Est. 3: Haman's Jewnocide

Esther 3:13 "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."

So Xerxes promotes this guy Haman, giving him the highest position of the nobles in all the land. I don't know if it was because Haman was the guy who hung the conspirators or whatever, or if he was involved at all. Xerxes also issues a decree that everyone had to bow to Haman. I find it somewhat interesting that with credit given Mordecai for uncovering the plot, the king doesn't give Mordecai the same sort of honor. Mordecai ends up being the one guy who refuses to bow to Haman. Of course this doesn't go over well with Haman. 

It wasn't enough to just want to kill Mordecai for his shows of disrespect, Haman seizes this opportunity to blame the Jews nationwide for being a people who refuse to obey the kings laws...they have these weird customs, and apparently only worship one God. A God who is no king of men. Haman isn't recorded as telling Xerxes that he is referring to the Jews. But insubordination of anyone is enough to freak Xerxes out to the point that he gives carte blanche to Haman to eliminate this threat completely. 

I don't know how sneaky Haman is being, but it appears he is not being fully honest with Xerxes, who, until this point doesn't appear to have any specific beef with the Jews. We do know that Mordecai believes that Esther would be distasteful to Xerxes for being a Jew, but that probably wouldn't be cause to ride along with genocidal plans.

So the plot goes forward, and dispatches are sent out under Xerxes' name to annihilate anyone of Jewish ancestry and to plunder their land. Celebrating their plans, Xerxes and Haman sit down to drink. I didn't know why the last verse mentions the city of Susa was "bewildered," but I think its probably because they don't know why they now have to kill their Jewish neighbors and take their stuff. That would be kind of weird. It would be hard for me to kill my neighbor just because the leader now tells me too. Meh, when in Persia...