Creation Argued Against Haman Before Esther Ever Walked In

Most readers think the Purim miracle starts with Esther walking into the throne room. The rabbis of Midrash Rabbah tell a different story. By the time Esther fasts, by the time she lifts her gold scepter and faints, the case for Israel has already been argued in heaven by the days of the week, the patriarchs, and the trees of creation. Esther is closing a trial that has been running since Nisan.

A throne too holy for a foreign king

Start with the throne. Esther Rabbah 1:12, compiled in Palestine between the sixth and eleventh centuries, reads the opening verse of the Megillah with a magnifying glass. The Hebrew says Ahashverosh sat on the throne of his sovereignty, but the word malkhuto is spelled defectively, missing a letter. Rabbi Kohen, citing Rabbi Azarya, says the missing letter is the missing kingdom. He wanted Solomon's throne. He could not have it.

The midrash imagines Ahashverosh approaching the famous ivory throne of Solomon, six steps high, modeled on the chariot of the One who spoke and the world came into being. He reaches to climb. The throne refuses. The rabbis say a rule had been set long before he was born. Any king who is not ruler of the whole world may not sit on it. Ahashverosh ruled half the world at most. So he ordered a counterfeit built in his own image. The defective spelling in the verse is the scar of his rejection. The Megillah opens with a man on a fake throne, pretending the world has not just refused him.

Why does Nisan keep showing up in Israel's worst hours?

Haman walks into that throne room with a plan and a deck of lots. Esther Rabbah 7:11 takes apart the phrase in the first month, that is, the month Nisan and turns it into a courtroom drama. Haman shakes the pur. The Holy Spirit cries out from Joel, "Over My people they cast lots." God answers him in a single sentence, the kind of line that should have ended the story right there. Wicked one, son of wicked one, the lot is drawn against you.

Then comes the part most retellings skip. Haman casts for the day. Sunday's angel steps forward before God's throne and refuses. The heavens and the earth were created on me, the angel says. You promised by Your covenant of day and night that Israel would not be uprooted. Pick another day. Monday's angel steps up next, and pleads the waters separated above and below. Tuesday speaks for the grasses that came up at God's word, and so on through the week. Every day of creation files a brief against Haman. He is not just attacking a people. He is attacking the calendar that holds the world together.

So he casts for the months. Nisan refuses because of Passover. Iyar refuses because of the manna. Sivan refuses because of Sinai. The midrash walks each month up to the bench. Tammuz, Av, Elul, Tishrei, every one of them is already booked with a piece of Israel's story God will not erase. Haman runs out of the calendar. Only Adar is silent. Adar, the rabbis explain, is the month Moses died, and Haman thinks he has found an opening in Jewish grief. He has not yet realized that Adar is also the month Moses was born. The lot he is so proud of is going to swing around and hang him.

Zeresh names every rescue and finds one missing

Haman comes home from Esther's first banquet flushed with wine and rage, because Mordekhai at the gate refused to stand. Esther Rabbah 9:2 tells us he had three hundred and sixty-five advisers, one for every day of the solar year. None of them spoke. His wife Zeresh did.

Zeresh sits across from her husband and does something terrible and clear-eyed. She lists every way a Jew has ever been rescued, and rules each one out. Throw him in a fiery furnace? Hananya and his cohorts walked out. The lions' den? Daniel walked out. Prison? Joseph walked out. A pot of fire? Menashe king of Judah prayed and God lifted him out. Exile to the wilderness? Their ancestors lived in the wilderness for forty years and survived every test. Blind him? Samson, blind, killed more Philistines in his death than in his life.

She has read the Hebrew Bible like a strategist scanning enemy maneuvers. Every defense has been used. Every escape has been logged. There is one mode of execution, she tells him, that no Jew has ever survived. Hang him on a gibbet. Haman likes the plan. He goes to choose the wood.

The trees of creation refuse the job

The same midrash says God called every tree in the world to a meeting. Who will give wood for this wicked one to hang on. The fig refuses, claiming first fruits. The olive refuses, claiming the menorah. The vine, the pomegranate, the apple, the carob, each tree pulls a verse out of Torah and steps back. The cedar of Lebanon refuses, citing the Temple. Even the willow refuses, because it is bound up in Sukkot. Only the thornbush volunteers, the rabbis say, because the thornbush has no use anyone else can claim. So Haman builds his fifty-cubit gallows out of the wood that has nothing to lose.

What Esther was actually walking into

When she finally crosses the seven chambers of the palace, she is not improvising. The case has been heard in heaven. The days of creation, the months of Israel's calendar, every patriarch and every previous rescue have already spoken. Adar was empty when Haman cast the lot. By the time Esther reaches the king, Adar is full of voices.

The Megillah does not mention God. The midrash answers by stuffing every blank space with witnesses. The throne refuses Ahashverosh. The week refuses Haman. The trees refuse the gallows. Even the wood under his feet was unwilling.