Purim is on its way. What do we know about it? Well, we know a lot.
During the
festival of Purim we read the Book of Esther (Megillahs
Esther). The story of Purim is set in ancient Persia, but just as well
could take place today. It is a story about assimilated Jews living
outside the Land of Israel, afraid to reveal their identity, intermarriage, Jew
hatred, being in control of your life and standing up for yourself and for your
people.
In this essay I have tried to pin
down what we know about the four main individuals in Megillahs Esther:
Mordechai, Ahasuerus, Haman and Esther. I think that they are real people and
not characters of historical fiction. It is a very interesting time in our
Jewish past, and involves Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and Cyrus the Great of
Persia, two well-known foreign powerhouses who have left a large footprint in
Jewish history.
Adding depth to Megillas
Esther necessitated bringing together the historical reality of
persons and events as best I can. This means not only taking a hard
look at authenticity and substantiated facts, but trying not to dissemble or
have an axe to grind. Hopefully, speculation is kept at a minimum.
The story of Purim begins in the
year 598 BCE . This is when the King of Babylonia, Nebuchadnezzar,
exiled the King of Judah and maybe 3,000 of its citizens to Babylonia. One
of these citizens is the hero of the Book of Esther. His
name is Mordechai, the cousin of Esther.
The basis and timeline for this
essay hangs on two statements, one from the Babylonian Chronicles and another
from the Book of Esther. It is also supported by 2 Kings
and the Book of Ezra. The Babylonian Chronicles are a series of cuneiform
writings from the time of Nebuchadnezzar that explain in exquisite accurate
detail the history of Babylonian Empire. The Book Esther speaks
for itself.
The quote from
the Babylonian Chronicles is as follows: “In
the seventh year, in the month of Kislev, the king of Akkad mustered his
troops, marched to the Hatti-land, and encamped against the City of Judah and
on the ninth day of the month of Adar [598 BCE] he seized the city and captured
the king. He appointed there a king of his own choice and taking heavy tribute
brought it back to Babylon”.
Nebuchadnezzar
began his reign in 605 BCE. In the 7th year of his
reign, 598 BCE he invaded Hatti-Land which is the Levant or Syria-Israel. The
City of Judah is Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar invaded Judah and laid
siege to Jerusalem. The Judean King, Jehoiakim died and his son
Jeconiah was appointed king. After three months, fearing rebellion,
Nebuchadnezzar removed Jeconiah from the throne and exiled him along with maybe
3,000 prominent Jews to Babylonia. Among those citizens was
Mordechai. He was probably an infant or very small boy.
The Jews revolt
once more. After a long siege, Jerusalem falls in 586 BCE. The
Kingdom of Judah is in ruins and is devoid of much of its population. No
longer a kingdom it becomes a small Babylonian province called Yehud. Then in
539 BCE, the Persian Empire led by Cyrus the Great defeats the Babylonians. A
year later, Cyrus issues a proclamation entreating the Jews to return to Yehud
(now a Persian sub-province not even a satrapy) and rebuild our Temple.
What Do We Know
About Mordechai?
Mordechai was a baby when he was exiled and must have grown up in Babylonia, modern day Iraq. He did not return to Yehud. Instead, somehow or other, probably as a grown man, he made his way due east to the Persian capital of Susa (Shushan) in modern day Iran.
In answer to a question as to why
Mordechai did not return to Jerusalem when Cyrus made it possible for Jews to
return consider the following excerpt from a lecture by Professor Oved
Lipschits, Tel Aviv University:
“…Jerusalem was wretchedly poor,
not just in the period after the Babylonian destruction, but also at the height
of the Persian period. In light of this clear archaeological evidence, we
should interpret the return to Zion as a slow and gradual process that didn't
leave its imprint on the archaeological data. After nearly a century of Persian
rule, Jerusalem was still small, unfortified with only few hundreds of people
living in and around it”. Also consider It may have not been
in the best interest of Mordechai’s ward, young Esther, to live in or around
Jerusalem at that time.
It is in Shushan
that we find Mordechai when he first makes his appearance in the Book
of Esther. Our story begins to take
shape, starting with a quote from the Book of Esther at 2:5-6.
The quote
reads: “There was a man, a Jew, in Shushan the capital, whose
name was Mordechai the son of Jair the son of Shimei the son of Kish, a
Benjamite, who had been exiled from Jerusalem along with the ones exiled that
were exiled with Jeconiah, king of Judah, who Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon,
had exiled.”
אִישׁ יְהוּדִי, הָיָה בְּשׁוּשַׁן הַבִּירָה; וּשְׁמוֹ מָרְדֳּכַי, בֶּן
יָאִיר בֶּן-שִׁמְעִי בֶּן-קִישׁ--אִישׁ יְמִינִי
אֲשֶׁר הָגְלָה, מִירוּשָׁלַיִם, עִם-הַגֹּלָה אֲשֶׁר הָגְלְתָה, עִם
יְכָנְיָה מֶלֶךְ-יְהוּדָה--אֲשֶׁר הֶגְלָה, נְבוּכַדְנֶצַּר מֶלֶךְ בָּבֶל
What else do we
know about Mordechai? Well, when the story begins there is a new
king who has been sitting on the throne for about three years. He is
not Cyrus who died in 530 BCE. Since Mordechai was born as late as
598 BCE, he had to be at least 71 years old when the story begins. Mordechai’s
father had a brother named Abihail. His daughter was Esther, who at
the time when the story begins was in her late teens. Her parents
must have passed away and Mordechai her much older cousin has become her
guardian.
What Do We Know
About Ahauverus?
Cyrus dies and
there is a new king on the throne. His name is Ahasuerus (אֲ חַ שְׁ וֵרוֹש); what can
we say about him? Well, we can say a lot. Who was
he, and when did he reign? Well, he was not Cyrus the Great, and must have come
to rule sometime after Cyrus’ death in 530 BCE. Many scholars
suggest that Ahasuerus was Xerxes I who ruled between 486-465 BCE. They see in the names Xerxes and Ahasuerus
certain similarities on which their claim is based.
If you give any
credence at all to the Book of Esther where it states that
Mordechai went into exile with king Jeconiah, and that happened in 598 BCE,
then Mordechai is least 112 years old when Xerxes began his reign.
Come
on folks, claiming that Xerxes is Ahasuerus is ridiculous; Ahasuerus
was somebody else.
I think Ahasuerus was the king of
Persia who immediately followed Cyrus’ reign. This would be Cambyses
(Kamboujyeh or Kabūjiya) II. He was the son and successor of Cyrus the Great
and he ruled from 530 BCE until 522 BCE. Mordechai’s earliest age at
Cambyses’ II’s death would be 76 years old, and unlike the probable age at the
time of Xerxes is reasonable. A weakness to this hypothesis is that
Cambyses ruled for only eight years, not enough time for all the events in
the Book of Esther to take place. However, during
the lifetime of Cyrus, in 539 BCE, Cambyses was proclaimed king of Babylonia
giving another nine years for his story to unfold.
The Megillas Esther begins
in the 3rd year of Ahasuerus’ reign, 527 BCE, with the wine
party that lasts for 180 days. The Persian-Greek historian writes
that Cambyses was given over to drunkenness. The association of that
long wine fest and overindulging on Purim with strong drink cannot be passed up
here.
Herodotus also writes that Cambyses
was insane, had a short fuse and committed many crimes. Maybe this
adds credence about the plot discovered by Mordechai to assassinate Ahasuerus. Most
telling however, is that Cambyses murdered one of his wives. My guess is that
it was not Vashti. But no wonder that Esther was extremely fearful in
approaching Ahasuerus with her petition. The man was irrational, had
a bad temper and was given over to violence.
Having said that, we know that he
loved Esther, and because of his love for her he viewed her people the Jews
with much favor. Cambyses also favored the Jews. In 525
BCE Cambyses set out and succeeded in conquering Egypt.
During his campaign he is said to
have wreaked havoc, looting temples, ridiculing the local gods, and defiling
royal tombs. When Cambyses conquered Egypt, he declared himself as “Pharaoh”. As to how he was regarded there are two
opposing points of view:
The historian, Herodotus puts an
emphasis on Cambyses' supposed killing of the Egyptian sacred bull called Apis.
On the contrary, others say that Cambyses took part in the preservation and
burial ceremony of Apis.
There is an Egyptian record that
says Cambyses decreased the sizeable income Egyptian temples received from the
Egyptian pharaohs. Under Cambyses, only three
temples were given permission to maintain their entitlements. This caused those
Egyptian priests who lost their entitlements to circulate spurious stories
about Cambyses…maybe true…maybe not.
In Egypt at this time there was a
military colony of Jews living on an island in the Nile called Elephantine. The
Jews of Elephantine had their own Temple.
“'Now our forefathers built this
temple in the fortress of Elephantine back in the days of the kingdom of Egypt,
and when Cambyses came to Egypt he found it built. They (the Persians) knocked
down all the temples of the gods of Egypt, but no one did any damage to this
temple."
I think that because of his love
for Esther, Cambyses looked upon Jews with favor.
Who was Haman?
I came across some information
which may shed some light on Haman. It is a bit of a shaggy dog
story, but let me explain:
In 597- 598 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar
exiled King Jeconiah and his entourage to Babylon. As stated in Jeremiah 52:
31-34 and 2 Kings 25:27-30, their exile lasted for 37 years until the
death of Nebuchadnezzar at which time they were set free. And
incidentally, Nebuchadnezzar on a daily basis provided food for them. This
daily food allowance is also spelled out in Babylonian cuneiform tablets.
While all of this is interesting,
what is the connection to Haman? Well it goes like this:
Very similar to the Jeconiah
situation, but seven years earlier in 604 BCE, the King of Ashkelon and his two
sons were also exiled by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon. As per cuneiform
records, their daily food ration was also supplied to them by Nebuchadnezzar.
The surname of the King of Ashkelon
is Aga, similar or identical to Haman the son of Hamdata the Agagite,האגגי
I’m guessing that this king or his
sons were also set free when Nebuchadnezzar died. They would not have returned
to Ashkelon because that city had been completely destroyed by the Babylonians
in much the same way as the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. Perhaps,
similar to Mordechai, they took up residence in Shushan. Perhaps also
because these Agagites were royalty they were able to hold a top administration
position in the Persian monarch’s court and expected people to bow down to
them, Mordechai included.
What is extremely important is that
King Aga was a Philistine, the last of the Philistine kings. Philistines
were the archenemy of Israel from the time of the Patriarchs. King
Aga knew about Judah because the land of the Philistines of which Ashkelon was
a part, bordered on the Kingdom of Judah. They were neighbors, but
shared a mutual hatred. This explains the vehement contempt that
Haman had for Jews in general and to Mordechai in particular.
Who Was Esther?
The simple answer is that I do not
know. Her father's name was Avihail or in Hebrew: אֲבִיחַיִל . This
translates: "My father is a soldier". This may mean that
Esther's father's father, her grandfather was a military man. Since
Esther and Mordechai share the same grandfather, the same would be true for
Mordechai.
I am guessing that at the time of
the “Beauty Contest” she was a teenager living in Shushan. According
to most scholars, the name Esther is derived from the Mesopotamian goddess
Ishtar and/or the Persian word stara, "star", maybe the evening star
Venus.
There is a connection between the
name Esther and one of Cambyses’ wives. Her name was Roxane. The name Roxanne is derived from the Greek name
Rhōxanē, a derivative of the Persian Roshanak, This name has
several meanings such as shining little star, lovely flare and luminous beauty. This name is still popular and in common use in
today's Iran. Perhaps Esther and Roxanne are one and the same.
I hope that you had
plenty to talk about when you last sat down at the table enjoying your Purim
festive meal. And now for your next Shabbat and next year’s Purim
celebration you will have a little more to chew on.
No comments:
Post a Comment