Haman

Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite is the antagonist of the book of Esther. He rises to the second seat in the Persian empire under King Ahasuerus, plots the extermination of the Jews after Mordecai refuses him reverence, and is hanged on the gallows he had built for Mordecai. The book closes by labeling him "the enemy of all the Jews" (Es 9:24), a title that fixes his role in the canon.

The Promotion of an Agagite

Haman enters the narrative without preamble: "After these things King Ahasuerus promoted Haman the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, and advanced him, and set his seat above all the princes who were with him" (Es 3:1). The lineage matters. The Agagite designation links him to the Amalekite king Agag and behind him to the ancient memory of Amalek as the people Yahweh commanded Israel to remember and to blot out (Ex 17:8; De 25:17-19; 1Sa 15:3). Haman thus carries an inherited enmity into his elevation, and the king's promotion places that enmity above all other princes.

Haman's own self-portrait, given to his wife and friends, treats the elevation as the measure of his life: he "recounted to them the glory of his riches, and the multitude of his sons, and all the things in which the king had promoted him, and how he had advanced him above the princes and slaves of the king" (Es 5:11).

The Refusal at the Gate

The crisis that triggers the plot is small and local. The king's slaves at the gate "bowed down to, and reverenced Haman; for the king had so commanded concerning him. But Mordecai did not bow down, nor reverence him" (Es 3:2). The text makes the response in Haman immediate and total: "And when Haman saw that Mordecai did not bow down, nor reverence him, then Haman was full of wrath" (Es 3:5).

The wrath does not stay personal. "It was contemptible in his eyes to lay hands on Mordecai alone; for they had made known to him the people of Mordecai: therefore Haman sought to destroy all the Jews who were throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus, even the people of Mordecai" (Es 3:6). One man's posture at a gate becomes the pretext for genocide.

The Lot and the Decree

Haman's planning is methodical. "In the first month, which is the month Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus, they cast Pur, that is, the lot, before Haman from day to day, and from month to month, [to] the twelfth [month], which is the month Adar" (Es 3:7). The casting yields the date that will give the festival of Purim its name.

Before the king he frames the petition in administrative language, suppressing both the people's identity and his own grievance. "There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom; and their laws are diverse from [those of] every people; neither do they keep the king's laws: therefore it is not for the king's profit to allow them" (Es 3:8). He follows the accusation with a price: "If it pleases the king, let it be written that they are to be destroyed: and I will pay ten thousand talents of silver into the hands of those who have the charge of the [king's] business, to bring it into the king's treasuries" (Es 3:9).

The decree goes out in totalizing terms — "to destroy, to slay, and to cause to perish, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day, even on the thirteenth [day] of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, and to take the spoil of them for a prey" (Es 3:13).

The Gallows for Mordecai

Even with the decree drafted, Mordecai's continuing presence at the gate galls Haman, and his household offers a private remedy. "Then Zeresh his wife and all his friends said to him, Let a gallows be made fifty cubits high, and in the morning speak to the king that Mordecai may be hanged on it: then go in merrily with the king to the banquet. And the thing pleased Haman; and he caused the gallows to be made" (Es 5:14). The gallows is built before Haman has yet asked the king for it.

The Reversal in the Honor Scene

The hinge of the book is a question Haman misreads. "So Haman came in. And the king said to him, What will be done to the man whom the king delights to honor? Now Haman said in his heart, Whom would the king delight to honor more than me?" (Es 6:6). The king's answer turns the elaborate honors Haman has just designed for himself onto Mordecai: "Hurry, and take the apparel and the horse, as you have said, and do even so to Mordecai the Jew, who sits at the king's gate: let nothing fail of all that you have spoken" (Es 6:10). The act is carried out: "Then Haman took the apparel and the horse, and arrayed Mordecai, and caused him to ride through the street of the city, and proclaimed before him, Thus it will be done to the man whom the king delights to honor" (Es 6:11).

The Banquet and the Exposure

Esther's two banquets bring Haman, the king, and the queen into one room. "So the king and Haman came to banquet with Esther the queen" (Es 7:1). Esther names him: "An adversary and an enemy, even this wicked Haman. Then Haman was afraid before the king and the queen" (Es 7:6). The king's withdrawal into the palace garden leaves Haman exposed: "Haman stood up to make request for his soul to Esther the queen; for he saw that there was evil determined against him by the king" (Es 7:7). The king's return seals it: "Haman had fallen on the couch on which Esther was. Then said the king, Will he even force the queen before me in the house? As the word went out of the king's mouth, they covered Haman's face" (Es 7:8).

The Gallows Returned

Harbonah, one of the chamberlains, points to the structure standing in Haman's own house: "Look also at the gallows fifty cubits high, which Haman has made for Mordecai, who spoke good for the king, stands in the house of Haman. And the king said, Hang him on it" (Es 7:9). The execution is reported in a single sentence: "So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the king's wrath was pacified" (Es 7:10).

The House of Haman

The judgment extends to Haman's house. Esther continues to act against the residue of his plot: "And Esther spoke yet again before the king, and fell down at his feet, and implored him with tears to put away the mischief of Haman the Agagite, and his plot that he had plotted against the Jews" (Es 8:3). Her petition asks that the letters Haman wrote be reversed (Es 8:5). On the day appointed for the destruction of the Jews, his ten sons are killed in Shushan — "Parshandatha, and Dalphon, and Aspatha, and Poratha, and Adalia, and Aridatha, and Parmashta, and Arisai, and Aridai, and Vaizatha, the ten sons of Haman the son of Hammedatha, the Jews' enemy, they slew; but on the spoil they didn't lay their hand" (Es 9:7-10). At Esther's further request the bodies are hanged on the gallows the next day (Es 9:13).

The Book's Own Verdict

The narrator's summary, given as Mordecai institutes the festival of Purim, gathers the threads into a single sentence: Haman "the son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them, and had cast Pur, that is the lot, to consume them, and to destroy them" (Es 9:24). Of his own plot the king "commanded by letters that his wicked plot, which he had plotted against the Jews, should return on his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows" (Es 9:25). The shape is symmetrical: the gallows Haman prepared, the lot he cast, the plot he wrote into letters — each returns on him.

The displacement is total. Where Haman once sat above all the princes, "Mordecai the Jew was next to King Ahasuerus, and great among the Jews, and accepted of the multitude of his brothers, seeking the good of his people, and speaking peace to all his seed" (Es 10:3).