How did Esther save the Jews?

The problem

Haman’s decree is sealed with the king’s own ring: on the thirteenth of Adar, the Jews of every province may be killed and their goods taken. The one Jew close to the throne is Queen Esther, and nobody at court knows she is Jewish. After three days of fasting she goes to the king anyway, uncalled, though the law says that means death. Mordecai’s plea that sent her is explained in “for such a time as this”. Here is what she did with it.

Her plan, step by step

1. The inner court. On the third day she puts on her royal robes and stands where the king can see her. He holds out the golden scepter, and she touches its tip (Esther 5:1–2).
2. A small request. Offered up to half the kingdom, she asks only that the king and Haman come to a banquet she has prepared (5:3–4).
3. A second invitation. Over the wine the king asks again. She invites them both back tomorrow (5:6–8).
4. The accusation. At the second banquet she finally speaks, and names Haman (7:1–6).
5. The second decree. With Haman dead, she falls at the king’s feet in tears and begs him to undo Haman’s letters (8:3–6).

Why two banquets?

The text never explains the delay, and readers have guessed for centuries. The Talmud collects more than ten rabbinic answers (Megillah 15b): to lull Haman into confidence, to make the king jealous of a man the queen kept inviting, or to keep the Jews of Susa praying instead of relying on a sister in the palace. Whatever her reason, the delay gives the story its hinge. That evening Haman has a gallows fifty cubits high built for Mordecai. That same night, the king cannot sleep.

He has the royal chronicles read to him and learns that Mordecai once saved his life from two plotting doorkeepers, and was never rewarded (Esther 6:1–3). At dawn Haman, arriving to ask for Mordecai’s death, is ordered to lead Mordecai through the city square on the king’s own horse instead. His wife Zeresh sees the end coming: “you will surely fall before him” (6:13).

Naming the enemy

At the second banquet Esther chooses her words with care. She asks first for her own life, and only then reveals her people.

let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request. For we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish.

“Sold” is pointed: Haman had offered the treasury ten thousand talents of silver for their destruction. She even adds that if they had only been sold as slaves, she would have kept quiet. The king demands to know who dared, and she points across the table: “this wicked Haman!” The king storms out into the garden. Haman throws himself on the queen’s couch to beg, just as the king walks back in, and the eunuch Harbonah mentions the gallows. Haman is hanged on it (7:6–10). Esther receives his house, and Mordecai the king’s ring.

A law no one could undo

Haman is gone, but his decree is not. Persian law, the king explains, cannot be taken back.

the writing which is written in the king’s name, and sealed with the king’s ring, may not be reversed by any man.

So Mordecai writes a second decree on the twenty-third of Sivan, sealed with the same ring: the Jews of every city may gather and defend their lives on the thirteenth of Adar (8:9–11). Couriers on royal horses carry it to all 127 provinces. When the day comes, the Jews defend themselves. The book reports heavy losses among their enemies, numbers many modern readers find troubling, and says three times that the Jews did not touch the plunder (9:10, 15, 16), though the decree allowed it. The rescue became the feast of Purim.