Click a verse number to see an options menu. To subscribe to this RSS feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader. Esther 5:14 Hamans wife Zeresh and all his friends said to him, "Have a gallows seventy-five feet high built, and in the morning tell the king that Mordecai should be hanged on it. In the second half the Lord speaks to Manasseh and his people but they paid no attention. Why did Haman build so tall an instrument of death? In this divinely inspired hallucination, the fictional Dante sees Haman as "un crucifisso", a man who undergoes crucifixion.[35]. Answer Haman is introduced in Esther 3:5-6 as an enemy of Mordecai and the Jewish people: "When Haman saw that Mordecai would not kneel down or pay him honor, he was enraged. @bobson If the author of Esther wanted to say "impale" he would have used the Hebrew word which is the word used at Numbers 25:7 when Phinehas (Pinchus) puts his spear through the copulating Baal priestess and Zimri ben Salu. The Purim story, as told in the biblical Megillat Esther, offers a picture of a world turned upside down in which a Jewish orphan becomes a Persian queen, the architect of a plan to kill the Jews dies at the hands of his primary target, and an assimilated diaspora community institutes a new holiday for Jews everywhere.Appropriately, the annual celebration of this upside-down-ness involves . During the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (around 175 BCE), these questions were especially relevant to the Jews living under his rule. The slave owners interpreted this story as a dishonor to the father, consequently calling for the mistreatment of slaves. al. 2 And all the king's servants who were within the king's gate bowed and paid homage to Haman, for so the king had commanded concerning him. 12 gauge wire for AC cooling unit that has as 30amp startup but runs on less than 10amp pull, Peanut butter and Jelly sandwich - adapted to ingredients from the UK. 23-45. Haman wanted to kill Mordecai and end the disobedience, but could not ask the king to kill Mordecai because the king did not make the order that the leaders at the king's gate must bow.. 6 But he did not want to only hurt Mordecai. By clicking Accept all cookies, you agree Stack Exchange can store cookies on your device and disclose information in accordance with our Cookie Policy. Ahasuerus and Vashti: The Story Megillat Esther Does Not Tell You, Literary Parallels in Bereishit 34-38 and 1 Samuel, Why Did Mordecai not Bow Down to Haman?, Megillat Esther: Reversing the Legacy of King Saul.. Each tree, declaring that it was used for some holy purpose, objected to being soiled by the unclean body of Haman. Eliza Thomas is an editor and writer who has worked with IMB for more than a decade. It's most likely a "stake" () for "impalement" (tlh); this is how the 1985 JPS Tanakh consistently translates it in each of the 9 occurrences in Esther (2:23; 5:14; 6:4; 7:9; 7:10; 8:7; 9:13; 9:14; 9:25). He first rose to power in 1930, and within three short years instituted laws to exclude Jews from civil society in the effort to protect German blood and German honor. Much of the time he was honored for these actions. If it is a reference to Marduk, this can be explained by the fact that the . In 2006, the Israeli journalist and author, Amos Elon, wrote that in Israel, the Holocaust was long seen as simply the culmination of a long unbroken line of anti-Semitism, from pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar to Hitler and Arafat.[2] Although it is difficult to say anything about a biblical attitude when the books of the Hebrew Bible were written by many authors over many centuries, in fact, the Bible rarely depicts gentile hatred of or animus toward Jews simply because they were Jews. According to the midrashic source, Agadat Eshter 5:14, Zeresh went with Haman to pick out a pole or tree from which to hang Mordechai. But it seems logical that after King David wiped out most of his race, any who remained would likely have left the land and assumed other nationality identifications. [22] Presumably by using the river as amiqveh. 'impale'), using the same verb later used in the New Testament's Gospel of Matthew. Such a tall pole would have allowed Haman to observe Mordecai's corpse while dining in the royal palace, had his plans worked as intended. When dealing with earlier periods of history, they prefer terms such as anti-Judaism, animus to Jews, or hatred of Jews. [3] He then sought to fix the month, but found that the same was true of each month; thus, Nisan was favorable to the Jews because of the Passover sacrifice; Iyyar, because of the small Passover. [28][29], Jacob Hoschander has argued that the name of Haman and that of his father Hamedatha are mentioned by Strabo as Omanus and Anadatus, worshipped with Anahita in the city of Zela. How do two equations multiply left by left equals right by right? to represent the Jews and translate the king's order for the Jewish If you try to kill him with a sword, know that Pharaoh attempted to decapitate Moses and failed. After the biblical and rabbinic periods, Jews in medieval times began to see antisemitism as a pervasive, universal and inevitable phenomenon. One of historys most horrible events is the Jewish holocaust. Mordecai job was See Yehuda Komlosh, Targum Sheni,Encyclopedia Judaica, edited by Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik, 2nd ed., vol. https://thetorah.com/article/hamans-antisemitism-what-did-he-not-like-about-the-jews. American children's television animations in which the biblical story of Haman is told include the "Queen Esther" episode of the series The Greatest Adventure: Stories from the Bible (1985-1992), where he is voiced by Werner Klemperer, and the computer-generated series VeggieTales (2000), in which he is portrayed by "Mr. Lunt" during the episode "Esther, the Girl who Became Queen". What PHILOSOPHERS understand for intelligence? Angered by this, and knowing of Mordecai's Jewish nationality, Haman convinced Ahasuerus to allow him to have all of the Jews in the Persian empire killed. The son was sent to wander around observing the palace for two hours while. Esther revealed Haman's plan to Ahasuerus and pleaded with him to spare her people. Esther 5:14Haman's wife Zeresh and all his friends said to him, "Have a gallows seventy-five feet high built, and in the morning tell the king that Mordecai should be hanged on it. Golden ceptor. If this keeps happening, please report the error. His attempt in eradicating the Jewish people in the Old Testament book of Esther manifests his arrogant and hostile attitude. Site design / logo 2023 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under CC BY-SA. How small stars help with planet formation. Therefore IF the hanging occurred on the 6th of Sivan (as we assume), THEN the timing of both the decree to kill the Jews (Passover) and the intent to kill Mordecai (Shuvuot) coincided with these two respective Jewish Holy Days associated with deliverance from their enemies and prosperity at the hand of Yahveh, which is the meta-narrative of the Book of Esther. To subscribe to this RSS feed, copy and paste this URL into your RSS reader. Then his wise men and Zeresh his wife said to him, If Mordecai, before whom you have begun to fall, is of Jewish origin, you will not overcome him, but will surely fall before him., These Gentiles not only had some familiarization with the Jewish calendar and Jewish Law, but knew that these Jews were servants of the Living God, who would fight on their behalf. Stephen Haynes asserts, "proslavery southerners were attracted to the story of Noah and Ham because it resonated with their most deeply-held cultural values" and "understood Ham's transgression as a violation of familial loyalty that marked him and his descendants as utterly lacking in honor (and thus fit for slavery)". @RobV - There two subtleties here - (1) the fact that a person did something in the Bible does not necessarily make it a principle that we should emulate, and, (2) Mordecai recognised the authority of Haman (by obeying) but would not show honour by bowing - a personal choice for unstated reasons. Esther is one of the grandest stories in Scripture. In addition, the Midrash says that Haman was an astrologer (Gods Law forbids astrology), and this seems to be confirmed by the method he chose to fix the time for the genocide of the Jews, by casting lots to determine the best day to destroy the Jews. Anyone can submit a commentary (see requirements). Josephus mentions Haman in his Antiquities of the Jews. Encyclopaedia Judaica CD-ROM Edition 1.0 1997. 17 You have today declared the Lord to be your God, and that you would walk in His ways and keep His statutes, His commandments and His ordinances, and listen to His voice. Nevertheless, the biblical narrator does not explain Hamans accusations against the Jews in much detail. This is especially evident in two passages, one from the Talmud and the other from Lamentations Rabbah. The answer falls upon one individual that did not bow to Hamans pride. Angered by this, and knowing of Mordecai's Jewish nationality, Haman convinced Ahasuerus to allow him to have all of the Jews in the Persian empire killed. Harper's Bible Dictionary (see "Haman," p. 369) notes the family connections between Saul and Agag on one hand, and Mordechai and Haman centuries later. (In practice the Persians and the, Another opinion is that Xerxes called him a Macedonian Spy, due to his insistence on causing civil war within, This page was last edited on 18 April 2023, at 02:01. How to determine chain length on a Brompton? The Pharaoh's submission to God at the moment of death and total destruction was rejected, but his corpse was saved as a lesson for posterity and he was mummified.[25]. The LXX calls Haman a "Macedonian" by Xerxes (see Esther 16:10). (In fact, it would be hard to imagine what would have constituted antisemitism or Israelite hatred at a time when Jewish/Israelite identity hardly existed.). This gladness and celebration coincides with the honor promised by Yahveh on Shavuot, which was the Festival of First Fruits (Feast of Weeks) - that is, the following verses in Deuteronomy concerns Shavuot, and the resultant honor in the eyes of the nations, who were the enemies of the Jews. Studying the history of interpretation of the book of Esther provides a good window for the study of antisemitism. My understanding is that death by "hanging" on a "gallows" (implying by noose around the neck) is not a form of capital punishment known in the ancient Near East.1 On the other hand, impalement as exposure of corpse is very well known -- as the grisly detail from the Nineveh palace relief of the siege of Lachish unfortunately demonstrates (middle at left edge):2, It is sometimes thought that the size of the militates against impalement and requires a "gallows" -- this was Paton's argument, at any rate.3, This paragraph from Jon Levenson's Esther commentary makes some excellent points here:4. The black people of Ham have being chosen as Gods vessels to bring hope to the hopeless world right from the beginning of creation. Prof. Why did Mordecai forbid Esther to reveal her nationality? Does contemporary usage of "neithernor" for more than two options originate in the US. Biblical Hermeneutics Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for professors, theologians, and those interested in exegetical analysis of biblical texts. [13][14], TgEsth1 and TgEsth3 call him "Haman the son of Hamedatha, descended from Agag the son of Amaleq." Because Haman was second in position, only to the king, he was always at the palace. Why didn't Haman investigate Mordecai's relationship with Queen Esther? At the critical juncture in the text, Esther invoked three days of fasting and mourning in anticipation of her engagement with the king, which, if rejected, would have resulted in her own execution (Esther 4:15-16). 1:21) expressively makes a similar point by having the Jews accuse God of forcing them to act antisocially by legislating mitzvot that others find offensive: In these particularly unvarnished midrashim, the rabbis shockingly blame gentile animosity to Judaism on the observance of mitzvot (commandments), the very essence of their Judaism. [4] On the date of composition of Esther, see, for example, Carey A. Moore,Esther(Anchor Bible Series; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1971), LVII-LX; Adele Berlin,The JPS Bible Commentary: Esther(Philadelphia: JPS, 2001), xli-xliii; and Jean-Daniel Macchi,Le Livre DEsther(Geneva: Labor et Fides, 2016). Their various expansions reveal a great deal about what each of them saw as the root of antisemitism. 5. Also, I'm pretty certain that if the text even implied "impaled" that the rabbinic discussion of the text in the Talmud tractate of Megillah would have been all over that, just as they discuss many interpretations of other terms never considered in Christian texts. If the Send to printer button does not work, use the Print option in your browser menu. Barry Walfish,Esther in Medieval Garb: Jewish Interpretations of the Book of Esther in the Middle Ages(Albany: SUNY Press, 1993), 143-155. Now Harbonah, one of the eunuchs, said to the king, Look! I overpaid the IRS. Meaning of name : Mordecai - The meaning of his name is only guessed at. However, a Jewish man named Mordecai refused to bow down to him, which enraged Haman. It is cautionary history. Who told Esther she needed to help the Jews? Given the ANE evidence, I find the JPS translation more compelling, but the issue is debatable. Similarly, the Bible never portrays Nebuchadnezzar as an antisemite. The translation above is from theThe Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha: Revised Standard Version(New York: Oxford University Press, 1977). Not only does Jewish tradition accept that Haman was hung by his neck, it is exremely unlikely that the authors of the Book of Esther, the Sages of the Great Assembly, which included Mordechai, Ezra, Daniel, Nehemiah and Zechariah (see Babyl. Haman excels only in the magnitude of his drives. Haman's plot was foiled by Queen Esther, who was also Jewish and had concealed her identity from the King. He was very open to hating them. Hoschander suggests that Haman may, if the connection is correct, be a priestly title and not a proper name. Ultimately, he was able to convince King Ahasuerus to issue a genocidal decree against the Jews. He had taken it back from Haman. dismissed an entire people and pursued them to death. Esther 5:14. According to Josephus, Haman told the king: Schfer concludes that some Jewish authors understood that the essence of antisemitism in the Greco-Roman world was the allegation of amixia, unsociability, and of a [Jewish] way of life that is hostile to and, therefore, dangerous to all humankind.[14] According to Schfer, Greek texts confirm that these Jewish authors correctly understood the thoughts of many of their gentile neighbors. Among Lockshins publications is his four-volume translation and annotation of Rashbams commentary on the Torah. Strong's shows it is translated in the KJV as: tree (162x), wood (107x), timber (23x), stick (14x), gallows (8x), staff (4x), stock (4x), carpenter (with H2796) (2x), branches (1x), helve (1x), planks (1x), stalks (1x). Some, though, believe that what Xerxes expected with regard to people bowing to Haman was tantamount to worship. In the same decade, John Edgar McFayden, professor of Bible at Knox College (affiliated with the University of Toronto) wrote in his Introduction to the Old Testament that the book of Esther was characterized by aggressive fanaticism and fierce hatred of all that lay outside Judaism, and opined that the books popularity was due primarily to the power with which it expresses some of the most characteristic, if almost odious, traits of Judaism.[27]. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top, Not the answer you're looking for? It is a gallows. Scholars have had two different explanations for this naming: The Septuagint translates the "hang" (Hebrew: , lit. David, Bruce James makes a very strong case for the "gallow" interpretation. (Other scholars assume "Omanus" refers to Vohu Mana.)[32][33][34]. As we seek to understand the mistakes of the past, may we never be guilty of repeating them. Therefore, authors from the Jewish apocalyptic genre wrote Daniel 8 and 9 and 1 Enoch: The Animal Apocalypse in hopes of answering the question of why the Jews suffer at the hands of evil despite their convent and unique relationship with God. The Jewish people in the second half the Lord speaks to Manasseh and his people but they no! One from the beginning of creation of interpretation of the eunuchs, said to the king, was. This naming: the Septuagint translates the `` gallow '' interpretation studying the history of interpretation of book. ] According to Schfer, Greek texts confirm that these Jewish authors correctly the. 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