The King Okays A Pogrom

Haman had now picked what he thought was the winning lottery ticket. If the King green-lit the project the pogrom against the Jews would take place on the 13th of the 12th month. Unfortunately, Haman thought to himself, that was a long time before he could eradicate the Jews from the earth, but he didn’t wish to go against his profound superstitious confidence in the power of the lot. Casting lots had served him well up to this point. It was time to go and see the King. He would choose his words carefully:Then Haman said to King Xerxes, “There is a certain people dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom who keep themselves separate. Their customs are different from those of all other people, and they do not obey the king’s laws; it is not in the king’s best interest to tolerate them. If it pleases the king, let a decree be issued to destroy them, and I will give ten thousand talents of silver to the king’s administrators for the royal treasury.”  So the king took his signet ring from his finger and gave it to Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of the Jews.  ~Esther 3:8-11

Haman must have been filthy rich. According to scholars, he offered an amount equal to 2/3 of the gross national product of Persia! Ten thousand talents of silver would be 750,000 pounds, or 9,000,000 troy ounces. In today’s value for silver, give or take $14.00 an ounce, that would be worth around $126,000,000. Haman was certainly putting his money where his mouth was, but it seemed to be a calculated risk. No king worth his salt would wish to have one his lessors acting as though they had more money than the king! Thus, Xerxes plays to form and blows it off: “Keep the money,” the king said to Haman, “and do with the people as you please.” Esther 3:11  Haman was crafty. The medicine becomes effective in just 45 minutes and this is the reason the patients viagra pill for woman robertrobb.com are released on the very same day of surgery. There are several who would want to take click here for info buy cialis these but would prefer natural alternatives. viagra generic online Toxins keep depositing, which are not able to satisfy their partner sexually. There are a lot of perks of having canadian cialis no prescription as the pill for treating impotence. The king would spend the money to enact the massacre but Haman would get full credit for having offered to foot the bill!

Haman wasted no time in getting the plan underway. He thought about the widespread Persian kingdom and realized how wise the casting of the lots had turned out to be. It would probably take a good 12 months of planning and explaining and equipping to pull this off. It would be nothing but work, work, work for days on end. But Haman was pleased nonetheless: 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. 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 children—on a single day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, the month of Adar, and to plunder their goods. 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. ~Esther 3:12-14  The fuse had been lit. Haman would have time to roll out his plan for evil. What he failed to realize was that Mordecai would have time to roll out his plan for good.