Rabbi Berekhya began: “Who acted and accomplished it? He who proclaimed the generations from the beginning; I, the Lord was first and with the last, I am He” (Isaiah 41:4). From the beginning of the creation of the world, the Holy One, blessed be He, instituted for each and every person what is appropriate for him: Adam, head of the created; Cain, head of the killers; Abel, head of the killed; Noah, head of the survivors; Abraham, head of the circumcised; Isaac, head of the bound; Jacob, head of the wholehearted; Judah, head of the tribes; Joseph, head of the pious; Aaron, head of the priests; Moses, head of the prophets; Joshua, head of the conquerors; Otniel, head of the allocators;15He completed the allocation of the tribal portions that Joshua did not allocate in his lifetime.
Samuel, of the anointers; Saul, of the anointed; David, of the musicians; Solomon, head of the builders; Nebuchadnezzar, head of the destroyers; Aḥashverosh, head of the sellers; Haman, head of the buyers; when everyone saw that it was so, they began screaming: ‘Woe [vai];’ “it was [vayhi] during the days of Aḥashverosh” (Esther 1:1).