Haman Must Rank as the anti-semite par excellence of the scriptures, and in his fated attempt to exterminate the Jews, he conceives some of the very horrors that Hitler would later fulfill. What does he have against the Jews, and why is he so bent on destroying them?
The striking fact is that from the narrative surface itself Haman doesn’t appear to have anything particularly against the Jews at all. There are underlying issues, as we shall go on to discover, but the major reason for his evil device is a personal vendetta against the one man, Mordecai. The personal issue between Haman and Mordecai became the pretext for a plan not only to harm Mordecai’s family, as well as him, but to eliminate his entire race. It is an absurd example of escalation, but one which, in lesser forms, is often characteristic of human behavior. There can be a tendency, for instance, to cast aspersions on a brother’s entire belief system or integrity on the basis of his view on one particular matter or his understanding of one passage. An ecclesia can be written off because of the views of one of its members, views with which the ecclesia itself may disagree strongly but may be dealing with in its own way. It is very easy to escalate, to tarnish other people or other matters with the same brush in a way which is unreasonable and Christ like.
Mordecai refuses to bow
The particular issue which offended Haman was as follows:
And all the king’s servants, that were in the king’s gate, bowed, and reverenced Haman; for the king had so commanded concerning him. But Mordecai bowed not, nor did him reverence… and when Haman saw that Mordecai bowed not, nor did him reverence, then was Haman full of wrath. And he thought scorn to lay hands on Mordecai alone; for they had shewed him the people of Mordecai: wherefore Haman sought to destroy all the Jews that were throughout the whole kingdom of Ahaseuerus, even the people of Mordecai (3:2,5,6).
True, Mordecai was in breach of the king’s command and Haman was legally entitled to seek some redress, but the measure of his response is out of all proportion.
Haman’s insecurity
Why is he so angry that Mordecai refuses to bow? He is more important than Mordecai for he bears the king’s ring — why should he trivialise himself by becoming so upset? The answer lies in Haman’s deep insecurity. He needs constant affirmation; he requires everyone to bow to prove to himself that he really is worthy, to confirm a status about which he isn’t really convinced himself. His ‘don’t you know who I am?’ attitude betrays the fact that he has no inner confidence in himself, for true authority and conviction does not require constant and extravagant acknowledgement. There is no wonder that such a figure was riled by the behavior of a subordinate. He is to be pitied.
People vary considerably with respect to the importance they place on relationships with other people. At one extreme there is Haman, insecure and needing affirmation at every step (yet this is coupled with a massive ego and manifests itself in an absurd obsession with power), whereas at the other end there are people who do not care at all what others think of them, and who run the risk of mistreating them for precisely the opposite reason — because they simply do not care. Both of these behaviors are rejections of fundamental doctrine about our standing before God (that it is what He thinks that matters and not other men), and our relation to our fellow man (that he is in the image of God and that we are to respect and love one another). It is not sufficient to pass off our own particular tendencies with respect to this matter as ‘just the way we are’ There is a right way and a wrong way to view our significance and the significance of others in the sight of God.
Background on Haman
It is necessary to delve deeper into Haman’s background to seek further illumination both on his hatred and on Mordecai’s failure to acknowledge him. A very helpful passage is the one in which he is first introduced (3:1). It is important to realise that this verse is back-to-back with the passage which describes the incident when Mordecai discovered an attempted coup and informed the king, a fact which tends to be obscured by the chapter divisions:
And (the plot) was known to Mordecai, who told it unto Esther the queen; and Esther certified the king thereof in Mordecai ‘s name. And when inquisition was made of the matter, it was found out; therefore they were both hanged on a tree; and it was written in the book of the chronicles before the king. After these things did Ahasuerus promote Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, and advanced him, and set his seat above all the princes that were with him” (2:22-3:1).
The juxtaposition of the narrative about Mordecai and the new narrative about Haman is important because it illustrates the incongruity of life. Mordecai has just saved the king’s life, and we would expect 3:1 to be about Mordecai and his reward — yet paradoxically it is about Haman!
Isn’t that just typical?!
It is as if Ahasuerus mistakenly got the wrong man! One man does a good deed and another is promoted. How often human beings experience just such injustices! This is the way of the world.
The real interest of the passage lies in Haman’s genealogy, however. He was an Agagite, and Agag was king of the Amalekites, one of Israel’s most hostile enemies (note the irony: Haman himself was an ethnic minority, yet proposes to annihilate another). It was back in the book of Exodus that Israel had originally defeated Amalek (the battle when Moses’ arms had to be propped up in order to assure victory), but that was not to be the end of the feud:
And the Lord said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven … because the Lord hath sworn that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation (Exo. 17:14,16).
It was to be an important element of God’s purpose that Amalek should be annihilated, yet in Esther it is an Amalekite who is about to annihilate God’s people! Something has gone seriously wrong, and it is no coincidence that in the Jewish liturgy this passage from Exodus is read during the festival of Purim whose origin the book of Esther recounts (compare also Deut. 25:17-19).
What had gone wrong is that Israel had failed to carry out God’s command. This comes out particularly in the life of Saul who was explicitly commanded to destroy everything that pertained to Amalek. But he didn’t:
And Saul took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword, but Saul and the people spared Agag… (I Sam 15:8-9; this passage is also used at Purim, as the haftarah reading on the preceding Sabbath).
It is this Agag, so the presumption goes, from whom Haman is descended. The significance of the point is enhanced when Mordecai’s own genealogy is examined: “Now in Shushan the palace there was a certain Jew, whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, a Benjamite” (Est. 2:5).
Here the identification is incontrovertible. Mordecai is from the same clan as Saul. Saul had spared Agag, contrary to God’s command, and the favour is now returned by Agag’s descendant Haman seeking to slay Saul’s relative, Mordecai. The two figures are natural rivals, contrast figures to be set side by side within the book of Esther who epitomise an age-old conflict. God had been right all along; the Amalekites should have been destroyed. Any kindness showed to them would not be repaid and would result only in the prospect of terrible anguish in the future.
The lesson is an extremely important one. If Israel in general and Saul in particular had obeyed God’s command to destroy the Amalekites, there would never have been a Haman. God does know best, and when He tells people to behave in a certain way He does so because He knows what He is talking about. How we might save ourselves pain and heartache if only we were to take God at His word in the first instance, to trust that what He is telling us is for our own good!
Disobedience seemed innocuous
As King Agag came softly, he looked no threat to anyone, with his people decimated and his wealth plundered and destroyed. The idea of fraternising with an ex-king whom he had conquered appealed to Saul and he thought there would be no danger. God’s command seemed to Saul over the-top, an excessive precaution. But hundreds of years later Agag was resurrected in Haman. Our sins return and threaten to devour us if we do not deal with them properly. We cannot take these issues too seriously.
It is terribly difficult for an audience who has never feared for its life to imagine what it must have been like to have been a Jew in these times. The atrocities committed against the Jewish people last century, though so recent and so graphic, can even sometimes seem remote. Yet they can help in the appreciation of the way Mordecai and his people must have felt.
All because of one man’s ego and insecurity. All because God’s commands had been left undone.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One