The Bible goes to great lengths to paint a picture in the book of Esther. Calling out Haman as an Agagite multiple times is very interesting, and also very easy to miss. We can get so used to reading names that end in “-ite” in scripture that we get used to breezing right past them. This isn’t one we should breeze past.

Agag was the evil king of the Amalekites mentioned in 1 Samuel 15. God told Samuel to have Saul wipe them out completely and not to leave anything alive—not even their livestock, and especially not their king. Saul broke Samuel’s command and kept livestock and he kept Agag alive. It was just bad form for kings to go around killing other kings. What goes around comes around, and Saul didn’t want any other kings to kill him if he was ever defeated.

Samuel later came and killed Agag himself, but from the perspective of any remaining Amalekites, they would have most certainly attributed their king’s death to Israel’s king Saul. And that is what is going to set up our great conflict in Esther. We have a descendent of Agag (Haman) and a descendant of Saul’s family (Mordecai) who are going to butt heads in an apocalyptic way.

The King of Persia had recently promoted Haman to his position of power and decreed that everyone should bow and pay him homage and respect, but Mordecai refused. Why he refused to bow is a mystery we will explore in the coming days, but our author appears to be hinting that Mordecai may have known who this Haman was who was being promoted and what kind of man he was and what prejudices he held against his people.

One speculation about why Haman was promoted here may be because King Xerxes may have just lost one of the most embarrassing battles in human history, the battle of Thermopylae. He may have deposed or killed the rest of his officials listed in chapter one (never to be heard from again in this book) and replaced them all with Haman. There’s no proof of that, but it’s an interesting speculation, and it may explain some of the behavior of the king in the coming chapters.

Why do you think the king promoted Haman and demanded he be treated like this?
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Esther is simultaneously a victory and a tragedy. In some ways, If you look at it through a modern lens, it should be called the Victory of Mordecai and the Tragedy of Esther. Esther loses her parents and then is taken into the harem of a despotic king to be used as he wishes. Mordecai ends up, like Daniel, a very high official and ruler in his expatriated land.

This will be a great study of Esther as we look at the emotions, the world and the meanings of one of the most cherished, and often misunderstood books of the Bible.

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