INTRODUCTION
This period we are approaching in the Jewish calendar is one of remembrance and retelling: this is an important theme within Judaism for both positive and negative reasons; This evening marks the festival of Purim and shortly afterwards we celebrate Passover where we celebrate the faithfulness of our covenant God but also learn from our mistakes.
So I would like to focus on the Jewish feast of Purim today as a base from which we will glide in and out of because the same type of conditions that faced the Jewish people in those times have important parallels in the days in which we now live.
INTRODUCTION – SYNOPSIS
Purim celebrates the deliverance of the Jews from destruction at the hands of their enemies as recounted in the Book of Esther. Purim got its name, because Haman, the enemy of the Jews, cast the “pur” (the lot) against the Jews yet failed to destroy them. The most important Purim custom is reading the Purim Story from the Scroll of Esther, also called the Megillah (scroll). Jews usually go to the synagogue for this special reading. Whenever Haman (the villain’s) name is mentioned people will boo, howl, hoot and shake noisemakers (groggers) to express their dislike of him.
Unlike other synagogue occasions, everyone attends the Megillah reading in costume. Normally people dress up as characters from the Purim story, for example, as Esther or Mordechai. The tradition of dressing up is based upon the way Esther concealed her Jewish identity at the beginning of the Purim Story.
Food plays an important role in Purim the same as with most Jewish holidays. For instance, people are commanded to send ‘mishloach manot’ ( baskets filled with food and drink) to other Jews. On Purim. We also enjoy a special meal, called the Purim se’udah (meal), where people serve ‘hamantaschen,’ (Haman’s ears) special Purim cookies for desert.
During Purim, we especially remember the many people who are poor and needy and give money to them.
MEANING OF PURIM FOR JEWISH BELIEVERS & CHRISTIANS
At Purim, we see the clash between the Amalakites and the Jewish people. We cannot for certain identify the modern day Amalakites (there are various opinions), but we can accurately identify their character traits which is rooted in a vicious anti- Semitic spirit. We have seen it in action throughout history and this demonic spirit has continually sought to destroy the entire Jewish people time and time again (unsuccessfully).
AMALEKITES
The Amalekites originated from Amalek who was the grandson of Esau. (Genesis. 36:12). They were a cruel and barbaric people, pagans who committed evil acts and terrorised others. Although they were warriors, they behaved like cowards, motivated by the demonic – no honour, integrity or dignity. In Exodus 17:8-16, we read that the Amalekites “came and fought with Israel”, and that God was so furious with the Amalekites that He swore to “have war with Amalek from generation to generation.”
What provoked God’s fierce wrath, is described in Deuteronomy 25:17-19:
‘Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you were coming out of Egypt, how he met you on the way and attacked your rear ranks, all the stragglers at your rear, when you were tired and weary; and he did not fear God. Therefore it shall be, when the LORD your God has given you rest from your enemies all around, in the land which the LORD your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance, that you will blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. You shall not forget.‘ The Amalekites took advantage of the weak and sick and stragglers amongst the
Israelites in the wilderness coming from behind picking them off one by one. Unlike any other nation who feared the Israelites because of His divine protection, the Amalakites thought nothing of challenging the authority of God. Due to these things, God commanded the Israelites to blot out their memory which they failed to do. Because of this, Amalek represents the seed of all anti-Semitism throughout the ages.
We need to be aware of Satan’s tactics (be sober and vigilant…) and to wear the full armour of God at all times in our battle against him so we are not caught unawares.
Satan is uncompromising in his efforts to destroy the people of God (Jew and Gentile) and will use any means to do so, subtle of overt. He can even get believers to do good things yet which are not in the perfect will of God (e.g. ministries) to destroy us – Deut 6:5 + obedience + humility.
The task to destroy the Amalekites was given first to the tribes of Israel when they settled in the land of Canaan which they only did in part. Next, it was given to King Saul, who as we know, compromised obedience to God. (1 Samuel 15:3) “Go and strike Amalek and utterly destroy all that he has, and do not spare him; but put to death both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.”
Now over 500 years later, the Amalakite spirit again raised its head as we see with the story of Purim. And even so today 2500 years later, Purim is a grim reminder with the surrounding nations of Israel and the nations of the world, represented by Haman the Amalakite (‘magnificent, proud and mighty.’ ) seek to wipe this nation and the people off the map.
But it is also a grim reminder for our enemies since it brings to our remembrance that our God is faithful to His covenant promises will forever preserve His people against those who seek to destroy them.
THE AMALEKITE SPIRIT
This spirit of anti-Semitism is as active today as ever before, and exists throughout the world with levels which far exceed pre-Nazi Europe in the 1930’s (East and West).
The spirit of Haman is the spirit of the thief, the one who steals, kills, and destroys (John 10:10):
“Wherever you find someone with a fanatical, implacable and illogical enmity to the Jewish people, you have found Amalek. His very existence is founded on his hatred for the Jewish people.
Amalek is called the first of the nations. He was the first of the nations to attack Israel. Everything that is first contains the blueprint of all that is to follow. The seed comes first. Contained in the seed is the tree. Amalek is the bitter seed of Jew hatred.”
Golda Meir once said:
“ We can forgive those muslims who kill our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We can only have peace when they love their children more than they hate us.”
THE FAITHFULNESS OF GOD
But God is faithful. Do you want to know how faithful He is? In Deuteronomy (7:6-9) He says:
“For you are a people set part as holy for Adonai your God. Adonai your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be His own unique treasure. Adonai didn’t set his heart on you or choose you because you numbered more than any other people – on the contrary, you were the fewest of all people.
Rather it was because Adonai loved you, and because he wanted to keep the oath which he had sworn to your ancestors, that Adonai brought you out with a strong hand and redeemed you from a life of slavery under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. From this you can know that Adonai your God is indeed God, the faithful God, who keeps his covenant and extends grace to those who love him and observe his mitzvoth, to a thousand generations.”
Does Israel live up to this promise? no! But we must understand the difference between divine judgment and divine rejection. We must not confuse vows with covenant promises (e.g. Jeremiah 31: Romans 11). In Psalm 89:34 we read the promise from God to Israel that:
“I will not violate my covenant, nor will I alter even one word of what my lips have spoken.”
In this respect, the only place in Scripture where we read that God does something with all of His heart and being is in Jeremiah 32:41, He tells Israel:
“I will plant them in this land (Promised Land) in truth, with all my heart and with all my being.”
Israel is unique among the nations for God cares and watches over it continually and calls His people the ‘Apple of His eye.” (Zechariah 2:8; Psalm 17:8).
For those who hate God’s people, Scripture tells us that:
“He who sits in heaven laughs at them: Adonai looks at them in derision. Then in His anger He rebukes them, and terrifies them in His fury.”
PRESENT DAY ISRAEL
How could this apply to present day Israel who currently walk to a large extent in unbelief, rebellion, unrighteousness and apostasy?
So, Israel is an anomaly: They are a godly people by nature and election yet currently the majority (60%) are atheists or agnostics. One moment they ascribe greatness to the Lord God and the next they boast in their own strength and abilities. However, for the Jew, it is possible to argue against God, but not to live without Him.
The Israeli government urges Jews to emigrate to Israel yet deny Messianic Jewish believers this right. Non-believing observant Jews await the coming of the Messiah but missed him the first time round. Elie Wiesel (famous Israeli author and Holocaust survivor) told this story about the Messiah which sums things up well:
“My good friends, what is the difference between you and me? Both of us, all of us believe, because we are religious Jews, in the coming of the Messiah. You believe that the Messiah came, went back, and that you are waiting for Him for the second coming. We Jews believe He hasn’t come yet, but He will come. In other words, we are waiting, you for the second coming, we for the first coming. Let’s wait together.
After a pause, he said,
“And when He will come, we will ask Him, have you been here before?”
Said Elie Wiesel, “I hope I will be behind Him and I will whisper in His ear, please do not answer.”
The answer to the question posed to the Jewish people today regarding Jesus the Messiah is “please do not answer.”
But, our God is a God of miracles who can do anything, the God of the impossible:
“God can do anything. He could even, as the Talmud puts it, ‘fit an elephant through the eye of a needle.’
So, how would He do it? Would He make the elephant smaller or would He expand the eye of the needle?
Neither. The elephant would remain big, the eye of the needle small and He would fit the elephant through the eye of the needle.
Illogical? True, but logic is just another of His creations. He who created logic is permitted to disregard it.”
There are a lot of ‘elephants’ in the hearts of the Jewish people. We are a stubborn and stiff-necked people, but God is able to squeeze us through the eye of a needle and has indeed promised to do so. (cf. Zech.12)
THE SETTING
At the time of the story of Purim, the Jewish people were living in exile under the Persian king called Xerxes. Xerxes was a direct descendent and thirtieth in line from Rameses II (‘The Great’), Pharaoh of Egypt (1304 B.C—1237 BC), during the Exodus. So, the same direct descendent of Pharaoh who held the Israelites enslaved for four hundred years, was used by God (through Esther) to now deliver them.
Jeremiah the prophet had warned the Jewish people that they would be sent into exile due their continual sin and rebellion against God, but he also predicted that they would return, rebuild the Temple and start over. He prophesied that it would be rebuilt 70 years after its destruction which took place exactly as prophesied.
“For thus says the Lord, When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you and keep My good promise to you, causing you to return to this place.” (Jeremiah 29:10).
Amidst all of this was the sad reality that amongst the Jewish exiles were many who did not want to ever return to Israel. They adapted to their life of exile and things became comfortable; they built a well organised Jewish community first in Babylon (Iraq) and later in Persia (modern day Iran) and it was inconvenient to be uprooted once more.
Assimilation is a very dangerous thing to do as history has taught us; the recent events of the Holocaust are a grim reminder of this. Had all the exiles returned in the first wave of Aliya under King Cyrus instead of a small remnant, there would have been no Purim! (i.e., no need for a Divine deliverance)
THE PARTY
The book of Esther begins with King Xerxes throwing a lavish party. When we unravel the details from other historical documents, we discover that he used the sacred vessels plundered from Solomon’s Temple and also dressed in the sacred clothing of the priesthood which had been looted by the Babylonians from the Temple in Jerusalem. This form of blasphemy was a deliberate action to humiliate the Jewish community and flaunt his supposed victory over God. If that was not enough, the Jews in the capital city, Shushan, happily participated in Xerxes’ celebration, and we read in the Talmud that it was this sin that nearly caused the destruction of the Jewish people.
QUEEN VASHTI
Another key player in the story of Esther was Queen Vashti, who also had an interesting background. She was the daughter of King Belshazzar of Babylon and the great-granddaughter of King Nebuchadnezzar, who destroyed the 1st Temple in Jerusalem.
At the banquet, in the opening chapters of the Book of Esther, Xerxes ordered Vashti to appear at the feast unclothed so that in his pride and arrogance he could expose her beauty to his entire kingdom. was beheaded; yet it was her execution which orchestrated Esther’s appointment
as queen, which in turn was instrumental in the Jewish people’s deliverance from their enemies.
So we begin to see God’s fingerprints amidst the mysterious twists and turns that characterises the story of Purim: nothing is arbitrary with God. How many times have we seen God working in our lives through ways which appeared, unjust, unfair and without meaning; but our response to it is always critical.
MORDECHAI
Another key player in the drama was Mordechai, the cousin of Esther. According to the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) Mordechai was an attendant at the king’s court, and the Talmud identified him as a member of the Sanhedrin and Chief Rabbi of Shushan.
BTW: He would probably have attended both the feast that Xerxes held in the third year of his reign, and the seven-day feast that followed.
As a member of the Sanhedrin (the Council of seventy Jewish elders) Mordechai was required to speak at least seventy languages or dialects. This was how he saved the king against two eunuchs (Bigthan and Teresh) who conspired against his life. They had no idea that Mordechai, clearly distinguished as a Jew by his appearance and dress, could have understood what they were talking about.
Mordechai was from the tribe of Benjamin and a descendent of King Saul, son of Kish which is very significant. A reason why he refused to bow down to Haman at the king’s gate was the trigger that set off the whole drama of Purim and is connected with this fact.The task of destroying the Amalekites remained incomplete, given to the Benjamites through King Saul. For a Benjamite to bow down to an Amalekite would have been unthinkable.
WATCHMEN ON THE WALLS
Today, believers are under similar pressure to bow down to the sovereignty of the anti-Semitic spirit which is ravaging this planet. We must respond by actively engaging in spiritual warfare and pulling down these strongholds. God will rescue His people from the plots of the modern day Amalekite (the anti-Christ spirit the same as the spirit of Haman) because He has said in His word that he would do so.
But, God is also looking for a people who have been called to such a time as this who are willing to be watchmen on the walls and stand for truth and righteousness;
intercessors who will stand in the gap day and night. Are you willing?
God is calling us to engage in spiritual warfare against the enemy in these end times. Satan is picking off the weak and vulnerable within the Ekklesia, (the sleeping Church) the same as he did with the Israelites in the desert. Unless we remain close to the Lord, the same could happen to us for in the end times, ‘the love of many will draw cold’ and He alone is our strength (Hebrew: ADAR) and protection in these perilous times in which we live.
Purim set in this Hebraic month of Adar is a time of turnaround because the enemy always overplays his hand and the people of God prevail.
PURIM – TWISTS AND TURNS
So many events in the Purim story seem to just happen by coincidence, yet at every point God is there behind the scenes. His faithfulness and care is nowhere seen more clearly demonstrated than in this story which we see as a thread running throughout Israel’s history. But now the nations of this world are gathering against her, the storm clouds have gathered and again we are about to witness another deliverance of the Jewish people on an unprecedented scale (compared to 1948, 156, 1967, 1973, etc).
This is clearly illustrated in the mystery of Purim, prophetic of a future deliverance of the Jewish people both physical and spiritual (Romans 11: 25-26):
“For, brothers, I want you to understand this truth which God formerly concealed but has now revealed, so that you won’t imagine you know more than you actually do. It is that stoniness, to a degree, has come upon Isra’el, until the Gentile world enters in its fullness; 26 and that it is in this way that all Isra’el will be saved.”
GOD IS REVEALED YET HIDDEN
Although the name of God is not mentioned even once in the book of Esther, yet the hand of God is prominently interwoven behind the scenes.
Sometimes, perplexing things happen to us which God keeps hidden and when this occurs we need to acknowledge His right to keep things hidden from us if He so chooses:
“The secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but the things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” (Deuteronomy 29:29)
God has authority to reverse the worst evil and weave it into His divine purposes. In a real sense, each person who receives Yeshua as Mashiach has allowed God to do exactly this: to reverse evil (sin) and make all things new.
Although we cannot change God’s eternal purposes ordained before the foundation of the world, we must intercede for the people of Israel for their salvation for without doubt this the most important thing. But here I want to say something radical at this point, often overlooked yet integral and contingent for us to receive God’s blessing in our lives: we must forgive our enemies, and love and pray for them. Messiah Jesus repeats this command time and time again both explicitly and through parables. There is no escape clause in this.
Even though many nations seek the destruction of Israel, we pray that the Lord would cause them to cease and desist while there is still time left before the Day of the Lord. In fact we know that God is performing miracles amongst Israel’s most intransigent enemies through supernatural visitations and the like on an unprecedented scale.
For those who continue to seek the destruction of the Jewish people no matter what, we commend them into the hands of God for His judgment. This is not an easy thing to do. For example, recently I read the following report from a medical doctor at Hadassah hospital in Israel: “I was instrumental in establishing the Israeli National Skin Bank,’ which is the largest in the world. The National Skin Bank stores skin for every day needs as well
as for war time or mass casualty situations.
The skin bank is hosted at the Hadassah Ein Keres University hospital in Jerusalem where I was the chairman of plastic surgery.
This is how I was asked to supply skin for an Arab woman from Gaza, who was hospitalised in Soroka hospital in Beersheba, after her family burned her..
Usually, such atrocities happen among Arab families when the women are suspected of having an affair. We supplied the needed graftings for her treatment. She was successfully treated by my friend and colleague and discharged to return to Gaza.
She was invited for regular follow-up visits to the outpatient clinic in Beersheva. One day she was caught at a border crossing wearing a suicide belt. She meant to explode herself in the outpatient clinic of the hospital where they saved her life. It seems that the family promised her that if she did that, they would forgive her.”
I want to close by sharing this final story which is a testimony of God’s goodness faithfulness and deliverance in the most extraordinary way:
“When we were in the concentration camp, we slept in ‘bunks’ in the barracks. They weren’t bunk beds like you have, comfortable, with proper mattresses. Each bunk was about the size of a double bed—but nine of us slept on that hard board. How did we fit? We all had to lie sideways, stuffed together like sardines, or like spoons in a drawer. There was no room for a person to lie on his back or stomach. We all had to turn over at the same time.
I slept on the end of the bunk. You might think that that was a good place to have, because you were only squashed on one side. In the winter it was the worst place to be. You see, we had no covers, and certainly no heat. So the only thing that kept us warm was the body heat of our bunkmates. The person on the end of the bunk had no one on one side of him to keep him warm. Often, after a particularly freezing night, people would wake up in the morning and find that the last person on the bunk had frozen to death during the night. On one very cold night I was shivering so hard, and I felt that I was freezing to death. All of a sudden I felt a little bit of warmth on my exposed side. Then another and another. I looked and saw . . . . The rats from the barracks, who were also freezing, had crawled onto the bunk and were lying next to me. They absorbed the heat from my body, and they in turn warmed me. Together we survived.
So, children, you can’t kill a rat because the rats saved my life.” Our lives are often filled with twists and turns not unlike those we read in the story
of Purim, where God uses the very things people may turn away from or use against us, for His purposes. The name of God is not mentioned once in the book of Esther within the translations from the Hebrew into other languages (although it is revealed in the original Hebrew) yet His fingerprints are upon every detail in the story from beginning to end. When we may feel God’s presence the least in our lives is when He is often closest to us – we simply need faith to believe and His eyes to see.
We see this more and more in these end times, but one vital lesson for us from the story of Purim often ignored is that God is seeking for a people who are passionate and set-apart totally for Him. The Jewish people of Shushan lived lives of compromise and spiritual apathy which almost cost them their total annihilation. This is as true for Mordecai and Esther as for all the other Jews who attended the Kings feast in Shushan at the beginning of the story and compromised their faith to accommodate his desire. Really they were in the wrong place – Shushan (Persia) was the wrong place – Jerusalem was the right location, and has already been mentioned, only a few returned under Zerubabel in the first wave of returnees to rebuild the 2nd Temple.
