Purim and Promise

The Jewish community is observing Purim, which spans the days of March 19-23. Purim is an observance of Jewish deliverance from genocide harkening back to Esther and the book by her name. This year, it is coincidentally concurrent with much of the Christian Easter celebration, thus bringing Easter and Esther together.

Esther’s Jewish name, Hadassah, as found in Esther 2:7, means "myrtle tree." It is rarely given to Jewish girls. One of the few is the wife of Connecticut senator Joseph Lieberman. She was born of a Jewish parents who survived the Holocaust, perhaps a factor in her unusual moniker. Hadassah is also enshrined as the name of a Jewish woman’s Zionist Society founded in 1912.
The word purim, means "lots" and refers to the method by which wicked Haman in ancient Persia, now southern Iran, determined the best day to exterminate the Jews after Esther’s cousin, Mordecai, refused to honor him. Esther’s intercession before the king allowed the Jews to defend themselves and preserve their race. The next day became one of celebration and gift-giving and is still observed today as Purim.

Although God is not mentioned in the book of Esther, many Bible scholars comment on its contextual significance in Jewish history. Purim stands as a stirring reminder that God’s chosen people are prophetically invincible. Pharaoh tried ethnic cleansing in Egypt, Haman continued the attempt in Persia, Hitler tried it in Germany, and radical Islam seems bent on Jewish genocide today. It’s all for naught as Jeremiah 31:35-37 says.

"Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for a light by day, the ordinances of the moon and the stars for a light by night, Who disturbs the sea, and its waves roar (the Lord of hosts is His name): ‘If those ordinances depart from before Me, says the Lord, Then the seed of Israel shall also cease from being a nation before Me forever.’ Thus says the Lord: ‘If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, says the Lord.’"

This is a solemn national promise that ethnic Israel will exist through the end times. No pogrom or genocide will prevail, and those so engaged will not prosper. Ethnic Israel must exist as long as the sun, moon, stars and tides continue in order to fulfill a national rebirth predicted in Ezekiel 37 and which occurred in 1948. They must retain their identity to rebuild a Temple in which Antichrist declares himself God as II Thessalonians 2:4 predicts and Revelation 11:2 implies. They must be a national entity to fulfill end-time attacks against them (Zechariah 14), their national repentance (Zech. 12:10) and the sealing of 144,000 in a future Tribulation time (Rev. 7).

This might be a good time to read the entire book of Esther. Purim fortifies our appreciation of the integrity of God and the certainty of prophecy—a celebration largely overlooked by evangelical Christians.

Dave Virkler