Now that Haman had been hung on the pole, Xerxes turns back to Esther to ask her if there is anything further that she wants to do, anything further that needed to be done. She tells him, in fact, there was more to do. There in the city of Susa, they would need to continue to pursue the rest of the enemies until they were completely destroyed. There wouldn’t be any rest until this was done.
And so there in Susa, this went on for two days while, outside of that city, the fighting against their enemies only last one day. Following that fighting, though, Mordecai called upon the Jews to rest and to celebrate. They would give thanks to God and give gifts to one another in a celebration that would be called Purim, a celebration that even continues today.
The root word for this festival is the word “pur”, which is the word “lot” in English. Purim is the plural, or “lots” in English. It was said that Haman and the enemies of the Jews had cast the pur for the destruction of the Jews:
So the Jews agreed to continue the celebration they had begun, doing what Mordecai had written to them. For Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them and had cast the pur (that is, the lot ) for their ruin and destruction. But when the plot came to the king’s attention, he issued written orders that the evil scheme Haman had devised against the Jews should come back onto his own head, and that he and his sons should be impaled on poles. (Therefore these days were called Purim, from the word pur. ) Because of everything written in this letter and because of what they had seen and what had happened to them, the Jews took it on themselves to establish the custom that they and their descendants and all who join them should without fail observe these two days every year, in the way prescribed and at the time appointed. These days should be remembered and observed in every generation by every family, and in every province and in every city. And these days of Purim should never fail to be celebrated by the Jews—nor should the memory of these days die out among their descendants.
Esther 9:23-28
The Jews continue to celebrate this day even today, on the 14th for the Jews outside of Jerusalem, and on the 15th in Jerusalem and some other similar cities because they are a walled cities, like that of Susa because of the additional day that they fought against the enemies of the Jews.
A couple of observations and applications:
First, it is interesting that the Jews chose and used the word Purim for the establishment of this holiday. They are using a word that suggested that they would be destroyed. Instead of a word like “independence” or “salvation” or something that focuses on the positive, they instead chose the word that focused on their destruction as the word that they used to remember and celebrate that day.
For us, regardless of how we do it, we must remember God’s faithfulness. Except in the time of prayer and fasting, we don’t see a direct interaction with God in this particular story of Esther, but we do see that God remained faithful to the Jews, saving them from the complete destruction that was planned for them by Haman.
We also must look back, remembering what God has done for us and how he has been faithful to us throughout our days.
But even further, we must remember that we also have been saved from destruction. Just like the Jews, we also were marked for destruction, in fact an eternal destruction by the justice and wrath of God. But Jesus came and gave us salvation, rescuing us from the punishment of God for our sins. So in the same way that the Jews celebrate their rescue from destruction at the hand of Haman and the rest of their enemies, we also must celebrate and remember our salvation from destruction as a result of our sin.