Thursday, March 10, 2011

A Treacherous Plan (Est. 3:7-10)

It was now the twelfth year of the rule of King Xerxes. During Nisan, the first month of the year, Haman said, "Find out the best time for me to do this." The time chosen was Adar, the twelfth month. Then Haman went to the king and said: “Your Majesty, there are some people who live all over your kingdom and won't have a thing to do with anyone else. They have customs that are different from everyone else's, and they refuse to obey your laws. We would be better off to get rid of them! Why not give orders for all of them to be killed? I can promise that you will get tons of silver for your treasury.” The king handed his official ring to Haman, who hated the Jews, and the king told him, "Do what you want with those people! You can keep their money."
(Esther 3:7-10, CEV)

Oh the treachery!

Haman so hates Mordecai and the people of Israel, he immediately goes to King Xerxes to put his plan of total annihilation into effect.

And look at how he does it. “Those people” are different than “our people.” They—meaning Mordecai—refuse to obey. So let’s just get rid of them.

It’s not enough that the people of Israel are captives. It’s not enough that they’ve lost their freedom. It’s not enough that they live under the rule of a foreign nation.

No, Haman wants king-approved “orders for all of them to be killed."

I’m currently reading a biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and these words were chillingly repeated by Nazi Germany. “Those people”—the Jews in Germany—were different. They followed their own customs. They didn’t live exactly as the non-Jews did.

And so Hitler and his consorts decided to just “get rid of them.”

Treachery centuries ago. Treachery less than one hundred years ago. I think Haman and Hitler would have been great friends.

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