What events and attributed statements does Esther Chapter 3 record?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Aman is elevated, Mardochai refuses to kneel or worship him, and Aman resolves to destroy the Jews. The lot selects Adar; Aman makes allegations and offers ten thousand talents, but the king tells him to keep the money. Letters order killing and spoil on the thirteenth of Adar; the king and Aman feast while Susan’s Jews weep.

Chapter breakdown

After these events, King Assuerus elevated Aman, son of Amadathi of the lineage of Agag, raising his seat above all the princes of his court. By imperial command, all the king's servants stationed at the palace gates bent their knees and bowed in reverence before Aman as commanded. However, Mardochai consistently refused to bow his knee or worship him. When the palace officials at the gate repeatedly questioned why he alone disregarded the sovereign's mandate, Mardochai did not yield, having informed them that he was a Jew. Curious to see whether he would persist in his refusal, the officials reported his conduct to Aman. Upon discovering that Mardochai neither knelt nor offered reverence, Aman was consumed with intense rage; deeming it inadequate to take vengeance upon a single man, and learning of his ethnic background, he resolved to destroy all Jews residing throughout the empire of Assuerus.

In the first month, called Nisan, during the twelfth year of King Assuerus, lots were cast into an urn in Aman's presence—a practice known in Hebrew as Phur—to determine the precise month and day on which the Jewish people should be annihilated, and the lot fell upon the twelfth month, called Adar. Aman then approached King Assuerus, alleging that a distinct people lived dispersed across all the provinces of the empire whose laws and customs differed from all other nations, who disregarded royal ordinances, and whose unchecked insolence threatened the peace of the realm. To secure royal consent, Aman offered to deposit ten thousand talents into the imperial treasuries. The king removed the royal signet ring from his hand and delivered it to Aman, the adversary of the Jews, telling him to keep the offered money and execute whatever judgment he deemed fit against the people.

On the thirteenth day of the first month, Nisan, the royal scribes were summoned to draft decrees according to Aman's instructions. Addressed to the king's governors, provincial magistrates, and the leaders of diverse nations, the letters were composed in the distinct language and script of each province, issued in the name of King Assuerus, and sealed with the imperial signet ring. Messengers were dispatched into every province commanding the slaughter and total destruction of all Jews—young and old, women and children alike—on a single day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, Adar, with permission to plunder their property. The couriers hastened throughout the realm to publish the edict, which was immediately posted in Susan; and while the king and Aman sat down to feast, all the Jews in the city wept.

The story inside

Initial conditions: Aman is elevated, Mardochai refuses to kneel or worship him, and Aman resolves to destroy the Jews. Development: The lot selects Adar; Aman makes allegations and offers ten thousand talents, but the king tells him to keep the money. Recorded ending: Letters order killing and spoil on the thirteenth of Adar; the king and Aman feast while Susan’s Jews weep.

Lessons worth keeping

1
Aman is elevated, Mardochai refuses to kneel or worship him, and Aman resolves to destroy the Jews.
2
The lot selects Adar; Aman makes allegations and offers ten thousand talents, but the king tells him to keep the money.
3
Letters order killing and spoil on the thirteenth of Adar; the king and Aman feast while Susan’s Jews weep.

Test your recall

Which concrete sequence does this chapter record, and what remains unstated?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 53252–53254
bent their knees, and worshipped Aman: for so the emperor had commanded them, only Mardochai did not bend his knee, nor worship him.
Lines 53273–53277
In the first month (which is called Nisan) in the twelfth year of the reign of Assuerus, the lot was cast into an urn, which in Hebrew is called Phur
Lines 53303–53306
to kill and destroy all the Jews, both young and old, little children, and women, in one day, that is, on the thirteenth of the twelfth month, which is called Adar, and to make a spoil of their goods.