Haman did not just plot in the Persian court. He plotted in heaven. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, Haman's banquet was designed as a spiritual trap. He told Ahasuerus that the God of Israel hates lewdness, then arranged a feast with lewd women and decreed that every desire be fulfilled, hoping the Jews would sin and lose divine protection. Mordecai warned the people not to attend, but 18,560 Jews went anyway.
While the Jews feasted at Haman's table, Ha-Satan, the Accuser, appeared before God. "How long wilt Thou cleave to this nation who turn their hearts from Thee?" he demanded. "Let them perish from the world." God asked what would become of the Torah. Ha-Satan replied, "Let it remain for the higher beings." And for one terrible moment, God agreed. He told Ha-Satan to fetch a scroll so He could write the decree of Israel's destruction.
But when Ha-Satan went to get the scroll, the Torah herself appeared before him in widow's garments, groaning and weeping. The ministering angels heard her cries and wept, saying, "If the Israelites are to be destroyed, what is the use of us?" The sun, moon, stars, and planets clothed themselves in sackcloth and cried out: "Shall Israel be destroyed, for whose sake we were created?"
Elijah raced to the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and told them heaven and earth were weeping for Israel. Moses asked whether the heavenly decree had been sealed with clay or with blood. If clay, prayers might still overturn it. Elijah went to Mordecai, who gathered all the schoolchildren, stripped them of food and water, dressed them in sackcloth, and set them on ashes. Their mothers brought bread, begging them to eat before they died. The children refused, clutching their Torah scrolls to their hearts.
That night their cries reached heaven. God heard and said, "I hear the voices of kids and goats." Moses corrected Him: "These are not kids and goats, but the young of Thy people, fasting three days and three nights in chains of iron." God's mercy was stirred. He broke the seals, tore the decree, and frustrated Haman's plans, fulfilling the verse: "I shall cut off the horns of the wicked, but the horns of the righteous shall be raised on high."