Gouging the history out of Esther 3:1

by Damien F. Mackey "After these events, King Ahasuerus honoured Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, elevating him and giving him a seat of honour higher than that of all the other nobles". Esther 3:1 What to make of all of this? We have an unknown Medo-Persian monarch, in an unknown period of history, raising to the highest honour in his kingdom a presumed Amalekite notable of unknown parentage. No wonder that commentators generally take the Book of Esther to be a non-historical fiction of some kind, whether literary or didactic. Yet this verse, 3:1, is actually the record of a very precise point in ancient Medo-Persian history. And I shall explain it. Here the key elements to be accounted for will be the names, King Ahasuerus, Haman and Hammedatha, and the nationality, Agagite. Important Jewish legends Let me cut to the chase here, basing myself upon a Jewish tradition without which I would never have been able to ascertain who, and what, Haman was. A Jewish legend has it that Haman was - wait for it - a Jew, and one known to Mordecai, Esther's uncle, and - according to a further Jewish legend - Esther's husband. Whilst the news that Esther was actually married to Mordecai might come as a shock, the far greater shock is that Haman, whose conspiracy against the crown would involve killing all of the Jews in the kingdom, was a Jew. If this proves to be correct, then the much favoured comparison between Hitler and Haman, and Hitler's (Nuremberg) henchmen and Haman's ten sons, tends to fall a bit flat. While Hitler and his thugs were bent upon the extermination of the Jewish race, Haman and his sons, of actual Jewish descent, were bent upon - as it will turn out - the annihilation of only the religious (Yahwistic) Jews, like Mordecai. The Hitler-Haman parallel is thus far from being an exact one. Haman the Jewish King (A) We can glean a further clue about Haman in Queen Esther's prayer, referring to him as "a mortal king" (Esther 4:17). Haman was a king, then, a Jewish king. But which one? Well, only one Jewish king lived long enough to have been able to become involved in Medo-Persian affairs, after the fall of the last Chaldean king, Belshazzar. And that was King Jehoiachin (or Coniah), an historically-attested king. Taken into Babylonian captivity as a young man, Jehoiachin was set free in his 37th year of captivity by Nebuchednezzar's son, King Amēl-Marduk (or Evil Merodach) (2 Kings 25:27). A few years later (Amēl-Marduk =) Belshazzar will be slain, and immediately there will be ushered in the Medo-Persian era, commencing with the 62-year old Darius the Mede (Daniel 5:30-31). Esther's King Biological considerations would make it almost certain that Jehoiachin - who would have been very close to the same age as Darius the Mede - was elevated by this same Darius, who must then be the King Ahasuerus (var. "Xerxes") of Esther 3:1. This Jehoiachin-Haman, whom the Persians would come to know as "father", must have been a highly charismatic character, firstly to have been freed and elevated by King Belshazzar, and then, a few years later, to have been further exalted by King Ahasuerus. And now we are in for another surprise. The Hammedatha, whose apparent son Haman was, was not a male but a female. Hammedatha Whilst Jehoiakim, the regal father of Jehoiachin (I Chronicles 3:16), does not appear to have any name to match Hammedatha, there was a Jewish Queen at the time, Hammutal (Hamutal), who did have such a name: "... Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah, she was from Libnah" (2 Kings 23:31). Strip the name Hammedatha of its Persian ending -atha, and we get Hammed[a], which is an almost perfect transliteration of Hammutal (Hammeda = Hammuta). Typically, however, things are not always perfectly straightforward. Queen Hammutal is never referred to as being the mother of Jehoiachin, whose mother is given, instead, as "... Nehushta, daughter of Elnathan from Jerusalem" (2 Kings 24:8). Here, again, we run into the vagaries of biblical genealogies. Nehushta was, I suggest, not the mother of Jehoiachin, but his actual wife, Zeresh, in the Book of Esther. According to Targum Rishon, Zeresh was "the daughter of Tattenai, governor of the Province Beyond the River", during the reign of Darius the Persian (cf. Ezra 5:3-10). Tattenai could thus well be the same man, Elnathan, father of Nehushta, who had brought back the prophet Uriah (Uriah) from Egypt to Jerusalem, there to face execution (Jeremiah 26:22-23). Elnathan/Tattenai, stubbornly resisting the efforts of the Yahwistic Jews, must surely have been one of Haman's most steadfast allies. Queen Hammutal was the mother of King Josiah's 'son', Jehoahaz (2 Kings 23:31), who was taken into Egyptian captivity by Pharaoh Necho, and who died there (v. 34). That could not translate to Haman, who was slain in Susa. Or could it? At this stage, things will become more complicated with a need to introduce parallel dynasties and alter egos. But, before we go there, and go there we must to complete the historical picture, let us summarise Esther 3:1 so far. Conclusion One King Ahasuerus is Darius the Mede. Haman is King Jehoiachin (historically attested and as having sons in captivity). Hammedatha is Queen Hammutal. But we have not accounted for the troublesome fourth element, Agagite. That commentators do not really know the nationality of Haman is apparent from the fact that he has been variously referred to as Agagite, Amalekite, Bougean and Macedonian. The problem stems from the fact that they, not realising that Haman was Jehoiachin whose unfortunate epithet was 'the Captive' (or prisoner) (I Chronicles 3:17), have taken the Greek word for Captive (αιχμάλωτος, aichmálotos) and substituted it with the like Greek word for Amalekite(s) (Ἀμᾱληκῑ́της). The word does not refer to nationality at all. Esther 3:1 should read as "Haman the Captive", to parallel "Jehoiachin the Captive". This absolutely nails Haman to Jehoiachin, a Jewish king, making it certain that Hammedatha refers to an ancestral relative, the contemporaneous Queen Hammutal, and makes almost biologically certain that Darius the Mede is Ahasuerus. In light of all this, Esther 3:1 can now read: "After these events, King Ahasuerus [Darius the Mede] honoured Haman [Jehoiachin] son of Hammedatha [Hammutal], the Agagite [Captive], elevating him and giving him a seat of honour higher than that of all the other nobles". Certain characters in the Book of Esther have other alter egos, too, according to what I have written in various articles. Darius the Mede, for instance, is both Cyrus and King Neriglissar, the Nergal-sharezer of Jeremiah 39:3, 13. Mordecai and Esther I have identified with Joakim and Susanna in Daniel 13 (Story of Susanna). Crucial, now, to provide King Jehoiachin with his necessary alter egos. Haman the Jewish King (B) With the era of King Hezekiah of Judah now aligned with - as I think it must be - the era of King Josiah, with Hezekiah being Josiah, then Hezekiah's son, Manasseh, and Josiah's son, Jehoiakim, must also be identified as one. And, affecting this reconstruction, Amon, son of Manasseh, becomes Jehoiachin-Haman. This serves finally to account for the origin of the name, Haman, or Aman. It is an Egyptian name, Amon, borne by a King of Judah. The wicked King Amon was the wicked Haman (Aman). But how did a king of Judah end up with an Egyptian name, Amon? Well, this is where Jehoahaz comes in, as a second alter ego of Jehoiachin. Jehoahaz, who, incidentally was - as was Haman - the son of Hammutal/ Hammedatha (as we read above) - was taken into Egyptian captivity, as we also read above. This must have been how he got his Egyptian name. The text about him dying in Egypt, which does not appear in the parallel Chronicles account, needs to be dropped, I think. And so, with two corrections to the biblical texts, that Nehushta was not the mother of Jehoiachin, but his wife, and with the omitting of the verse that has Jehoahaz dying in Egypt, I think that everything fits nicely.