Adapted from an article by Mark Stover
In our last program we learned a little about the reason behind the celebration of the feast of Purim. Purim means ‘lots’ as in casting lots to determine something. It’s really a pagan practice, a type of divination. A wicked man named Haman the Agagite, serving in the royal court of Ancient Persia, had such hatred toward the Jews, and especially a Jew named Mordecai, that he deceived the King and set on a course of committing an act of genocide against the Jews in Persia. Queen Esther, a Jewess, approached the King to expose the threat of Haman and seek a solution to keep her people alive.
Who was Haman and why was he so obsessed with his hatred of the Jews and bent on their destruction? What was it about the Amalekites that made God so angry with them, that He determined before Israel even made it into the Promised Land, that they had to be destroyed and their name blotted out forever?
In the book of Esther, Haman is referred to as an Agagite, a descendant of Agag, King of Amalek. The first encounter with the Amalekites is recorded in Exodus 17.6 The Israelites were wandering in the wilderness prior to settling in the promised land and the Amalekites made the silly mistake of becoming the first of the Canaanite nations to attack them after the Exodus. For this act of arrogance, the Amalekites were punished with the ultimate shame and disgrace in the ancient Near East: the blotting out of their name. God’s response was strong and very clear, He was also fulfilling His promise to Abraham and His own Word, that those who cursed Israel, would themselves be cursed. (Gen 12:3)
Exodus 17:14-16, ‘The Lord said to Moses, “Write this in a book as a memorial and recite it to Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.” Moses built an altar and named it The Lord is My Banner; and he said, “The Lord has sworn; the Lord will have war against Amalek from generation to generation.”‘
The disgraced Gentile prophet Balaam referred to Amalek’s demise in Numbers.
Numbers 24:20, ‘And he looked at Amalek and took up his discourse and said, “Amalek was the first of the nations, but his end shall be destruction.”‘
The shame of the Amalekites is memorialized when Moses made his farewell speech to the people of Israel:
Deuteronomy 25:17-19, “Remember what Amalek did to you along the way when you came out from Egypt, how he met you along the way and attacked among you all the stragglers at your rear when you were faint and weary and he didn’t fear God. Therefore, it shall come about when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your surrounding enemies, in the land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance to possess, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven: you must not forget.”
The idea of blotting out the memory of the name of the Amalekite descendant Haman took many forms. In ancient Persia and Babylon an effigy of Haman was burned. (Do you remember fire cracker night? Do you remember the burning of an effigy of Guy Falks?) In the 1800s in Eastern Europe, Jews would write the name of Haman on the soles of their shoes and when his name was spoken, they would stamp their feet, erasing the writing onto the ground. Modern customs include the use of noisemakers, cap pistols and loud booing to drown out the name of Haman whenever it’s read during the recounting of the book of Esther during Purim.
The theme of blotting out the names of evil men is found throughout the Bible. The Hebrew verb that is most often used in this context is ‘makhah’, which means ‘to blot out’ or ‘to obliterate.’ It occurs in the Hebrew Scriptures 35 times in various forms, often describing the actions of God to ‘blot out’ the name or the memory of particular individuals or nations. Sometimes it refers to the ‘blotting out’ of sin. It’s the word used in the Torah for God’s promise to blot out the name of Amalek, but it is also used several times in reference to God’s anger toward the people of Israel.
Names were much more meaningful in ancient times as we’ve learned in previous programs. They symbolized who a person was and not just what he was called by others. A striking example of this is found in Exodus 33, when Moses asked God to reveal himself in a more personal way.
Exodus 33:18-19, ‘Then Moses said, “I pray You, show me Your glory!” And He (God) said, “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the Lord before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.”
In other words, to have an illuminated knowledge of God, Moses is told he will hear God’s name proclaimed in his presence.
People are given names to illuminate or illustrate their character. A name could invoke honour, respect, fear, pity, scorn or ridicule. For example, when Jacob’s name was changed to Israel, he went from being known as the supplanter (the one who took his brother’s birthright through deception) to being the one who strives with God, because he had wrestled with God and prevailed. (Genesis 32)
One of the most important aspects of life was to pass on a good name on to your descendants. A good name would endure through many generations. It meant honour even after death, but, shame if a name was forgotten or blotted out.
When it comes to honour for God’s name, Jewish tradition requires us to avoid the pronunciation of the tetragrammaton (the name of God). The reason given is that we might disgrace God’s name by mispronouncing it or speaking it in vain. Jews bury Torah scrolls when they are no longer usable because they contain the written name of God, which must be revered and never obliterated. Many observant Jews avoid writing even the Hebrew letters which make up God’s name, since words on a chalkboard will eventually be erased and words on scraps of paper might accidentally be thrown away or burned.
Against such a background, one can see the severity of God’s curse on the Amalekites, consigning their name and memory to oblivion so that the only mention of them is one of public shame and disgrace in the Bible. Yet, despite the attempts by Israel to forget about this dangerous nation, the name of Amalek came back to haunt them several hundred years after the Exodus 17 encounter.
In the next program, we’re going to look more closely at that actual story and the historical background of the book of Esther and how it leads to a picture of Jesus the Messiah.
Shalom
Mandy
Endnotes
- Fox, Michael V., “The Religion of the Book of Esther,” Judaism39:2 (Spring 1990), p. 137.
- “Purim,” in Encyclopedia Judaica, edited by Cecil Roth. New York: Macmillan, 1972, p. 1392.
- Loewenthal, Tali, “Early Hasidic Teachings: Esoteric Mysticism, or a Medium of Communal Leadership?”Journal of Jewish Studies37:1 (1986), pp. 58-75.
- New York Times, 1/31/44, p.4.
- Berg, Sandra Beth. The Book of Esther. Ph.D. dissertation, Vanderbilt University, 1977, pp. 67-68. Also see Birnbaum, Philip, translator. Daily Prayer Book: Ha-Siddur Ha-Shalem.New York: Hebrew Publishing Company, 1949, pp. 727-730.
The traditional Hebrew liturgy for Purim includes an alphabetic acrostic poem which describes Haman as a “hateful branch (netzer) of the seed of Amalek.” Cf. Isaiah 11:1, which speaks of the righteous “branch (netzer) of the seed of Jesse,” a prophetic reference to Messiah. - Exodus 17:8-16, is the Torah portion read on Purim morning.
- Herodotus, 3.125, 129; 4.43.
- Birnbaum, pp. 413-414. Cf. a similar passage in the New Testament, Philippians 2:9-11, and in the Hebrew Scriptures, Isaiah 45:23.
- 9. Revelation 3:5.
