Esther went to live in the royal harem and Mordecai often visited her there.
One day,in an anteroom,he overheard two men discussing a plot to kill the King.Mordecai warned Esther.Esther spoke to the King.The two men were arrested and executed,but Mordecai was forgotten and received no reward for having saved the King's life.
This did not worry him.He was well-to-do and did not need any money.Besides,as the Queen's former guardian,he received a great many honours and he was quite content.But his sudden rise in the world and the prominence which he now enjoyed brought him many enemies.
Just then an Arab by the name of Haman was one of Xerxes’most trusted ministers.Haman (who belonged to the tribe of the Amalekites,the age-old enemies of the Judaeans)despised Mordecai and Mordecai returned this sentiment in a most cordial fashion.
Haman insisted that Mordecai bow to him first whenever they met.Mordecai refused.The matter was brought before the King.The King said that he did not want to be bothered.From that moment on,the two men hated each other with a deadly hatred.It seems a small matter about which to get excited,but thirty centuries ago,people did not know any better.
Haman was a dangerous enemy.He filled the heart of Xerxes with suspicion against all descendants of the former captives.He pointed to their rich houses and to their apparent success.As the King had never seen the slums where the greater part of his Jewish subjects lived,he believed all these stories.Without much trouble,Haman got his dissolute monarch to the point where he willingly signed a royal decree condemning all the Jews within his domains to death.
Haman was entrusted with the execution of this terrible law.Like all mean persons,he proceeded with slow and deliberate care,for he wanted to enjoy his revenge to the full.He threw lots to see what month would be best for the wholesale execution of the followers of Jehovah.In this way,the month of February was chosen.This gave Haman enough time to order the erection of a gallows on the top of a high hill,so that Mordecai,his enemy,“might be elevated above all men.”
The plot,however,was so complicated that it could not remain a secret for very long.Esther,at Mordecai's urgent request,appeared unannounced in the presence of her royal husband and asked that her people be spared.
Xerxes was angry at first,but he remembered how Mordecai had once saved his life,and putting all evidence before him together,he began to understand how Haman had misled him out of personal spite.Messengers on horseback were sent at once to all parts of the country to warn the Jews against the coming attack.And Haman was impaled on the top of that same high hill where he had hoped to hang his enemy,Mordecai.
When the details of the plot became known,the Jews began to appreciate the danger from which they had escaped.They decided to perpetuate the memory of this important event.
Every year thereafter,between the 13th and the 15th of the month of Adar (a Babylonian month covering part of our February and March),there was to be a great celebration called the feast of the Lots or “Purim.”