What Is Purim and Why Does It Matter for Christians Today?
By Karen Engle, ICEJ USA Managing Editor
Purim is a joyous festival the Jewish people celebrate to this day (this year from March 13–14) initiated in the story of Esther in the Bible. It’s not a biblically commanded feast like those laid out in Leviticus 23, yet the background of Purim offers valuable information about God’s plan for Israel and, ultimately, the world.
Through this historically accurate book and its star protagonist—a young Jewish woman who found herself in a place of favor with the king of Persia—we see the roots of hatred toward the Jewish people. But we also see evidence of God’s sovereignty in action behind the scenes as He protected them from annihilation—not unlike what we are witnessing today as Israel fights for her very existence.
Therefore, it’s a Jewish holiday with great relevance for Christians today.
What Is Purim? The Story of Esther
Centuries before Esther was born, the Assyrians and then the Babylonians had dispersed the people of Israel and Judah throughout the Near East. Eventually the Persians absorbed most of those lands into their empire, which reached its greatest extent in Esther’s day. At the time, the Jews were a religious minority living in Persia with no king, army, or land.
King Ahasuerus (Xerxes) chose Esther, a young, beautiful, Jewish girl, as his queen after divorcing his wife, Vashti, for insubordination. Esther 2:17 says: “The king loved Esther more than all the women, and she found favor and kindness with him.”
Though Esther managed to hide her Jewish identity from the king (the Jews had many foes), an enemy rose with an evil scheme to exterminate all Jews throughout the Persian Empire: Haman, the king’s newly appointed high officer. When Esther’s uncle, Mordecai, refused to bow to him, Haman determined to destroy the Jews and drew lots (in Hebrew pur, from where “Purim” is drawn) to determine which day Mordecai and his people would be exterminated: Adar 13 (our February-March).
In the first month, which is the month of Nisan, in the twelfth year of King Ahasuerus, they cast Pur (that is, the lot), before Haman to determine the day and the month, until it fell on the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar. —Esther 3:7
Had Haman been successful, virtually all the Jewish people alive at the time would have been annihilated.
At her uncle Mordecai’s request, and after his reminder that if she remained silent “relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place and you and your father’s house will perish” (4:14), Esther approached the king. She could have remained quiet (coming before the king risked the penalty of death), but instead, she successfully petitioned to have Haman’s wicked plans stopped, which led to his death on the very gallows he had prepared for the Jews. Even more profound, the king allowed the Jews to enact revenge on their enemies.
Indeed, God was at work behind the scenes causing what ICEJ President Juergen Buehler calls the “great turnaround” that protected His people.
Foreshadowing Things to Come
Esther’s actions saved the entire Jewish nation from utter destruction. But her story also reflects where the world’s demonic hatred toward the Jewish people stems from. Consider Haman’s accusatory words about God’s people in his attempt to rid the empire of Jews:
There is a certain people scattered and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of your kingdom; their laws are different from all other people’s, and they do not keep the king’s laws. Therefore, it is not fitting for the king to let them remain. (Esther 3:8)
This diabolical force of accusation is at the root of antisemitism then and today, writes Buehler:
It is what drove Martin Luther to write his notorious pamphlet On the Jews and Their Lies. It made the Nazi officials at the Wannsee conference, although many were raised in Christian homes, to agree to the “Final Solution”: the plan to murder 11 million Jews in Europe and North Africa. And it causes the writers of Palestinian schoolbooks to deny any Jewish history or right to live in the Land of Israel, thereby raising yet another generation of antisemitic Palestinian youth—including those who stormed the Israeli communities along the Gaza border on October 7, 2023.
Throughout the nation of Israel’s history, whether the Jewish people were in or out of the promised land, they fell subject to Haman-like rulers who repeatedly planned their destruction for no other reason they were Jewish. Haman sought to “to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all the Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day” (Esther 3:13). His words are echoed by a current villain bent on wiping out the Jewish people: Hamas in Gaza, a proxy of one of Israel’s greatest enemies throughout history, Iran.
This deep hatred of God’s people was evident in the atrocities that occurred on October 7, 2023, when Hamas militants invaded southern Israel, massacring more than 1,200 people, and in the worldwide protests that followed. It’s a demonic hatred that, on the surface, is against the Jewish people, but ultimately, against the God of the universe who created them to bring glory to His name. The prophet Samuel wrote:
Who is like Your people, like Israel, the one nation on the earth whom God went to redeem for Himself as a people, to make for Himself a name—and to do for Yourself great and awesome deeds for Your land—before Your people whom You redeemed for Yourself from Egypt, the nations, and their gods? (2 Samuel 23:7)
Throughout millennia of near extinction, God has been in the shadows watching over His people Israel, for indeed “He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep” (Psalm 121:4). He is faithful and will keep His promise to bless the entire world through the nation of Israel (Genesis 12:3). If He doesn’t, He would be made out to be a liar—and that is not who God is. His very name is faithful, and through the nation of Israel, He will make that name known to the entire world.
What Is the Significance of Purim for Christians Today?
What’s happening to Jewish people today in Israel and worldwide is a modern-day picture of this relationship between God and the Jews. Though it seems the entire world is against the Jewish people and the nation of Israel, God is not. God preserved His people in Esther’s day, and He will continue to hold them through any persecution or hatred they experience now or in the future—even if some do not recognize His mighty hand at work in preserving them. Just as Isaiah wrote, Israel shall never cease to be a nation:
“For as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before Me,” says the Lord, “So shall your descendants and your name remain.” (66:22; see also Jeremiah 31:36)
The psalmist wrote that the “Lord is in His holy temple, the Lord’s throne is in heaven” (11:4). The Jewish people’s existence today confirms this verse: God is sovereign, and Jesus, the King of the Jews and of the nations, is on the throne. And through the turn of events in Esther, we see that indeed, all things and people move according to His plan and purpose.
Keep Learning
What Is Antisemitism? Unpacking History’s Longest Hatred by ICEJ USA President Susan Michael
Replacement Theology: What It Is and Why It Matters for Christians compiled by ICEJ USA President Susan Michael and ICEJ USA Managing Editor Karen Engle
Israel and the End of Days: A Battle of the Ages by Dr. Juergen Buehler, ICEJ President
Header image: “Esther Denouncing Haman” by Ernest Normand (1857–1923) (Source: Wikipedia Commons)