Esther 3:1

After these things,.... After the marriage of Esther, and the discovery of the conspiracy to take away the king's life, five years after, as Aben Ezra observe, at least more than four years, for so

After these things did king Ahasuerus promote Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, and advanced him, and set his seat above all the princes that were with him.

ESTHER CHAPTER 3 Haman is advanced by the king, ,2. Being despised by Mordecai, he seeketh to destroy all the Jews, . He casteth lots, ; and accusing the Jews to the king, obtaineth a decree to put them to death, . Letters issued out to destroy all the Jews, . The Agagite, i. e. an Amalekite of the royal seed of that nation, whose kings were commonly and successively called Agag, as hath been observed before. It is true, he is called a Macedonian in the apocryphal additions to this book; and so he might be by his birth or habitation in that place, though by his original he was of another people. Set his seat above all the princes that were with him; gave him the first place and seat, which was next to the king. Compare .

Esther 3:1 After these things did king Ahasuerus promote Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, and advanced him, and set his seat above all the princes that [were] with him.Ver. 1. After these things did Ahasuerus promote Haman] Four years after his marriage with Esther, or near upon, did Ahasuerus magnify and exalt Haman, Hominem profanum et sceleratum, as one saith, a profane wicked person; merely for his mind sake, to show his sovereignty, and that he would, like some petty god upon earth, set up whom he would, and whom he would, put down, Daniel 4:19. Alexander the Great made Abdolominus, a poor gardener, king of Sidon. Whether it were also by flattery or sycophancy, or some new projects for establishing his tyranny, and increasing his tributes, that Haman had insinuated himself into this king’ s favour, it is uncertain. Sure it is that Mordecai, a better man, lay yet unlooked upon; like good corn he lay in the bottom of the heap, when this vilest of men was exalted, Psalms 12:8. Thus oft empty vessels swim aloft, rotten posts are gilt with adulterate gold, the worst weeds spring up bravest; and when the twins strove in Rebekah’ s womb, profane Esau comes forth first, and is the firstborn, Genesis 25:25. But while they seek the greatest dignities, they mostly meet with the greatest shame; like apes, while they be climbing, they the more show their deformities. They are lifted up also, ut lapsu graviore ruant, that they may come down again with the greater poise. It was, therefore, well and wisely spoken by Alvarez de Luna, when he told them who admired his fortune and favour with the king of Castile, You do wrong to commend the building before it be finished, and until you see how it will stand. The son of Hammedatha the Ayagite] i.e. The Amalekite, of the stock royal; so that Haman was the natural enemy of the Jews, like as Hannibal was of the Romans. An old grudge there was, an inveterate hatred; Amalek was Esau’ s grandchild, and the enmity between these two peoples was, as we say of runnet, the older the stronger. And advanced him] Set him aloft upon the pinnacle of highest preferment; as Tiberius did Sejanus; as Louis XI of France did his barber; as our Henry VIII did Wolsey; and our recent kings, Buckingham. But princes’ favourites should consider with themselves that honour is but a blast, a magnum nihil, a glorious fancy, a rattle to still men’ s ambition; and that as the passenger looketh no longer upon the dial than the sun shineth upon it, so it is here. And set his seat above all the princes] This cup of honour his weak head could not bear; this blast so blew up the bubble that it burst again. Sejanus-like, he now began to sacrifice to himself, little thinking of that utter ruin to which he was hasting. Physicians used to say, that ultimus sanitatis gradus est morbo vicinus.

III.(1) Haman . . . the Agagite.—Nothing appears to be known of Haman save from this book. His name, as well as that of his father and his sons, is Persian; and it is thus difficult to see the meaning of the name Agagite. which has generally been assumed to imply descent from Agag, king of the Amalekites, with whom the name Agag may have been dynastic (Numbers 24:7; 1 Samuel 15:8). Thus Josephus (Ant. xi. 6. 5) and the Chaldee Targum call him an Amalekite. But apart from the difficulty of the name being Persian, it is hard to see how, after the wholesale destruction of Amalek recorded in 1 Samuel 15, any members should have been left of the kingly family, maintaining a distinct tribal name for so many centuries. In one of the Greek Apocryphal additions to Esther (after Esther 9:24) Haman is called a Macedonian.

CHAPTER III Ahasuerus exalts Haman the Agagite, and commands all his officers to do him reverence, which Mordecai refuses, 1-3. Haman, informed of Mordecai's refusal, plots his destruction, and that of the Jews, 4-6. Lots are cast to find out the proper time, 7. Haman accuses the Jews to Ahasuerus, counsels him to destroy them, and offers ten thousand talents of silver for the damage which the revenue might sustain by their destruction, 8, 9. The king refuses the money, but gives Haman full authority to destroy them, 10, 11. Letters are written to this effect, and sent to the king's lieutenants throughout the empire, and the thirteenth day of the month Adar is appointed for the massacre, 12-15. NOTES ON CHAP. III Verse 1. Haman - the Agagite] Perhaps he was some descendant of that Agag, king of the Amalekites, spared by Saul, but destroyed by Samuel; and on this ground might have an antipathy to the Jews. Set his seat above all the princes] Made him his prime minister, and put all the officers of state under his direction.

Chap. Esther 3:1-6. Haman offended by Mordecai’s refusal to make obeisance 1. After these things] i.e. between the seventh (Esther 2:16) and the twelfth (Esther 3:7) years of Xerxes’ reign. Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite] Haman’s name has been held to be another form of Humman or Humban, an Elamite deity, and that of his father to be connected with the Persian mβh and data, thus signifying given by the moon. The description of Haman as an ‘Agagite’ is perplexing. The following views have been held. (a) Josephus (Ant. xi. 6. 5) and the Targum understand the statement literally to mean that Haman was descended from Agag, king of Amalek, the latter availing itself of the opportunity of giving a complete genealogy through Amalek to Esau (see Genesis 36:12). If we accept this explanation of the word, we can see the significance which it bears for the narrator. He desires to place Mordecai and Haman before the reader in the guise of hereditary enemies, the one the descendant of Kish, and thus connected with the first king of Israel, the other the descendant of Agag, Saul’s conquered foe. As then, so now, it is a case of a contest between the Jew and his adversary. (b) The title ‘Agagite’ may be an allegorical nickname, and intended to indicate a spiritual rather than a natural descent, one whose attitude to the chosen nation was that of the Amalekite king of earlier days. (c) It may, however, denote a place or family otherwise unknown. For ‘Agagite’ the LXX. here and in (Esther 9:10 and) Esther 12:6 have Bugaean (Βουγαῖος), and in Esther 9:24 and Esther 16:10 the Macedonian (ὁΜακεδών). The former has been explained as originating in a mistake in reading the first letter in the Heb., or as arising from confusion with Bagoas, a favourite of Alexander the Great (Curtius vi. 5. 23). Either of two other explanations, however, is decidedly to be preferred, viz. (a) that it means bully, braggart, as it occurs twice in this sense in Homer (Il. xiii. 824, Od. xviii. 79), many of whose words were revived by writers of Alexandrian Greek, or (b) that it is a word denoting eunuch, and afterwards any court official. See Schleusner, Lexicon Vet. Test. s.v. The latter title ‘Macedonian’ either (a) points to the time when the Greek power, rendered dominant in the East by Alexander of Macedon (died b.c. 323), had become through Antiochus Epiphanes (died b.c. 164), who inherited Alexander’s conquests in Syria, the type of hostility to the nation of the Jews, or (b) is meant to indicate Haman as a traitor to the Persian power.

The name, Haman, is probably the same as the Classical Omanes, and in ancient Persian, “Umana”, an exact equivalent of the Greek “Eumenes.” Hammedatha is perhaps the same as “Madata” or “Mahadata”,

HAMAN’S , AND THE EDICT AGAINST THE JEWS, Esther 3:1-15. 1. Haman the son of Hammedatha — “The name Haman is probably the same which is found in the classical writers under the form of Omanes, and