The plot of Haman
Then on the thirteenth day of the first month the royal secretaries were summoned. They wrote out in the script of each province and in the language of each people all Haman’s orders to the king’s satraps, the governors of the various provinces and the nobles of the various peoples. These were written in the name of King Xerxes himself and sealed with his own ring. 13 Dispatches were sent by couriers to all the king’s provinces with the order to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews—young and old, women and little children—on a single day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar, and to plunder their goods. 14 A copy of the text of the edict was to be issued as law in every province and made known to the people of every nationality so they would be ready for that day.
15 Spurred on by the king’s command, the couriers went out, the edict was issued in the citadel of Susa. The king and Haman sat down to drink, but the city of Susa was bewildered.
Once the deal was struck, the edicts were drawn up and sent throughout the empire. This action agrees well with what we know of the administration and the famous courier system of the Persian Empire. Critics have claimed that the plans to carry out such a large-scale massacre in a single day are unbelievable, but history has recorded other massacres on this scale. In 88 B.C., Mithradates, king of Pontus, massacred 80,000 Romans in one day. He followed this up with a massacre of 20,000 Romans on the small island of Delos.
It is shocking that Haman and Xerxes could condemn thousands of men, women, and children to death and then coldly head for a drinking party. But this too is like the conduct of other tyrants in similar circumstances. Perhaps it also reflects an element of truth in Herodotus’ claim that after the Persians had made a sober decision, they liked to reconsider it under the influence of alcohol. Be that as it may, the cold-blooded actions of these two tyrants set the stage for the crucial battle to begin.
Meanwhile, the people of Susa were “bewildered.” Apparently the decree struck them as strange and arbitrary.