Conceit is a strange disease in that, when a person has it, it makes everyone else sick!
To grasp the significance of the events today, we’ll have to go back to two other stories in Israel’s history. One dates to the early days of the nation’s Egyptian exodus, and the other to the inception of her monarchy. Before even reaching the Promised Land, they faced the unprovoked attack of Amalek (Ex 17:8). Under Joshua, with the intercession of Moses, they defeated them, but it would be a fight to the death. Later we read, “It shall be, when the Lord your God has given you rest from your enemies all around…that you will blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. You shall not forget” (Deut 25:19). When Saul was given that task, in an untimely show of mercy, he spared the royal family of Agag. Now we see why. It was either the Agagites or the line leading to the Savior. Here we read, “After these things King Ahasuerus promoted Haman, the son of Hammedatha the Agagite, and advanced him and set his seat above all the princes who were with him” (Est 3:1). Haman, self-absorbed, loved the adulation from “all the king’s servants who…bowed and paid homage to” him (v 2). All, that is, but Mordecai the Jew. Incensed, and true to his ancestral animus, Haman “disdained to lay hands on Mordecai alone, for they had told him of the people of Mordecai. Instead, Haman sought to destroy all the Jews who were throughout the whole kingdom of Ahasuerus” (v 6). But Haman was as superstitious as he was self-centered. When would he plan their holocaust? Imagine a capricious toss of the dice to determine the fate of a whole nation! “In the first month,…they cast Pur (that is, the lot), before Haman to determine the day and the month” (v 7). It fell on the twelfth month. So there was a year for Haman to scheme—and a year for God to work.