I perish!" If the attempt to deliver her own race
involved her death, so be it. (See Da 3:13-18)
"The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord!" ( Pr 21:1)
Esther was now forced to take and to confess her place
amongst the people of God. For three days she fasted and prayed, and with her
all the Jewish people. Then on the third day she entered the throne room
standing trembling at the door. The king saw her there and, realising that
something very important must have prompted her to do this thing, his heart was
touched, and he stretched forth his golden sceptre to beckoned her.
Showing great discretion, Esther did not reveal at once all
in her heart. Instead, she invited the king and Haman to a banquet that very
day. After several full courses of food, the time would come for the wine
course, a time when the king would be exceptionally happy. He knew that Esther
had a matter on her heart, so he asked about it. But the wise queen delayed
another day, and the king yielded to her wishes. Haman went home elated, puffed
up with pride that he should enjoy such an exclusive banquet with royalty.
Proudly he boasted of his exaltation to family and friends. But he was so
indignant at the repeated failure of Mordecai to reverence him that at his
wife’s advice he built an enormous means of destruction for the hated Jew—a
gallows fifty cubits high from which, this ‘final solution’ would be witnessed
in public display. (2)
The heritage of the servants of the Lord.
Nothing could prevent this most serious attempt to
exterminate every Jew. That could not be changed. Nevertheless, there was also
to be a most remarkable reversal. The outcome would be that the Jew so despised
and hated was to become highly honoured, while his enemies were to be
destroyed.
Isa 54:17 "No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper;
... This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD."
The account records how this was achieved in the case of
Haman. The thwarting of Satan’s attempted annihilation of the Jews in our own
times under Hitler, and the resulting rebirth of Israel, is only a stage in the
full story. The Jew has a destiny of exaltation and honour which will become a
means of the greatest blessing mankind has ever known or dreamed in the kingdom
arrangements of God’s Dear Son. But first this ancient race has to stand up and
be counted as the people of God. Thy need once more to turn to their God in
fasting and most earnest petition, and to realise at last that power of faith
and that strength of obedient trust which is the life-force of those who,
through smoking furnace, become welded and forever bonded with their Lord.
But the LORD hath taken you, and brought you forth out of
the iron furnace, ... to be unto him a people of inheritance, as ye are this
day. De 4:20
See ‘( Patterns for the Last days’) for fuller accounts of
time and type parallels illustrating these days in which we live.
1. [ 476 BC is 60 years after Cyrus, 536 BC, and the Esther
period until death of Xerxes in 465
BC occupied a further 11 years. The
parallel from 1874 is the period of Hitler’s rise and evil attempt to wipe out the Jewish race 1934 to 1945
AD.]
2. [Under the Nazis every living Jew old and young, male and female was slated for destruction. Three quarters of Hitler’s victims died within an eleven-month period alone (March 1942-February 1943). (Seehttp://www.holocaustsurvivors.org)