Latest / Madison Church of Christ Bible Studies / Esther | Michael Manasco | Week 06

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Esther | Michael Manasco | Week 06 · Madison Church of Christ Bible Studies

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  Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to God. If you're ever in the Madison area, we'd love for you to stop by and study the Bible with us on Sundays at 5pm or Wednesdays at 7pm if you have questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, you can find us online@madisonchurch.org be sure to subscribe to this podcast as well as our Sermons podcast, Madison Church of Christ Sermons. Thanks again for stopping by. I hope this study is a blessing to you.
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  Speaker B: So we're going to continue tonight. Chapter three. You know, we've got I think seven more weeks left in the 13 week quarter and the plan is nine and chapter nine and ten kind of go together. We'll be doing that on the final week as they're very kind of a short one to wrap up and we have another week. I'm going to do a couple of the chapters combined thematically, but tonight we're going to do chapter three and maybe part of next week. Chapter four is the big one we always want to get to and talk about for such a time as this. We're almost there. But I love chapter three first because of so many of the weird things that are going on there and all the insights we get into Haman, Mordecai and maybe some things that are I have some observations I've mentioned from the beginning. I want us to while we're studying Esther. It's a familiar story, but I'm hoping that so far I've challenged you to hope all of us, we've challenged each other to think of it in a different way, maybe certain characters and explore some themes that maybe we haven't before. And I want to do that tonight as well. I'm never trying to put my opinion in as much as draw from historical sources and the text and where we can see between the lines. Now, rabbinical tradition, I don't know if maybe some of you heard, you know, a lot of rabbinical Judaism, even today, don't refer to Esther as a book. They call it the volume or the megillah. Anyone ever heard that term, megillah? They just call it the volume. They don't really know what to do with it. It's a book that certain traditions of, even Judaism are not quite sure if it's elevated as the other Books. It's the volume. It's an important story. Anyway, I find that interesting. But anyway, with Esther, we're going to get into chapter three and think a little more about this book tonight. And some of the. I've mentioned the Magi a few times and you might think what in the world does that have to do with it so far? And again, I'm trying to challenge us to think about maybe insights. But I think the wise men, we've already mentioned them once. Early on I mentioned those are the advisors of Xerxes. They are rooted in that mystical tradition of Zoroastrian priests and astrologers, scientists really, of their time, wizards, if you want to call it the Bible. We use the word sorcerer and things like that. A lot of these men were just scholars. But it comes up again in this chapter in a big way. And I think there are some things we can learn about Haman or maybe infer from historical sources and the Bible as to what's going on. So I want to mention a couple of things first, actually, before I. Well, I'll leave this text up here from Daniel because I want to show some parallels to, I think, what is a root that gets us to Haman. Okay. In terms of his position. I'm going to read you something first from. Again, I'm going to mention until you hate him, Herodotus. But these historians that we just can't beat a firsthand account. This guy was actually at court. So I'm going to read an account of something here from a customs of the Persian from Herodotus histories. The customs which I know the Persians to observe are the they have no images of the gods, no temples nor altars, and consider the use of them a sign of folly. This comes, I think, from their not believing the gods to have the same nature with men as the Greeks imagine. Their want, however, is to ascend the summits of the loftiest mountains and there to offer sacrifice, which is the name they give to the whole circuit of the firmament, which is Jupiter. They likewise offer to the sun, moon, to the earth, fire, water, and to the winds. Those are the only gods whose worship has come down to them from ancient times. At a later period, they began to worship Urania, which they borrowed from the Arabians and the Assyrians. Mileta is the name by which the Assyrians know this goddess. The Persians, Mitra, God called Mithra. That comes up in a little bit tradition of the Magi. To these gods, the Persians offer sacrifice in the following manner. They raise no altar, light no fire Pour no libations. There is no sound of the flute, no putting on of chaplets, no consecrated barley cake. But the man who wishes to sacrifice brings his victim to a spot of ground which is pure from pollution, calls the name from the God to which he intends to offer. The attending magi is wearing often a turban encircled with a wreath, most commonly of myrtle. The sacrificer is not allowed to pray for blessings on himself alone but for the welfare of the king and all the Persian people of whom he is of necessity included. He cuts the victim into pieces, boils the flesh, lays it out upon a mound of grass. When all is ready, one of the magi comes forward and chants a hymn. It is not lawful to offer sacrifice unless a magus is present. I read that just to show the oddity. Herodotus goes on to talk about how different this tradition of the magi are to current religions. He says, this much I can declare of the Persians from my own actual knowledge. There's another custom which is spoken of with reserve and not openly concerning their dead. It is said that the body of a male Persian is never buried until it has been torn either by a dog or a bird of prey. That the magi have this custom is beyond a doubt for they practice without concealment. The dead bodies are covered with wax and buried to the ground. The magi are a peculiar race, different from the Egyptian priests and all other men. And I read that to say they practiced different traditions in general, even at the time, for the pagans, okay, these Zoroastrian priests who honored earth, fire, and not begin to use earth, wind and fire, the band, but fire, earth, wind and water. If you've ever seen the movie 300 or read some histories, there's. When the envoys come from Xerxes to Greece, they say, give us earth and water. Xerxes will bring you fire. That was a common greeting. That was their way of submitting. You went to a city, they gave you a scoop of their dirt and water, saying, we commit to you. Xerxes will bring you the fire. The gods. That's also where they threw the messenger into the well. Now, in the movie, Leonidas kicks him into the well. That's a little Hollywood, but, you know, those things happened, best we can tell. And I again bring this up because their ways were different. The wise men of the court. And something in chapter three, you'll see where we talk about casting lots. Divination, augury. At the time, most of these people, again, they were scientists, they were scholars. They were called Mages, but it was just science. They did predict tonight. I mentioned the weather. I was thinking on the way here, that's the kind of thing if Xerxes, if he was going to have a procession, he would ask his attending wise men about the weather, this and that. And the thing about it is, if you were attending the king, depending on who was king, they didn't really want to know what was going to happen. They wanted to know what they wanted to hear. We see this throughout history and the magi here in the story, throughout the book, we see a little bit of advice happening. Xerxes was temperamental, okay? So those he kept near him, like Haman, when he asked for advice, he would want to kind of hear what he wanted to hear. So I want you to keep that in mind kind of as we talk tonight and next week about this. And I want to start with a parallel because I want us to remember the symmetries of Esther and other stories in the Bible. Daniel, I go back to Nebuchadnezzar. We're just one or two generations removed, if you recall, from Daniel. And we see in Daniel 2 where we see King Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face and paid humble respect to Daniel, gave orders to present him an offering and incense. The king said, you God truly is a God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of secrets. Since you have been able to reveal this secret, does anybody remember why is it that the king Nebuchadnezzar was praising Daniel? What had Daniel just done for him? Do you recall the dream? Yes, interpreting of dreams. Now, that's what set the wise men apart. Now, I'm not calling Daniel a wise man in a pagan sense. This is God again working in providence. He did have. The thing about the wise men is when God put his wise men there, they actually did have power. They were getting. Well, they were getting divine inspiration from God. He had just interpreted dreams for Nebuchadnezzar and that was what they expected a wise man to be. And the text tells us the king promoted Daniel and gave him gifts and made him ruler over the entire province of Babylon and chief prefect over all the wise men. Let's not overlook that. That's that word hakamim or magoi or magi in Greek. This is the root of these Eastern traditions meeting the West. Remember, Persia went all the way to India and over to Greece. And so that culture clash was something for the time. We see that Daniel was over these people. He was the head of the wise men. At this point in the story, Cyrus has already conquered Babylon. You read it closely. Darius is going to be king soon. So this tradition of God getting his people into the good graces of the king is going to help us get to where we get Mordecai in position as well. We see Daniel requested his friends over the administration of the province. Daniel was in the king's court. So this gives us more evidence that a wise man was often elevated not just in the court, but often to a vizier. I want you to think about this. You know, we have Daniel going back, establishing what Esther's going to capitalize on. We have Daniel's influence as a Jew. He was called a magi. That's what he was to them. He was a magi. He was chief of the magi to the Persians, right? Or the Babylonians, who the Persians conquered Haman. I want us to look at him in chapter three. We see he was a respected man. And I think with the evidence we have, we can see that either Haman maybe consider he either was a part of this order as well, not of Daniel, or he was someone who put a lot of stock in them. We see the Jewish influence on the traditions we have. We see the magi existing after this story is over. That will in turn preserve the story of the Jewish people. That gets us to Christ. That's how the wise men of the Bible in the New Testament know about the star of Jacob. There are references to their own of these stories. How did they get them? Because the Jewish people told them. Because learned men, right, were writing these stories down. But it doesn't get there without Daniel and it doesn't get there without Esther. And we're going to see throughout the next chapter or two where Esther's influence is going to be what seals the deal and her risk and wits. And also, we'll come back to this later. But there's some things about the wise men as a people. Herodotus referred to them as a race. That's because they were at one point. The thing about the magi. And everyone can. Somebody needs to sue. George Lucas needs to be sued for his. If you've seen Star wars with the Jedi knights and they all get killed, they get framed. If you've seen the movies, they're the protectors, right? They're the seekers of knowledge. They're just protecting. They're not dangerous. But they get framed for assassinating the king and then they get exterminated because they're a little too dangerous. It's good to have a Few around. Well, that's what happens to the Magi. They were a people, the Medes. Someone week one asked about the Median, the Medes, they were a people like a race of scholars essentially, who were conquered because they were a little too dangerous. Darius actually framed one of them for murdering, murdering someone and had them killed. So there is an interesting parallel there, but we'll come back to that later. So tonight I want to look a little closer at chapter three, getting into these superstitions, thinking about Haman and Mordecai and the hatred we've already talked a little about. And when we get to the end of chapter three, we see a king in Xerxes being manipulated. So where we're at here again, we can verify this is a historical event. We are back at the courtyard tonight. Now there's the inner courtyard, which is number four there, here, where one prepared to enter the king's presence. This faced the throne room, which is number five. Mordecai is out here, right, coming to the palace. There are all these other sort of courtyards. Now, an audience between Xerxes and Haman. When we see in the text in chapter three where it says Haman is elevated by Xerxes, we don't know exactly where, but it would have probably been in the throne room or the outer courtyard. Okay? It either happened here or out here. Xerxes would often meet his people here and do those things. We know that from history. Another note about Mordecai, since I sort of rushed over him last week at the end of chapter two, I mentioned Mordecai. Now that he, the good man, good godly Mordecai is a watcher of the king's gate. He overhears the plot of assassination and he gains favor with king via Esther, with the king via Esther. Mordecai's good deed is recorded in the book of the Annals of the King. We're going to see that later in Esther 6 where it even records Xerxes insomnia problem and how he liked to read his court records. But I bring that up because I wanted to mention here I feel like Esther, we sort of introduced her and went away. We're going to get back to her. But unfortunately Esther and Vashti come in the story as sort of objects, right? We get to finally read about Esther in chapter two. But let's remember she's a queen, not just a pawn here being moved by Mordecai. But what I like about this is from a godly example, we see converse to Xerxes and Vashti. We see Mordecai and Esther show us how a family works together. They're a team. During this, I wouldn't say Mordecai. I guess you could say there's a symmetry, that Haman is scheming to kill the Jews. I wouldn't say Mordecai is scheming with Esther. He's tactically planning. Right? But he and Esther, we have a mentor and a mentee. The older Mordecai, they were selfless in their motives, we see, to save their people. But I want us to remember too, self preservation isn't a bad thing. We're going to see later. Esther is going to say, if I die, I die. But Mordecai is also going to say delivery is going to come. But it sure be nice if it'd be now, basically. But we see that. We see Jesus running from hostile. Not running, but moving from hostile Pharisees. And Luke, there's a time and a place for everything, right? So mentioning Mordecai once more, one thing I didn't mention last time is that when we read about a Jew at the citadel, that means Mordecai was already at the palace. Let's remember that he was already an official, which was consistent with conquered foreign peoples. He was probably a court official. These documents I've talked about several times indicate a Marduk, who was the. Who was a chief official during that time over logistics. The Persian courts often would keep these people as enslaved officials. In chapter two, it also says that Mordecai walked back and forth in front of the courtyard of the harem. And if he did that every day, we know that means he already was a high ranking official, right? Let's get that. Because you didn't get in the inner court, if you weren't already someone of some import. So, and we see that we have this Mordecai confirmed in history. Now what he did was probably something like logistics, making payments to people. And the gatehouse, the King's gate, he would ferry people there back and forth. And the King's Gate. One thing I'll mention about Mordecai from history, the position the Bible seems to indicate he has. And this is from a Persian source, from Persian history, observing someone called the King's Eye. You may have seen that before. We have found also that those called the King's eyes and the King's ears in the court. And I won't go on to all these just for time, but Mordecai was probably something called the King's eye, right? He was out watching at the gate. And catching an assassination attempt would get you elevated really quickly. Right? So that's why we have Mordecai uplifted, but not as high as Haman just yet. Okay, so chapter three, I want to reread. We kind of started this, but let's read the first six verses and I want us to kind of see what's going on here. So in chapter three, this is after Mordecai has had his event recorded. After these things, King Xerxes promoted Haman the Agagite, the son of Hammedatha, and advanced him and set his throne above all the officials who were with him. And all the king's servants who were at the king's gate bowed down and paid homage to Haman, for the king had so commanded concerning him. But Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage. Then the king's servants who were at the king's gate said to Mordecai, why do you transgress the king's command? And when they spoke to him day after day and he would not listen to them, they told Haman in order to see what Mordecai's words would stand for, he had told them that he was a Jew. And when Haman saw that Mordecai did not bow down or pay homage to him, Haman was filled with fury or rage. But he disdained to lay hands on Mordecai alone. So as they had made known to him the people of Mordecai, Haman sought to destroy all the Jews, the people of Mordecai, throughout the whole kingdom of Xerxes. So we talk about why this hatred, and we see a lot of plots in motion here. I mentioned Haman. We don't know much about him, except for he wasn't listed. His name was stricken from the records, but his family is listed in Persia. The name either is derived from Hamayun. There was an Elamite God called Humban. Some people, scholars think that's what he was, which is ironic because I think Haman again was maybe a taken name, as they would do to show their illustriousness. Haman was a sellout, okay? He was an Agagite. The Septuagint in Greek tells us he was an alien to Persia. And while they did keep conquered men close to the king, I would submit to you, you had to be special, right to stay high ranked. So Haman, you know, he seemed to have some special qualities as a vizier. Haman is also a derivative of the word hauma, which is the drink of the gods or soma. So this gets into some of the Hindu, the later Hindu stuff that comes in. But a lot of these Eastern cultures came together. So we see in verse one, he's the son of an Agagite. Now I want to point out this little hat and the reason I say this is an emblem of the God Humban, which Haman a lot of people think is sort of either named after. And that little circular hat, when you see these, sometimes you'll see it extended as a little Phrygian hat. The little comb looks like a Smurf hat, or it'll look a little bit floppy. And this is sort of what inspires what you see in fantasy, with these little wizard hats, the pointy hats, the starry red. That's kind of where this comes from, sort of magic cults, this cult religion. Now and those hats there, this is. I honestly think Haman was probably wearing something like this for a couple of reasons. Now again, I mentioned in the tablets from Persia, the historical records don't have Haman's name, but I just love this fact again, that all the other people in Esther are listed there in these records, but Haman is not, which tells us about his fate. I think he was stricken from the record, whereas Mordecai's is still there. So there's a big question I'll ask in Mordecai's actions here, which I think we all sometimes maybe struggle with. I always did. In Esther 3:1 it says, Haman uplifted by Xerxes to have authority over all officials. With him, Mordecai would be one, right? So we don't know what Haman did, but he did something to be uplifted. Okay, there's a lot of speculation, but what matters is the next part, right? It tells us that Mordecai neither bowed down or paid homage. Now in verse 5 it says, Because I am a Jew. So I will ask you the question. I'll give you a moment, maybe in response. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Maybe a little open ended, but maybe not. Why doesn't Mordecai bow here? Right? Because we have a pretty clear cut thing where it says, I'm not going to do it. Why doesn't Mordecai bow, do you think? What are your thoughts? He's an official, he's supposed to be submissive to his government, right? Maybe some speculation, and there's some things now I want us to pay attention. Notice it says he Neither bowed down nor paid. Now the king back in, Daniel pays homage to Daniel. Paying homage was a big deal. That means a little more than bowing too. That's giving a respect that is really reserved here. And Daniel 1 and 2, we won't have time to read all that. But you know, when Nebuchadnezzar brings Daniel in, it's an example of Nebuchadnezzar having a bad dream. He calls in the magi and says, hey, I had a bad dream. What does it mean? But the magi near him came to him and said, well, interpret it. He said, no, no, no. Every time I ask you, translating, you just tell me what I want to hear. Tell me what the dream was and then I'll know you're telling the truth. Of course, they can't answer it, right? Daniel, on the other hand, comes around. He says, I know what your dream was because God tells me. And that gets him revering him. So there's some parallels here, I think, as well, because we see one thing I'll mention to you that's paid homage. And we'll get to that in a little bit and maybe later as well. Some people speculate and somebody feel free to throw a tomato at me. Or if you have another theory. But a lot of scholars speculate too, that Haman was a vizier. He was second in command, okay? Those officials at that time, we know what they wore, okay? They wore elaborate, ornate garments. And guess what was all around the edge of the hem of their garments? Emblems of the deities and pagan gods. So there was an element at this time of when you bowed down, see what I'm going? That was part of it. Now, remember I said the Persians, they were not the Romans, but close. They didn't really care if you paid your taxes and you were a good citizen. They didn't care that much, right? It wasn't quite the same as Rome, where they wanted you to just don't cause a problem. But the Persians, they didn't care so much who you worship, but don't cause problems. They didn't like revolts. Xerxes wouldn't stand that. He put down too many of them. And the Jews were a problem. This is one reason someone I think Ben mentioned last week, there was some anti Semitism in the court, the women, even Esther, keep it quiet. Even at this point, Remember, they're not slaves, but they're fellow Persians. They're mixed all together with their ancient enemies, the Moabites, the Elamites. They're not friends, right? So even As a Jew, they had a perception of being troublemakers, right? They had a history of being rebels. So you kind of wanted to lay low. So one reason it might be that he doesn't bow because he says, I'm a Jewish. In Daniel, we know if we go back to Daniel, he does everything the king says, except what he says. I'm going to bow before my God. I won't break my God's laws. Which is a whole different story, but it's the same thing. I want you to look here in verse 6. He's enraged after learning what for? They had told him who the people of Mordecai were. Notice that, right? He gets upset. And I'll tell you this. In Persian law, there's really nothing Mordecai's done wrong. The king said to bow down to him. He's right. But Persians didn't get that upset about it. Okay. Was Mordecai supposed to do it? Yes. Was it bad form? Yes. Kind of illegal. But what gets Haman mad, right, is when he. When he. When he says, hey, why don't this guy bow? And then they say, well, he's a Jew. Notice Haman flips out. And that's the part I've hinted at you the last couple of weeks. It's generational Haman, the Agagite, right? It's a Jew, right? Not in my court. Right. A lot of generational hatred, not just Mordecai, but for the Jews and for time. I think I mentioned this and asked you all to look at 1st Samuel 15. Notice Mordecai and Haman, both opposing courts, both in positions of power at court. Both of them are going to be involved here in eradication ultimately. But if you remember, why does this. The events of 1st Samuel 15 is where Saul is commanded by God, Right? Saul is of the tribe of Benjamin, and he's told to wipe out. Who. Who was it? What are the people he was supposed to wipe out? Malachites, also known as the people of Agag, the Agagites. Does Saul do it? Not at first. Kind of, sort of. He doesn't. Samuel does, right? He fails to do it. He compromises. He leaves Agag alive. It's a problem. Samuel comes in and says, I'll do it. He kills Agag. But the problem is, we know the Agagites weren't entirely defeated. 1st Samuel 30 and 1st Chronicles 4 both tell us that there are still Amalekites and Agagites that David has to put down and so forth. So this isn't God. Failing. This is God saying, though, you know, he wanted Saul to kill all these Amalekites in this area. Right. But they still exist, partly because they didn't do a great job. So there's still lines of the Amalekites. Does that make sense? The Agagites are a term known in the Bible too, to refer to God's great enemies. Right. So the Agagites, Haman was a descendant of King Agag. Some people think he was literally part of the royal line. I don't think that that's necessarily true, but we have evidence that he was a descendant of the Amalekites, same thing who hated the Jews. So in Persia, either way, Haman's lineage would have elevated him to a spot in the Persian court at this point and probably assimilated into this wise men group. Okay, so I'll mention here, I mentioned this a minute ago. This is an example of. Here's the thing just to kind of. I could go into Persian history a lot, but the main thing to know is the magi in general. Okay. Didn't really look like these guys, although these are examples of Persian magi from this period, gilded in gold, ornate hats. If we could look closer, I think these are from the British Museum. You could look down and see the images engraved on them. Okay. The magi, again, were just learned people. They were scholars, truth seekers. They dressed in plain white garments. Every country had them. Okay. You wanted them near you. Maybe not too many, but kind of close. They helped you interpret dreams. Not just the Persians, they were astrologers. They had a basic sense of space and time, so they would interpret things. Unlike the Greek oracles that Herodotus speaks of, the Greek oracles would get high on psychedelics, right? And they would channel the divine. You know, a king would ask an oracle, should we invade? So, and so let me take this over here and tell you. Whereas the magi would interpret, right? And the way they did that was through randomness. Now, Haman, I would say, I think one of the reasons is because at the very least, most of the Persian magi, or Persian viziers, second in command, would dress like this. Okay? So if that's true, to me, that's enough to tell us why Mordecai wouldn't bow again. The 5th century ones were very different. The Persian period. I read to you a bit from Herodotus. These magi worshiped a kind of a deity called Mithra. Okay? It was a Zoroastrian deity about knowledge and the stars. And they had a little more of A different take on things than your other magi. So let's look as we go forward. We'll see how I think these rituals come into play. So let's read in verse 7 through 11 here. So in verse 6, Haman is upset because he knows Mordecai is a Jew, and he says, I'm going to kill all of them right before I read. I'll say this too. Here's the thing. Remember Haman's second in a command. Quite honestly, he could have just wished this so and had it done pretty quickly, but he doesn't. And that's where I think we can read between the lines here. So in verse 7, in the first month, which is the month of Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Xerxes, they cast pur, that is, they cast lots before Haman day after day, and they cast it month after month to the 12th month, which is the month of Adar. Then Haman said to King Xerxes, there is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the province of your kingdom. Their laws are different from those of every other people, and they do not keep the king's laws, so that it is not to the king's profit to tolerate them. If it pleases the king, let it be decreed that they be destroyed. And I will pay 10,000 talents of silver into the hands of those who have charge of the king's business that they may put into the king's treasuries. So the king took his signet ring from his hand and gave it to Haman the Agagite, the son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews. And the king said to Haman, the money is given to you, the people also, to do with them, as it seems good to you. So there's a few things here. This is an example of a dice, one of the cuneifh, sort of made out of clay, poor dice. This chapter tells us about politics. It tells us about Xerxes as a little bit indifferent at this point, right? This is a broken man. I want us to remember. He just got whipped in Greece. He just got ran back to his palace. He's not even with his army. They're still fighting, by the way, in Greece. He's back, not like his father, and he's licking his wounds and he's drinking wine. And he's with his women, right? Not Esther, really, Maybe Esther at this point a little. But he was with his concubines. We've read about that in the scripture and history, But Xerxes is pretty indifferent. So there's a couple of things going on here I want us to think about with Haman. We've already talked a little about the generational hatred. Haman has a reason to have a vendetta. Because again, I want us to remember God's people. Remember after God's people, Joshua, they go in and take all this land. Well, the conquered people didn't just go away and forget, right? That's one of the reasons God told him, once you do this, you better stay the course, right? Because guess what happens when you don't, when I'm not with you. God didn't say you might get taken over. He said, when I'm not with you, I will deliver you to your enemies. Right? And we've read other verses last week where the other people, like the Moabites, said, let's get them basically right, let's mock them. So we see Haman has a generational vendetta. He knows Mordecai is a Jew, probably knows he's of the tribe of Benjamin. By now we see that in Psalms the Amalekites existed because they made alliances with other territories near Medea. So we know what was left of the Agagite people. The Amalekites were in Media, which is right next to Persians primary province. And one other thing to notice is Herodotus and Xenophon tell us that the Persians you remember at the banquet in chapter one, proximity was a big deal. The king. And if you sat next to the king, you were more important. And beyond that you got less important. If you look at a map of the empire, the most important countries and people are the ones right next to where the palaces are, and it goes out from there, okay? And that's why the Medes were so important. And likely one of the reasons why he was elevated. One thing I want you to think about as well, though, is the Persians, okay, their satraps, what was the name for their provinces? You know, like India, Bactria, places like that. The Persians in general didn't quite share Haman's hatred, right? And a couple of reasons for that. Esther. Three, and I want us to think about this. Number one, you can't tax corpses, right? You know, Xerxes is not in the business of wiping out people for personal vendettas. He needs money, right? And he needs people to govern. But I want you to notice in verse 8 through 11, have you ever paid attention to how subtle? Do you notice Haman never says to Xerxes, the Jews are going to be a problem. We need to wipe them out. Do you notice that he never said, does your translation say Jew? It's not an accident. Right. He frames it in a very banal way. Right? There's a certain people, Xerxes, don't worry about it, right? He's coming to him and his drink, his wine. He says, I'll take care of it for you. This is what Haman's job was to take care of the unruly. So Xerxes didn't have to put down another rebellion. So it was very easy for him to persuade, which is another lesson to us about being vigilant. But we see him word it that way and a couple of things to think about with that for Xerxes, again, they did have a precedent for rebellions. Okay, we've mentioned some of that. So when Haman says, there's a certain people that are doing. They're not following your command and their ways aren't your ways. Xerxes of course, says, well, go ahead, let's put them down. Put them down. He doesn't even ask who they are. Right. Xerxes doesn't even ask what the details are. Which is going to come back later with Esther, because his favorite wife is a Jew. Right? We don't know that yet, but Esther's going to have a problem. Pogroms, the word for genocide. These sort of directed things, genocides, happened as a consequence. Xerxes would wipe out entire peoples if he decreed them to be a problem. And Haman is counting on this. We do know of these evidences of Darius and Xerxes putting down the rebellions. Again, you can't really tax the dead. It wasn't popular, but they would do it. Xerxes was very liberal with this. I mentioned to you earlier that they sort of let everyone worship who they wanted to, but Xerxes pushed it when he got upset. There's a story of him going to a Babylonian temple and going in there and himself pushing down the statues of the gods they worship. Said, I'm your God. That was not a Persian way. Xerxes was getting tired of competing with other ideas because he just wasn't the big deal his father was. So a couple of things. And we're going to do more of this next week as we close out the chapter and get to 4. But I want you to look at these first 11 verses. These magi people, the wise men. When he casts lots poor, okay, he goes to great depth to figure out when he should kill the Jews. Right. It was a common practice for them to do this, you know, to kind of roll the dice, roll the bones. Right. They were diviners. They would look through random. Sorting through random things and make decisions. But Haman, I think this is evidence again, that he either was a magi or he was connected to them. That's where he got. He definitely worked with them, and those were his people, because otherwise, if he really hated them that badly, he could have had this signed and done in a month. But Haman's superstition and paganism is what's going to get him in trouble, just like his ancestors. That's what's going to see Esther through. This is buying Esther time. This is not by chance God knows what he's doing. But these priests. And these were other examples from history of what the Magi would have looked like. These are from various steles and temples. Hard to tell, some of these. See the little hat I was talking about? They often carried little sticks and rods they would throw out and read, that sort of thing, these sort of mystery religions. A couple things about that Zoroastrianism we've talked about a few times. But these are the kind of people the magi worshiped. There was this concept of being called Zurvan, who was sort of over time and space, and he had a son named Ahura Mazda who was the God of wisdom, and Ahriman was the God of chaos, sort of a God and Satan, analog in their view, but very pagan, not at all the same. But Mithra was this patron of magic, of knowledge and truth. So a lot of the Persian Magi would follow this. Now, in verse seven, when we talk about casting lots, we see here some examples just throughout history. This has been around a long time, you know, this era of the world. I mean, we have dice with little pips on them as far back, you know, 2000 BC, from Egypt. Here's an amphora with two soldiers playing dice. So rolling dice to make decisions or even play games was pretty popular. But what Haman is doing is called cleromancy. Okay? This was something big amongst the wise men of Persia, where they would just cast lots. That's what they called it in Greek, too. They either rolled the bones, little bones of animals, or they. They took sticks and threw them out and sorted through it, or they rolled dice. They've discovered dice that had dates, months and years on them, just like Haman used, because that's what they would do, because they would roll it and see what the gods or the elements told them to do. It's kind of cut it off there, but we have historical relevance for that. Other things from history like this, where we see in chapter three, when they talk about casting lots, these have been around a long time, all kinds of dice and things we think we've invented today, different shapes and sorts of things. These were probably closer to what was being cast. These were called astragali, which were knuckle bones of animals. They would take bones of animals and inscribe little words on them like the months, and then cast them. Those have been unearthed all over the place in the Mediterranean. So when it comes to casting lots in verse 7, this is not just random chance, but this is Haman. And I wanted to show you all this as we get close to closing here. These are examples again from seals, from court, from the viziers and the magi, casting lots, little dice, that sort of things. And again, these were these scientist priests that would cast these random lots. Okay, so I think that's the second bell, so we're going to stop there. But from here we're going to look and see how these casting of lots lead us to Xerxes and Haman chatting and Haman lending him his signet ring and allowing him to do this decree. Okay, so I hope to see you next Wednesday. Have a good night.