Rabbi Yuda son of Rabbi Simon began: “From a hypocritical person’s rule; from snares of the people” (Job 34:30). Rabbi Yoḥanan and Reish Lakish: Rabbi Yoḥanan said: When the king is a hypocrite and rules the people, “from snares [mimokeshei] of the people,” it is due to the stubbornness [kashyuteihen] and the liabilities of the people who do not perform the will of the Creator of the world. Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish said: It is preferable for people to grow themselves wings and fly in the air rather than for them to be turned over and subjugated to a hypocritical king.
Alternatively, “from a hypocritical person’s rule,” that is Aḥashverosh, who was hypocritical, who killed his wife because of his friend, and a different time killed his friend because of his wife. Abba Oriyan of Sidon said five things in the name of Rabban Gamliel: When lying judges increase, lying witnesses increase. When informants increase, the property of the people is plundered. When brazenness increases, glory, majesty, and honor are taken from the people.When the actions of beloved children anger their Father in Heaven, He sets over them a hypocritical king who exacts retribution from them.14Abba Oriyan is said to list five things he heard from Rabban Gamliel, and this list contains only four.
In Yalkut Shimoni, Esther, 1,044, the following is inserted here: “When the younger says to the elder: I am greater than you, the lives of people are truncated.” And who is this? It is Aḥashverosh. When everyone saw that it was so, they began screaming; ‘Woe [vai];’ “it was [vayhi] during the days of Aḥashverosh” (Esther 1:1).